As the daughter of his long-time friend and collaborator and one of the last people to perform with him, Rosanne Cash and Kris Kristofferson had a unique connection. Cash knew Kristofferson her whole life thanks to his decades-long working relationship with her father, Johnny Cash.
When the time came for Rosanne to pursue her own musical career, she had plenty of men to look up to—Kristofferson included. Following his death in late September 2024, Cash shared a heartbreaking but beautiful tribute to her late friend and inspiration for Rolling Stone.
In it, she shared what made Kristofferson such an anomaly: the rugged charmer and take-no-s*** veteran who was also a deceivingly anxious performer and compassionate, quiet friend.
Roseanne Cash Remembers Kris Kristofferson
From the outside looking in, Kris Kristofferson seemed like one of the most self-assured men in the business: authentic, rugged, creative, strong, and intelligent. But underneath this external persona was a man who was nervous often and self-deprecating even more so—one might assume this could have something to do with his family disowning him in his 20s.
Rosanne Cash recalled how Kristofferson’s nerves translated to his live performances, something she described as “funny insecurities.” “He told me he would look around at the audience and find the one guy who wasn’t paying attention or who was scowling or seemed bored, and that’s the guy he would anxiously sing to all night.”
Cash remembered another time she and Kristofferson were performing together in Switzerland. She had pointed out that his guitar was out of tune during soundcheck, and Cash said he “looked a little alarmed but didn’t say anything. Before we went onstage that night, he turned to me and said, ‘I’m nervous because you’re sensitive to tuning.’ That was 2009, and I’m still laughing about it.”
The Lifelong Friends’ Final Performance
Kris Kristofferson might have known Rosanne Cash when she was in diapers, but over the years, the two found a relationship in their common ground as performers. Kristofferson wasn’t some far-off, hard-to-reach paternal figure. He was a collaborator—a bandmate. In a somewhat full-circle moment, given Johnny Cash’s tremendous influence on Kristofferson’s earliest days in Nashville, the Man in Black’s daughter was one of the last people to perform with Kristofferson onstage.
The performance appropriately took place during a concert celebrating music and friendship: Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday show. Kristofferson and Rosanne performed the former songwriter’s 1971 hit, “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again).” The emotions were visible from the audience, even before Rosanne’s voice faltered toward the end as she became overcome with emotion.
“At the end of the song, he stood beaming his own light back into the spotlight and basked in the applause,” Cash wrote. “I was overcome with the feeling that he was home. This was a home, this was sustenance and protection, on the floorboards, under the lights, and with the full blast of love from several thousand people. Maybe they knew. I sort of knew. I wept when I got off-stage.”
Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage
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