Kris Kristofferson At the age of 88, actor and singer-songwriter died away.
Los Angeles-based Reporting Agency Kris Kristofferson, a country music superstar and A-lister, has passed away. While at Rhodes, Kristofferson honed his compositional skills and had an irresistible charm.
According to an email from Ebie McFarland, Kristofferson’s family spokesperson, the singer died suddenly on Saturday at his home in Maui, Hawaii. He was eighty-eight years old.
According to McFarland, Kristofferson reportedly died peacefully with his family at his side. No explanation was given.
Beginning in the late 1960s, the native of Brownsville, Texas, wrote classics including “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “For the Good Times,” and “Me and Bobby McGee”.” Even though Kristofferson could sing his songs, many of his compositions became popularized through other artists’ performances. For example, Janis Joplin’s rendition of “Me and Bobby McGee” or Ray Price’s rendition of “For the Good Times” are two examples.
He has appeared in films directed by Martin Scorsese, including “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (1974), “A Star Is Born” (1976), and “Blade” (1998), both starring Wesley Snipes.
Kristofferson, who had the memorization ability to quote William Blake, incorporated complex folk song lyrics about sensitive love and isolation into his successful country songs. He was a member of a new generation of country music composers, with Willie Nelson, John Prine, and Tom T. Hall; he was characterized by long hair, bell-bottom pants, and counterculture music inspired by Bob Dylan.
At Kris Kristofferson’s BMI award presentation in November 2009, Nelson famously said, “There’s no better songwriter alive than Kris Kristofferson.”. Whatever he says will be regarded as standard, and everyone must accept it.
His acting career featured supporting appearances with Barbara Streisand and Ellen Burstyn, shoot-out Westerns, and cowboy plays, all of which he adored.
He refused a teaching position at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, to focus on his singing career in Nashville. He has a master’s degree in English from Merton College at Oxford University in England. He has had a successful career in college football and boxing. Dylan intended to enter the music business in 1966 while working as a part-time janitor at Columbia Records’ Music Row facility. He was recording for the pioneering “Blonde on Blonde” double LP.
At times, the legend of Kristofferson was larger than real life. Cash liked to tell a primarily exaggerated story of how Kristofferson, a former US Army pilot, landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to give him a tape of “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” with a beer in one hand. Over the years, Kristofferson said that, with all respect to Cash, while he landed a helicopter at Cash’s house, the Man in Black wasn’t even home then. The demo tape was a song that no one ever actually cut. He certainly couldn’t fly a helicopter holding a beer.
In a 2006 interview with The Associated Press, he said he might not have had a career without Cash.
“Shaking his hand when I was still in the Army backstage at the Grand Ole Opry was the moment I’d decided I’d come back,” Kristofferson said. “It was electric. He took me under his wing before he cut any of my songs. He cut my first record, which was a record of the year. He put me on stage the first time.”
One of his most recorded songs, “Me and Bobby McGee,” was written based on a recommendation from Monument Records founder Fred Foster. Foster had a song title in his head called “Me and Bobby McKee,” named after a female secretary in his building. Kristofferson said in an interview in the magazine, “Performing Songwriter,” that he was inspired to write the lyrics about a man and woman on the road together after watching the Frederico Fellini film, “La Strada.”
Joplin, who had a close relationship with Kristofferson, changed the lyrics to make Bobby McGee a man and cut her version just days before she died in 1970 from a drug overdose. The recording became a posthumous No. 1 hit for Joplin.
Hits that Kristofferson recorded include “Why Me,” “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do),” “Watch Closely Now,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” “A Song I’d Like to Sing” and “Jesus Was a Capricorn.”
In 1973, he married fellow songwriter Rita Coolidge. Together, they had a successful duet career that earned them two Grammy awards. They divorced in 1980.
He retired from performing and recording in 2021, only occasionally appearing on stage.
