Singer, songwriter, and sometime actor Kris Kristofferson, 88, passed away yesterday at his home in Hawaii. Unreal he was that old. I remember seeing him in person back in 2012, when I received a free ticket from my late sister to attend a concert he gave at the Jacksonville (Oregon) Britt Festival. I had originally had a lawn "seat" in the back, but fortunately, my sister had an extra seat in the reserved are. I got to see him up close and unobstructed.
Kristofferson, despite his limited singing ability, seemed to be a genuinely nice person who clearly enjoyed performing. I remember when, before he sang one of his most famous compositions, "Me and Bobby McGee," he talked at length about Janis Joplin, whom he once dated. He was quite fond of her and it seemed that despite all her troubles (and her own lack of singing talent), she was a nice person.
More about what I wrote about him here.
As everybody knows, he earned a degree from Pomona College back in the 1950s and went to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. He really was a Renaissance man of note, having written pieces as a very young man that were published in the Atlantic, and he was featured in Sports Illustrated as a college athlete who excelled in rugby, football, and track and field.
You can read the SI article here.
He packed a lot of living already at the age of 21.
On track to become a major and offered a position to teach English literature at West Point in 1965, Kristofferson took a two-week leave and headed to Nashville (he arrived while still in uniform). He then resigned from the Army.
While trying to break into the business, Kristofferson flew commercial helicopters and worked as a janitor at Columbia and on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, where he penned “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” The first song that he wrote that was recorded was “Vietnam Blues,” by Dave Dudley in 1966.
As a janitor, Kristofferson had been trying to get Cash to listen to his work, but to no avail. So, in 1969, Kristofferson landed his National Guard helicopter on Cash’s property outside Nashville and emerged with demo tapes for the singer.
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