Newsweek, May 15, 1989
They were rockin’ round the rockets at the Johnson Space Center last week. Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers met up in Houston and gave an outdoor concert for some 15,000 NASA employees and their friends. According to Rogers, the country threesome was promoting “determination, hope and success” — not to mention Roger’s new specia-effects-laden video, “Planet Texas,” in which a cowboy encounters three horsemen form outer space.
The concert, which will be telecast as an NBC special later this month, marked the first time that the trio had performed together, doing solos and a medley of everyone’s hits.
“We’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of man’s landing on the moon,” said Rogers, who was raised in a Houston housing project. “We’re also saluting people who are struggling in all parts of life here.”