Kris Kristofferson: C/D?

deserves more

like most dorks I fuck w those first two albums but these two from the notably less impressive Border Lord are so good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exDp_PxLcCI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI0sfsunaL4

I went to see Dwight Yoakam Friday night and sat by a very intoxicated older lady who was telling me all about this Outlaw Country cruise she went on and how great it was. She said "Kris Kristofferson was there too! He died shortly after the cruise so I feel so blessed to have seen him." I looked at my wife and was like, should I tell her?

lol

He did legit retire shortly after a cruise, so she's probably just conflating/inflating. I saw him at Bonnaroo in 2010, and he was pretty ragged and rugged but he always was to some degree. It was a weird set, like 1 p.m. on a hot day, so we were all crowded in under the tent out of the sun, and the sound wasn't great because it was mostly just him and his guitar and it didn't carry well. Still! It was great. Found this clip from it, it has "Nobody Wins" and "From the Bottle to the Bottom."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_XJs50oc3M

There's this whole odd mid-90s concert of Kris Kristofferson and Lou Reed swapping songs (with Victoria Williams showing up for "Strawman" too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxpTBYMG1-M

dying's just another word for nothin' left to lose

rip legend

sunday morning comin' down

I’ll get along

sure was handsome when he was high

Sounding a bit like Leonard Cohen to me right now, another guy whose distinctive vocal charms I was mostly resisting until very recently

I'm no pusher, I never have pushed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYAHBGApQTU

A genuinely cool dude. What a life

I was just thinking about the funny parallels with him and Leonard Cohen — Janis Joplin supposedly running into LC at the Chelsea Hotel while she was looking for Kristofferson, the way both of them as songwriters were first made famous by women singing their songs. And yeah, that their vocal delivery takes some adjustments and/or forgiveness.

closer to the bone hit me hard only last week, for all his tendency to folksy mythologism (?) of whatever politics or outlook or cause he was espousing at any given time i think he was also usually wryly unsparing of himself too

Pour one out, RIP.

for me when he could sing, hes a great singer. just not a guy interested in living in a way that lent itself to looking after his singing capabilities.

but when his voice was full and craggy and hangover-deep, when he can hit that last line of pilgrim or the verses of to beat the devil, thats a *great* voice, a voice to play a technicolor movie god or moses. lovin her was easier demonstrates his actual singing ability, that warmth and character that seeps into the best of his stuff like the barrel seeps into whiskey but very softly applied around the song.

covers might have helped his profile but jesus the cash version of sunday mornin, the janis version of bobby mcgee? theyre vanilla altogether vs the man himself doing it imo. startling clarity, strikingly unphoney delivery, im buying it every time, missed notes sore throats and all.

otm

Jesus was a Capricorn

And he defended Sinead when his crew of boomer cowards let an audience booed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2dEwY0xzcI

Spectral cover imo

I love Willie’s cover of Help Me Make Through the Night. Then someone posted Kristofferson doing a duet with Miss Piggy and I dunno maybe Kris takes it back

For the good times and help me make it through the night are two of the absolute best love songs ever written

Unlikely combo of Marianne Faithfull, Mark Isham, and Kristofferson songwriting, from the Trouble in Mind soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7bOqhmaQao

A stone cold fucking legend. Enjoy your rest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbqGWTxwZEA

On the Sunday morning sidewalk, wishin' Lord that I was stoned
Cause there is something in a Sunday, makes a body feel alone
And there is nothing short of die'n, half a lonesome as the sound
On the sleepin' city sidewalks, Sunday morning coming down

<3

hat tip for having one of the most used record bin staples i never bought because of the cover

tried to post a link but SESAC dispute with YouTube meant YouTube blocked it. It was Gladys Knight & the Pips' cover of "Help Me Make It Through The Night."

The half assed hanging on to the words on the exhalations on "nobody wins" my god

― Alderweireld Horses (darraghmac), Friday, February 9, 2018 2:50 AM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

simply one of the best songs ever

From the rocking of the cradle to the rolling of the hearse, the going up was worth the coming down.

Scorsese tells a story when they working on Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. He was dissatisfied with the ending, which was Alice moves in with Kristofferson's character at his ranch, and when he asked him about that Kris went "well fuck the ranch! she doesn't have to stay with him, he can go with her".

Nice remembrance from a friend who runs the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville:

In 2006, a little more than a year after the Theatre reopened after its massive renovation, Kris Kristofferson was booked to play. It was sold out. I got a phone call from a woman whose octogenarian mother, ill with cancer and entering hospice soon, wanted to meet him. "It would fulfill a lifelong dream," she told me. So I told her what I still tell people today: it is very unlikely for an artist to meet a random member of the public, but I will ask the tour manager. I told her not to get her hopes up.

This time, the answer was yes. The woman and her three adult children would be allowed to come backstage about 45 minutes before the show and wait in a room, where he would come to meet them. They showed up on time, their mother in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank, and we maneuvered through the lobby crowds and downstairs to the room.

In walked Mr. Kristofferson, lean and dressed ready to go on stage, with his wife Lisa. I expected a perfunctory visit: a handshake, a photo, autographing the worn album cover the old woman brought, and then heading back to his dressing room. Instead, he pulled up a chair, sat next to the frail woman, held her hand as she talked to him. Her three kids and I stood nearby, tears in our eyes as we watched this superstar shrink his world down to the eyes of her, his own eyes sparkling with kindness as he listened to her say things he'd heard for decades. He received it all as if it were the very first time.

Eventually, after about 20-30 minutes, his wife Lisa reminded him gently that he had to get on stage. He unfolded his striking frame, said thank you to all of us, and strode out of the room. He had made a lifelong memory for all of us.

Rest in Peace, Kris Kristofferson.

Jon Langford posted this performance of Kris in Wales:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7rAB-ES0PU

We don't talk much about his film roles. I dug him opposite Divine in Alan Rudolph's Trouble in Mind.

i love how Huston used "help me make it through the night" in "Fat City"

He's a real bastard in "Lone Star."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-aDHbBWfMQ

Nice.

Isaac Hayes did a nice cover of "For the Good Times" too