Kris Kristofferson, legendary songwriting master, dead at 88

Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar equally drawn to the words of William Blake and Hank Williams, an Army helicopter pilot, a Golden Gloves boxer, a ruggedly handsome movie star and a recording studio janitor turned master songwriter, died Saturday in his home in Maui. He was 88 years old, released more than 20 solo studio albums, and half a century ago, he helped usher in a new era of country songs and songwriters.

The back cover of Kristofferson’s 1971 LP “Me and Bobby McGee” (a reissued, renamed version of his eponymous debut record) features this stanza — penned by Johnny Cash — saluting his friend’s fierce independence and songwriting genius: “Kris, he took slices of life/ And salted it into rhyme/ He picked his own days and his ways/ He arranged his own meter and time.”

Cash was an admirer of Kristofferson’s work, and after Kristofferson landed a helicopter on the country star's lawn, Cash recorded several of his songs, beginning with “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.”

He wasn’t the only one. Countless artists, spanning decades and genres, have recorded Kristofferson's material, including Janis Joplin, Roger Miller, Al Green, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Sammi Smith, Ray Price, Gladys Knight, Emmylou Harris and Ronnie Milsap.

Kris Kristofferson born into military family

Kristoffer Kristofferson was born June 22, 1936, in Brownsville, Texas, a town on the southern tip of the state near the Mexican border. As a boy, he listened to country star Hank Williams on the radio and began writing his own songs at 11 years old.

The last track on his 2009 album "Closer to the Bone" is the first song he ever wrote, recorded more than 60 years after its genesis. The titles of future Kristofferson ballads, like "Jesus Was a Capricorn" and "The Pilgrim, Ch. 33," may have puzzled casual listeners, but with this first composition, young Kris was painfully blunt: It's called "I Hate Your Ugly Face."

He came from a military family, and it was expected that he’d become a career officer like his father. As with most military families, the Kristoffersons moved often, finally settling in California. In 1954, Kristofferson enrolled in Pomona College. There, he studied English, played football and participated in ROTC. He also honed his creative writing skills under professor Dr. Edward Weismiller, who, along with philosophy instructor Dr. Frederick Sontag, encouraged him to apply for a Rhodes scholarship.

Kristofferson was one of the applicants awarded the prestigious scholarship; after graduating from Pomona in 1958, he delayed his Army commitment in order to study British literature at Oxford University.

Upon returning to the U.S., Kristofferson married his girlfriend Frances Beer (with whom he'd have two children) and began serving as a second lieutenant in the Army. He graduated from Ranger School and became a helicopter pilot. One of his fellow service members had a cousin, Marijohn Wilkin, who worked as a songwriter ("Long Black Veil" and others) and publisher in Nashville; Kristofferson sent her some of his work.

In 1965 his unit was preparing to deploy to Vietnam, but Capt. Kristofferson received an appointment to teach literature at West Point. Instead, he resigned his commission to pursue songwriting in Nashville. After hearing the news, his family disowned him.

Kristofferson: 'A frog who can communicate'

Kristofferson was part of a small group of literate young songwriters, among them Tom T. Hall and Mickey Newbury, who turned Nashville on its head in the 1960s and '70s. But first he was a bartender, a janitor at Columbia Recording Studios (where he witnessed Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" sessions in early 1966) and a commercial helicopter pilot flying to and from oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

After Kristofferson moved to town, Wilkins became one of his mentors. Her publishing company, Buckhorn Music, published several of his early songs, including "For the Good Times."

In his book “Outlaw: Waylon, Willie, Kris and the Renegades of Nashville,” Michael Streissguth wrote that, during the time Kristofferson was establishing himself in Nashville, "nursery-rhyme-simple verse still ruled the day in country music, but conspicuous exceptions marked by complexity of plot and imaginative characterization had already settled on the record charts (by 1969)."

Where most country songs of the time were no longer than three and a half minutes, some of Kristofferson's passed the four-minute mark, an eternity in radio time. The character-rich songs dealt with adult issues, sin, sex, substances, death and despair.  And the lyrics, like the opening stanza to "Casey's Last Ride" — "Casey joins the hollow sound of silent people walking down/ The stairway to the subway in the shadows down below/ Following their footsteps through the neon-darkened corridors of silent desperation, never speaking to a soul." — owed as much to Romantic Era poets Kristofferson studied in college as they did to his boyhood hero, Hank Williams.

After his tenure at Buckhorn, Kristofferson auditioned for Fred Foster, who ran record label Monument Records and publishing company Combine Music. Foster made Kristofferson play four songs during the audition, because, while lots of people could write one or two — maybe even three — decent songs, Foster said, "you cannot write four great songs unless you're a writer."

By the time Kristofferson finished his second song, "Duvalier's Dream," Foster knew he was face to face with an incredible talent: "I thought I was hallucinating," he remembered in 2016. "I thought, ‘My God, there’s never been a writer of this caliber here that’s come to my office.’ "

Foster agreed to sign Kristofferson to a publishing deal under the condition that he also record an album. According to Foster, Kristofferson told him, “I can’t sing, man. I sound like a frog.”

Foster’s response: “Maybe, but you’re a frog who can communicate.”

Kristofferson had experienced initial success as a songwriter in the late '60s (Dave Dudley recorded his song "Viet Nam Blues" in 1966 and Roy Drusky released "Jody and the Kid" in 1968), but in 1970, his career took off.

Ray Price's rendition of "For the Good Times" went to No. 1 and was awarded Song of the Year honors by the Academy of Country Music. Cash took another Kristofferson composition, "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down," to the top of the charts; it won the Country Music Association's Song of the Year Award as well.

