I recently had the opportunity to see Kris Kristofferson at the Ryman Auditorium in

Nashville and it was an excellent concert indeed. Not only is the Ryman one of the finest
concert venues that I’ve ever been to, but Kris was in rare form, performing solo, singing
better than I’ve ever heard him and having a great time with a “hometown”, full house
crowd.

Although Kristofferson is not so well known today, he was a very big star from 1969,
when his songs first started being recorded, until the late 1970’s when both his movie and
musical career took a turn for the worse. Not only was he the songwriter of such hits as
“Me & Bobby McGee”, “Help Me Make It Through the Night”, “Sunday Mornin’
Comin’ Down” and “Why Me Lord?” to name a few, but he was a major movie star,
playing in movies like “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”, “The Sailor Who Fell From
Grace With the Sea”, “A Star is Born” and “Heaven’s Gate.”

I first heard of Kris Kristofferson when I heard Gordon Lightfoot singing “Me and Bobby
McGee” on his ‘Sit Down Young Stranger” album from 1970, but the song had actually
been recorded earlier by Bobby Bare who took it to #12 on the country charts in 1969.
Some actually date the birth of Outlaw Country, to Miller’s recording of that song,
although I think it began when Kenny Rogers (of all people) recorded Mickey Newbury’s
(who was the person who talked Miller into recording “Me & Bobby McGee), “Just
Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)”. Although many think that
the song was written for Janis Joplin who recorded it in 1970 and had a #1 hit with it after
her death, Kris has refuted that, although the two were attached romantically at the time
she recorded it.

Whatever the story, Kristofferson became a mega-star in the 1970’s as his songs were
recorded by Ray Stevens, Connie Smith, Ray Price, Roger Miller, Jerry Lee Lewis,
Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash, to name a few. He began making movies as well,
and by the mid-70’s, he was not only acting, but starring in blockbuster movies like “A
Star is Born,” (winning a Best Actor Award from the Golden Globes) and the infamous
“Heaven’s Gate” which was such a financial flop that it not only did in United Artists and
director Micheal Cinmino, but damaged Kristofferson’s career for a number of years
after.

He married singer Rita Cooligde in 1973 and had two hit albums with her, but following
Kris’ fourth solo album, “Jesus Was a Capricorn”, his recording career never really
recovered. Most of his success musically was in collaboration with others (with Willie
Nelson and Brenda Lee on “The Winning Hand”, and with Willie, Waylon, and Cash on
three albums by the Highwaymen), but his outspoken political views (which were evident
on his later albums) made him untouchable to country music and in rock as well.
This is a combination album and concert review, since I got a copy of the new Kris
Kristofferson album on the day before I went to see him at the Ryman Auditorium in
Nashville Tn. Of the two, the concert was better, but the album is a good one and I
would heartly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Kris.

For those of you who don’t remember, there was a time in the early 1970’s when Kris
Kristofferson was a mega-star in both the music industry and the movies. His face graced
the covers of magazines like Life and Rolling Stone, his albums were on both the county
and rock charts and his movies were nominated for Academy Awards. The string of
songs he poured out during the early 70s have to rank among the best in American Music,
from Me and Bobby McGee and Help Me Make It Through the Night to Why Me Lord
and Nobody Wins. He won several Grammys and CMA awards for his songwriting and
for albums recorded with his then wife, Rita Coolidge. Both “Alice Doesn’t Live Here
Anymore” and “A Star is Born” were nominated for Ocsars and he won a Golden Globe
for his acting in the latter. He also developed a rather public drinking problem during
those years and by the end of the decade he and Coolidge had gotten divorced and he had
given up drinking.

After staring in the financial disaster, “Heaven’s Gate”, Kristofferson’s career went into
something of a decline, not from lack of quality work from him. His albums didn’t offer
up the instant hits that he’d once been famous for and he began dealing with more
philosophical and eventually political issues in his music. In the years of Reagan and
synthesized music, there was no place for a Kris Kristofferson, especialy one who was no
longer making headlines as a Hollywood bad boy. In the 80s and 90s, he concentrated
more on movies making a lot of cowboy and cop movies, which he said was what paid to
keep his band on the road. For a while at the end of the century he gave up on recording
and touring.

Since the turn of the new century, Kristofferson has given up on the idea of fronting a
band and took to the studio and road with just his guitar and harmonica. I missed him a
couple of years ago when he was in Birmingham at the Alys Stephens Center, so I wasn’t
going to miss the shot to see him at the old Opry building. The new album is intimate
and personal, and that’s the way he came off when he took the stage on this January
night. He opened with the albums opener, Closer to the Bone, which has a chours that
says “Comin' from the heartbeat/Nothin' but the truth now/Everything is sweeter/closer to
the bone.” At 73 years old, Kristofferson seemed like the ol’ sage, satisfied to have
followed his heart all these years and slightly ashamed, yet understanding of his proud
young self. He seemed both proud and humbled to be playing to a full house at the Opry
where he remembered meeting Johnny Cash in the wings when he was on leave from the
Army and where he sat in the balcony when he first heard Cash sing “Sunday Mornin
Comin’ Down.”