{"id":23233,"date":"2024-10-15T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=23233"},"modified":"2024-10-14T20:05:01","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T19:05:01","slug":"kristofferson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2024\/10\/15\/kristofferson\/","title":{"rendered":"KRISTOFFERSON"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Geoffrey Himes on KRISTOFFERSON<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He Helped Us Make It Through the Night<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

read by Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe Kristofferson didn\u2019t enjoy a long, productive musical career like Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, but he wrote a handful of songs that will endure forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK, we divide our top Premier League Goalscorers into two categories; those who are great (prolific) goalscorers and those who are scorers of great goals. If I were picking tracks for my music playlists Kristofferson would definitely be in that category of being a scorer of great goals. I am not sure I could find twenty songs to make a Kristofferson playlist but his top five songs would always be in the top ten of any self penned tracks of any recordings ever made, and on any given day Me And Bobby McGee, Sunday Morning Coming Down and Help Me Make It Through The Night could easily be my top three<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kris Kristofferson,\u00a0who died Saturday at age 88<\/a>\u00a0in Maui, Hawaii, had not one but two successful careers: the first as a country-music songwriter and the second as a movie actor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, says Mr Himes<\/em><\/strong>, he probably wouldn\u2019t have had either if he\u2019d made a different decision in the late summer of 1965.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had just turned 29, and he seemed to be settling into the family pattern of working for the U.S. Army. His father was well on his way to becoming a general, and the son had been commissioned as a second lieutenant and trained as a helicopter pilot. Because he had a B.A. and an M.A. in literature (the latter from England\u2019s Oxford University), he was offered a position teaching literature at West Point. He was set for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He threw it all away to become a songwriter. His wife complained and his parents disowned him, but he was determined to see it through. He moved to Nashville and got a job as a janitor at Columbia Studios, where he eavesdropped on Bob Dylan\u2019s Blonde on Blonde<\/em><\/a> sessions in 1966. If Dylan could bring literary ambition and techniques to rock\u2019n\u2019roll, Kristofferson asked himself, why couldn\u2019t he do it in country music?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s just what he did\u2014though it took a while for anyone to notice. When they did, it changed country music forever, opening the door for such talented writers as\u00a0Townes Van Zandt<\/a>, (right)<\/strong> Guy Clark, Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell to do the same\u2014all Texans like Kristofferson. He showed them how to tackle formerly taboo topics with such understated realism that the songs could not be denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In 1966, to make some money, Kristofferson returned to helicopters. In one famous incident, he landed a copter in Johnny Cash\u2019s backyard to hand him a song demo. The furious Cash (left)<\/em><\/strong> threw the cassette into a lake and chased the trespasser off his property. Four years later, Cash would have a #1 country hit with Kristofferson\u2019s \u201cSunday Mornin\u2019 Coming Down.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kristofferson spent much of 1966 flying copters to oil rigs off Louisiana. In his off-time, he wrote \u201cHelp Me Make It Through the Night\u201d and \u201cMe and Bobby McGee.\u201d When he returned to Nashville, he had the ammo to conquer the town. The walls keeping out poetic upstarts began to crumble in 1969. Roger Miller had a #12 country hit with \u201cMe and Bobby McGee,\u201d and Faron Young had a #4 country hit with \u201cYour Time\u2019s Coming.\u201d Johnny Cash was no longer chasing him off the lawn but was introducing him at the Newport Folk Festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dam finally burst in 1970. Three different Kristofferson compositions became #1 country hits: \u201cFor the Good Times\u201d for Ray Price, \u201cSunday Mornin\u2019 Coming Down\u201d for Cash, and \u201cHelp Me Make It Through the Night\u201d for Sammi Smith. Jerry Lee Lewis, Waylon Jennings and Bobby Bare all had Top 10 hits with Kristofferson songs. The songwriter also released a Top 10 album himself, Kristofferson.<\/em> He had the hottest pen in town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more impressive than this commercial triumph was the artistic breakthrough it represented. \u201cSunday Mornin\u2019 Coming Down\u201d was not just another drinking song; it\u2019s a song about the hangover that follows and the spiritual emptiness that compels the cycle of drunkenness and recovery. The writing is full of telling details: the narrator stills his throbbing head with \u201ca beer for breakfast\u201d and wears his \u201ccleanest dirty shirt.\u201d But the physical pain is nothing compared to the mental anguish. Stumbling down the deserted sidewalk, the tolling church bell echoes \u201cthrough the canyons like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The narrator of \u201cHelp Me Make It Through the Night\u201d\u2014a male in Kristofferson\u2019s version, female in Smith\u2019s\u2014is trying to avoid such desolate loneliness by finding a stranger to sleep with. The song begins with exquisite detail: the woman pulls a ribbon from her hair, letting the tresses loose, much as she\u2019s letting her inhibitions and scruples loose. There\u2019s no thought of a long-term relationship\u2014\u201cLet the devil take tomorrow,\u201d Smith sings\u2014all that matters is some consolation in the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the Country Music Hall of Fame published Heartaches by the Number: Country Music\u2019s 500 Greatest Singles<\/em> by David Cantwell and Bill Friskics-Warren in 2003, Smith\u2019s version of \u201cHelp Me Make It Through the Night\u201d was #1. It was a plausible choice, for it combined historical importance with artistic excellence. Nashville has always been skittish about unmarried sex, but here was a song that treated the topic with such naturalism and irony that it could not be resisted. Smith\u2019s vocal was so unapologetic and yet so unboastful that it was difficult to object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within three years, Kristofferson released four albums: Kristofferson<\/em> (reissued as Me and Bobby McGee <\/em>), The Silver Tongued Devil and I,<\/em> Border Lord<\/em> and Jesus Was a Capricorn.