His debut album, "Kristofferson," was released on Monument in 1970. It included the material that wowed Foster, and other songs that would become classics: "Help Me Make It Through the Night," "For the Good Times," "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" and "Me and Bobby McGee."

In 1970 he opened several shows for Linda Ronstadt at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. His songs earned rave reviews from Robert Hilburn of The Los Angeles Times, and A-list audience members like Barbra Streisand and filmmaker Sam Peckinpah — both of whom would work with Kristofferson before the end of the decade — were captivated, too.

"I never had to work for a living after that," Kristofferson said, smiling, in an extra scene from "Troubadours: Carole King/James Taylor and the Rise of the Singer-Songwriter."

Roger Miller's recording of "Me and Bobby McGee" was a Top 20 country hit in 1969, but Janis Joplin's rendition of the song became the definitive one. The soulful rock singer recorded the song days before her death in October 1970; it was released posthumously and spent one week atop the charts. After the success of Joplin's recording, Kristofferson's debut LP was renamed "Me and Bobby McGee" and reissued in 1971.

His other Monument releases included "The Silver Tongued Devil and I," "Border Lord" and "Jesus Was a Capricorn," an LP that included Kristofferson's sole chart-topping single, "Why Me," a stirring spiritual song that's become one of his most enduring compositions. In between his solo projects, he released a trio of LPs — beginning with the No. 1 record "Full Moon" — with Rita Coolidge, his wife from 1973 to 1980.

Kristofferson's acting career began to take off in the 1970s as well, and he relocated from Tennessee to California. He appeared in Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid," "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" and "Convoy," and won a Golden Globe for his performance as Streisand's leading man in the 1976 remake of "A Star is Born."

Years later, he and fellow country outlaw Willie Nelson co-starred in the 1984 movie "Songwriter." The film and its soundtrack were well received; the latter was nominated for an Academy Award but lost to Prince's "Purple Rain."

In 1985, Kristofferson and Nelson joined forces with two fellow outlaws — Cash and Waylon Jennings — to form The Highwaymen. Over the next decade, this supergroup released two hits (their chart-topping debut single, "Highwayman," and the Guy Clark song "Desperados Waiting for a Train") and three studio albums.

Aside from his work with The Highwaymen, Kristofferson's solo musical career in the late 1980s stagnated; he released only two studio albums during the decade.

His support for the United Farm Workers, as well as his objections to U.S. policy in Central America, angered a portion of his fan base. His label at the time also wasn't anxious to promote songs like "Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down," a scorching criticism of those who "hold the power and the money and the guns."

"I've just got to wonder what my daddy would've done if he'd seen the way they turned his dream around," Kristofferson sang in the song's chorus. "I've got to go by what he told me: Try to tell the truth and stand your ground."

In 2016 Kristofferson was honored for his activism with the Woody Guthrie Prize, an award that is presented to artists who exemplify the life and spirit of Guthrie by advocating for the less fortunate and serving as a positive force for social change.

Kris Kristofferson tribute album 'The Pilgrim'

On an August morning in 2004, Kristofferson was surprised with the news that he would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. After the announcement was made, Kristofferson told The Tennessean, “I wanted country music to be as proud of me as I was of being in country music. Over the years, I guess it happened.”

By the time Kristofferson was officially inducted into the Hall, he was already a member of the Songwriters and the Nashville Songwriters halls of fame, and several of the countless singer-songwriters who cited him as an influence — among them John Prine, Rosanne Cash, Rodney Crowell and Guy Clark — had made their own significant impacts on country music. To mark Kristofferson's 70th birthday in 2006, musicians ranging from Shawn Camp to Brian McKnight covered his songs on the tribute album "The Pilgrim."

Also in 2006, Kristofferson reunited with producer Don Was and released "This Old Road," his first solo album of new material in more than a decade. Kristofferson and Was made two more albums together: "Closer to the Bone" in 2009 and "Feeling Mortal" in 2013.

During these years, Kristofferson struggled with memory loss. Doctors attributed it to Alzheimer's disease and the head injuries he suffered as a boxer and football player. However, in early 2016, he tested positive for Lyme disease, an ailment that can cause cognitive impairment. According to Kristofferson's wife, Lisa, in a Rolling Stone article, her husband saw some improvement after undergoing treatment.

On March 16, 2016, a star-studded roster that included Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Jessi Colter, Rodney Crowell and Hank Williams Jr. paid tribute to Kristofferson’s music during a concert at Bridgestone Arena. Then-Mayor Megan Barry proclaimed it Kris Kristofferson Day in Nashville, and at the end of the night Kristofferson himself led the room in singing his sole chart-topping recording, "Why Me."

Three months after that show, he released an album, “The Cedar Creek Sessions,” and celebrated his 80th birthday. Later that summer, he performed at the Newport Folk Festival, nearly half a century after his debut there.

"Listeners will respond (to Kristofferson's music) as long as music is played," Fred Foster told The Tennessean. "It's just the sheer humanity, I guess. I think he could put himself in any situation and describe it. He shared that quality with Hank Williams. ... They showed you their soul, both guys.”

Kristofferson is survived by his wife, Lisa, whom he married in 1983, and his children, Tracy, Kris, Casey, Jesse, Jody, Johnny, Kelly and Blake. Funeral arrangements are unknown at this time.

Awards and honors (a partial list)

1970: "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" named CMA Song of the Year

1977: won Golden Globe for Best Actor — Motion Picture Musical or Comedy (for "A Star is Born"), inducted into Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame

1985: inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame

2004: inducted into Country Music Hall of Fame

2006: receives Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame

2014: received PEN New England's Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Award

2016: inducted into Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, received Woody Guthrie Prize

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Kris Kristofferson, legendary songwriting master, dead at 88