A Photographic Retrospective By John Robert Rowlands

Kris Kristofferson

b. 22 June 1936, Brownsville, Texas, USA. Kristofferson, a key
figure in the 'New Nashville' of the 70s, began his singing career in
Europe. While studying at Oxford University in 1958 he briefly
performed for impresario Larry Parnes as Kris Carson, while
for five years he sang and played at US Army bases in Germany.
As Captain Kristofferson, he left the army in 1965 to concentrate
on songwriting. After piloting helicopters part-time he worked as
a cleaner at the CBS Records studios in Nashville, until Jerry Lee Lewis
became the first to record one of his songs, 'Once More With Feeling'. Johnny
Cash soon became a champion of Kristofferson's work and it was he who
persuaded Roger Miller to record 'Me And Bobby McGee' (co-written with
Fred Foster) in 1969. With its atmospheric opening ('Busted flat in Baton
Rouge, waiting for a train/feeling nearly faded as my jeans'), the bluesy song
was a country hit and became a rock standard in the melodramatic style of
Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. Another classic among Kristofferson's
early songs was 'Sunday Morning Coming Down', which Cash recorded. In
1970, Kristofferson appeared at the Isle of Wight pop festival while Sammi
Smith was charting with the second of his major compositions, the passionate
'Help Me Make It Through The Night', which later crossed over to the pop
and R&B audiences in Gladys Knight 's version. Knight was also among the
numerous artists who covered the tender 'For The Good Times', a huge
country hit for Ray Price, while 'One Day At A Time' was a UK number 1 for
Lena Martell in 1979. Kristofferson's own hits began with 'Loving Her Was
Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)' and 'Why Me', a ballad that was
frequently performed in concert by Elvis Presley. In 1973, Kristofferson
married singer Rita Coolidge and recorded three albums with her before their
divorce six years later. Kristofferson had made his film debut in Cisco Pike
(1971) and also appeared with Bob Dylan in Pat Garrett And Billy The
Kid, but he achieved movie stardom when he acted opposite Barbra
Streisand in a 1976 remake of the 1937 picture A Star Is Born. For the next
few years he concentrated on his film career (until the 1979 disaster Heaven's
Gate, the same year he split from Coolidge), but returned to country music
with The Winning Hand, which featured duets with Brenda Lee, Dolly
Parton and Willie Nelson. A further collaboration, Highwaymen (with
Nelson, Cash and Waylon Jennings ), headed the country chart in 1985. The
four musicians subsequently toured as the Highwaymen and issued two further
collaborative albums. A campaigner for radical causes, Kristofferson starred in
the post-nuclear television drama Amerika (1987) and came up with
hard-hitting political commentaries on Third World Warrior. Kristofferson
compered and performed at the Bob Dylan Tribute Concert in 1992, during
which he gave Sinead O'Conner a sympathetic shoulder to cry on after she
was booed off stage. His recording career took an upturn with the release of A
Moment Of Forever in 1995.

Photograph of Kris Kristofferson by John Robert Rowlands