(AP)– Kris Kristofferson, the Rhodes Scholar with a skilled writing style and powerful charisma who became a country music superstar and Hollywood actor, has died at the age of 88.
Christopherson He died this past Saturday at his home in Maui, Hawaii, according to family spokesperson Abby McFarland in an email.
McFarland said Christopherson died peacefully surrounded by his family. Reason not given.
In the late ’60s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such classics as “Sunday Morning’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Kristofferson was a singer, but many of his songs became better known because of their renditions by others, whether it was Ray Price’s “For the Good Times” or Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee.”
They also acted together Ellen Burstyn in director Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” starred alongside Barbra Streisand in 1976’s “A Star Is Born,” and starred alongside Wesley Snipes in 1998’s Marvel’s “Blade.”
Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake by heart, wove complex folk songs about loneliness and tender romance with popular country music. With her long hair, bell-bottoms, and Bob Dylan-influenced counterculture songs, she represented a new generation of country music songwriters, along with colleagues such as Willie Nelson. john prine Y Tom T. Hall.
During the Kristofferson Awards ceremony hosted by BMI in November 2009, Nelson said, “There is no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson.” “Whatever you write is a standard and we all have to live with that.”
As an actor, he played lead roles alongside Barbra Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, but he also had interests in film. western And cowboy drama.
He was a boxer and football player in college, earned a master’s degree in English from Merton College, Oxford University, England, and turned down a teaching position at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, to pursue songwriting in Nashville. Hoping to break into the industry, he worked as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row studios in 1966 while Dylan recorded tracks for the influential double album “Blonde on Blonde.”
Sometimes the legend about Kristofferson even surpasses real life. Cash liked to tell the mostly exaggerated story of how Kristofferson, a former US Army pilot, landed a helicopter in Cash’s yard to deliver a tape of “Sunday Morning ‘Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. In interviews over the years, Kristofferson, with all due respect to Cash, has said that when a helicopter landed at Cash’s house, the Man in Black was not even home at the time, the demo tape was a song that nobody actually cut and You certainly can’t fly a helicopter with a beer in hand.
In a 2006 interview with The Associated Press, he said that his career would not have been possible without Cash.
Kristofferson said, “When I was in the Army, when I shook his hand backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, I decided I would come back.” “It was electrifying. He took me under his wing before I recorded any of my songs. He recorded my first album, which was the best album of the year. He put me on stage for the first time.”
One of their most played songs, “Me and Bobby McGee”, was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a title in mind for the song, “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a secretary who worked in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in Performing Songwriter magazine that he was inspired to write the song about a man and a woman traveling together after watching Federico Fellini’s film “La Strada”.
Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and recorded her version just days before his death from a drug overdose in 1970. The recording became a posthumous number one hit for Joplin.
Kristofferson mentioned “Why Me”, “Loving Her Was Easier (than Anything I’ve Ever Seen)”, “Look Closer Now”, “Desperados Waiting for a Train”, “A Song I Like”. To Sing” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn”.
In 1973 he married songwriter Rita Coolidge and had a successful career as a duo, earning them two Grammy Awards, but they divorced in 1980.
He retired from performing and recording in 2021, and has made only occasional guest appearances on stage since then.