<\/em> Those 42 songs included almost every song that he\u2019s remembered for today. It was an astonishing burst of creativity, but it was a short burst. Kristofferson released seven singles from the four albums, but only two of them made the country charts: \u201cJosie\u201d at #70 and \u201cWhy Me\u201d at #1. The latter was a twisted gospel song that has the narrator asking God why he has received so many blessings when he\u2019s so undeserving. It\u2019s a question many listeners had asked without ever hearing it embodied in a song. Even though it was Kristofferson\u2019s greatest success as a singer, the song truly blossomed in the throats of Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For as great a songwriter Kristofferson was early in his career, he was never much of a singer. He\u2019s the obvious rebuttal to the \u201cDylan Fallacy,\u201d the notion that because Bob Dylan had a mediocre voice, a good songwriter needn\u2019t be a good singer. Dylan may have had a limited instrument, but he was a brilliant singer, a riveting dramatist with his vocals. Kristofferson also had a limited instrument, but he never developed much skill as a singer either, and that made all the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kristofferson, though, had a skill that Dylan lacked: the movie camera loved the man who wrote \u201cMe and Bobby McGee.\u201d The two men both appeared in Sam Peckinpah\u2019s 1973 film, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,<\/em> but Kristofferson lit up the screen in a way that Dylan didn\u2019t. Part of it was Kristofferson\u2019s innate good looks, but part of it too was the way his sly smile and relaxed delivery implied something seductive and dangerous. That led to roles in such box-office smashes as 1976\u2019s A Star Is Born<\/em> (alongside Barbra Streisand) and 1977\u2019s Semi-Tough<\/em> (alongside Burt Reynolds) as well as art-film favorites such as Martin Scorsese\u2019s Alice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore <\/em>in 1974 and John Sayles\u2019 Lone Star <\/em>in 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kristofferson took pains to deny that his film career undermined his efforts and results when it came to songwriting, but the evidence is pretty hard to ignore. As his acting career heated up, the literary details and subtlety in his songs were replaced by catchphrases. He did score commercial success as a duo with his second wife Rita Coolidge: three Top 25 country albums, including the #1 Full Moon<\/em> in 1973, the year they were married. He had an even bigger success as a duo with Barbra Streisand on the soundtrack from A Star Is Born,<\/em> a #1 pop album. But Kristofferson wrote none of the songs and was overshadowed by Streisand\u2019s vocal abilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1980, as his marriage to Coolidge was falling apart, Kristofferson wrote and recorded his final solo album for Monument Records, his label since 1970. To the Bone<\/em> was released in January of 1981, a month after the divorce was finalized, but this sometimes bitter, sometimes sad album was lacking in the imagery that made his early work so compelling, There were no ribbons shaking loose from a woman\u2019s hair, no church bells echoing down Sunday streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kristofferson wouldn\u2019t make another solo album till 1986\u2019s Repossessed <\/em>and 1990\u2019s Third World Warrior. <\/em>Both albums reflected his newfound left-wing politics. While the sentiments were admirable, the lyrics were as unsubtle as on his divorce album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of Kris Kristofferson\u2019s late-career musical successes were connected to Willie Nelson, who had devoted an entire album, 1979\u2019s\u00a0Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson,<\/em>\u00a0to his friend\u2019s compositions, reminding how good those songs sounded when sung by a great singer. With the songwriter on backing vocals, the album went Platinum. Kristofferson and Nelson then joined Dolly Parton and Brenda Lee on 1982\u2019s\u00a0The Winning Hand,<\/em>\u00a0an album that featured each of the four performers singing a duet with each of the other three. It was a #4 country hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nelson and Kristofferson also teamed up for Alan Rudolph\u2019s 1984 movie\u00a0Songwriter,<\/em>\u00a0the best of Nelson\u2019s films. It yielded a terrific soundtrack album,\u00a0Music from Songwriter,<\/em>\u00a0which offered two duets, five solo Nelson songs and four solo Kristofferson songs. The two pals joined Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings in a supergroup called the Highwaymen. This quartet released three charting albums between 1985 and 1995, all of them enjoyable without breaking any new ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMe and Bobby McGee\u201d remains Kristofferson\u2019s most enduring achievement. He later admitted that Janis Joplin<\/a>, his lover for a brief period, was an inspiration for the song\u2019s heroine, the narrator\u2019s hitchhiking buddy who was game for anything. Joplin sang the definitive version, and it became a #1 pop hit after her untimely death. Its opening lines, \u201cBusted flat in Baton Rouge, heading for the trains, feeling nearly faded as my jeans, Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained,\u201d are a miracle of alliteration, description and mood setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song begins as an ode to freedom, singing every tune they know to the rhythm of the windshield wipers. But the chorus makes the song far richer than that. It acknowledges that \u201cfreedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.\u201d And when the narrator loses Bobby too, he realizes what a steep price that is. Maybe Kris Kristofferson didn\u2019t enjoy a long, productive musical career like Nelson and Dylan, but he wrote a handful of songs that will endure forever. And that\u2019s a kind of freedom that justifies giving up a comfortable career at West Point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kris Kristofferson,\u00a0who died Saturday at age 88\u00a0in Maui, Hawaii, had not one but two successful careers: the first as a country-music songwriter and the second as a movie actor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,45,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cinema","category-music","category-performing-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23460,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23233\/revisions\/23460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}