Kris Kristofferson was a remarkable artist who remained grounded regardless of his ‘icon’ status, which he earned fairly early in his career as a lyricist, but also performer of stage and screen. Somehow, the man who starred opposite Barbra Streisand in one of the most beloved films of all time, A Star Is Born, (he won a Golden Globe for it), played the father of Harry Connick Jr. not once, but thrice (the holiday movie Angels Sing is an underrated Hallmark original), and was married to the great Rita Coolidge for a time after getting close to the late Janis Joplin (even performing a stunning tribute to the storied female rocker at her posthumous Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2013), was not too out of reach from reality. He was down-to-Earth, and that is what we have always remembered him for, as we found that out firsthand after chatting with him during some of his most noteworthy years in the spotlight.
Kristofferson’s career as a performer was extensive, beginning quietly (albeit not without bumps in the road) on the small stages of late-fifties England where he was attending the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He wrote songs in between winning boxing titles (“I know I don’t look like a fighter, but it depends on if you love it or not, and I wanted to be one since I was eight,” he told us in 1978.) and playing rugby, of which he took to during his prior collegiate experience at Pomona College in Southern California, where he spent much of his childhood. (He achieved local and regional recognition for rugby, as well as football and track and field, but also graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Philosophy in literature – his first of two literary degrees. Yes, he was a writer, for sure.)
Those that he looked up to in the media and the world as a whole perfectly aligned with who he was as a person, artist, and adult coming up in society during his formative years, as well: a literal and figurative knockout boxer, an American folk songsmith, and a French cabaret singer. How do we know? Because when we asked Kristofferson in 1978 who his hero was, he said: “Rocky Graziano was my first. Next I think was Hank Williams, then Edith Piaf.”
Following dual college education and amateur boxing and performing, you would think that the strong, American-born, English-studying young man would have been able to let his distinctive vocals, tried and true writing, and overall leading-man qualities take charge. And while they did take him to Nashville and Hollywood and then beyond – later with generational acclaim – it wasn’t immediate. That same man we described earlier, the humble one who took home CMA Awards, Americana Honors, and multiple Grammys (one being the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award), spent multiple years as part of the U.S. Army. He toured Germany before being offered the chance to teach English literature at his alma mater of West Point. He never regretted joining the military, nor did he regret turning down the opportunity to teach so he could pursue songwriting.
The frequently moving military family that Kristofferson grew up in saw his academic career, athletic achievements, and – most frustratingly – musical dreams, as a waste of time, for lack of a better word. Their commitment to their nation and the small-town families meant that doing just about anything other than defending such was not something to be all that proud of. It was stifling. The star’s parents weren’t all that worldly, he explained to The Aquarian also in 1978; “I was an Army brat, moved around a lot, but I had a real comfortable growing up. At the age of 16, I started going out and working for a living every summer, got a little contact with the outside world and did construction jobs and stuff. I wanted to be a writer back then, and I figured it was contact with the real world, which it was. I still know more than my parents because of that.” However, as he was broadening his horizons, his family was belittling his goals and his talent.
His “audacious” hopefulness kept his going, and Kristofferson defied them all. He excelled at just about everything he did. He knew his worth. He told his stories. He showcased his skills. He was bold with his balladry, confident in his choices, and profound in how he went about his public and private portrayal through song and story. He was an every-man, yet a worldwide success. He became a friend to many and an inspiration to all. He let his heart and his history keep both feet on the ground, even as the glitz and glamor (and girls) attempted to pull him up into the untouchable stratosphere of fame and fortune. (The latter of which was never quite in his plans, even after he had it at his disposal.)
The triumph of Kris Kristofferson is not the aforementioned awards and excellent reception as a performer, nor was it the success he earned through his own personal diligence; the triumph of Kris Kristofferson is that he was a storyteller who didn’t let anything or anyone muddle his own story. Everything he took part of ultimately became part of his narrative, part of how he carried himself, part of the heart and soul of his that we got to know over his 60-year career. He wanted to shine as an athlete? He never forgot those days on the field or in the ring. He wanted to study the history and power of words? He used that skill and those degrees for the rest of his life as a lyricist. He wanted to honor his family’s wishes, earn his stripes, get in shape, and “get his act together” and fight for America overseas? He did that, and he was taught discipline. (“The thrill of my life was going tot the academy,” he said in 1978 with a laugh. “Then I did my whole tour in Germany.”) He wanted to move to Nashville and get some demos to Johnny Cash? He handed some tapes to June Carter while working at the bottom tier of a recording studio and is rumored to have landed a plane (thanks to his pilot training, and, of course, his success with that) in the country star’s yard with some songs in hand, and soon saw multiple songs that he wrote get developed by singers and bands alike.
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Gladys Knight, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kenny Rogers, Joplin, Cash – an innumerable amount of now-legends sang, released, and created hits out of Kris Kristofferson tunes throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s; this being the same Kristofferson who was as much of a former rugby star and disgraced military veteran to his family as he was a budding country superstar (and soon-to-be sex symbol thanks to his film career).
In 1980, while Kristofferson was in peak ‘Dad Mode,’ four years off of A Star Is Born, and quite a few albums and movies in, he told us of the women who were fawning over his long hair, Americana attitude, strong build, and, sadly, more-so the characters he played in movies… rather than fawning over his genuine and honest creativity, dedication to his craft, and brave approach to taking risks in-and-around Hollywood.
The Aquarian: How do you feel about the way those girls clawed at you?
Kris Kristofferson: I hate it. Actually, I have mixed feelings. You don’t get any closer to somebody in that situation.
AQ: But isn’t it an ego thing where you basically get off on yourself?
KK: Nah. Not really. I was talking to someone who I did get close to and she asked me the same question. She said, “Doesn’t it give you a thrill to turn on so many people?” Well, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t felt that I turn on that many people. We had a small house tonight [in New York]. We had a hell of a show and I felt great being with a band again, but I didn’t feel that we particularly knocked them out. I’m not the best judge of that. For some reason, there’s enough paranoia left over that I usually don’t think we’re going over as well as we are. In the South, they go crazy after every song. I don’t think it has anything to do with me. It’s just another name for their autograph books. I like to see a crowd react in a hall and get off on what we’re doing. You feel like you’re really communicating. Like when I sing a new song and [the audience] goes, “Oh, wow.” That feels terrific. To be groped on the way to the bus feels like… like a public toilet. It ain’t respect. I wouldn’t do that to say, Joni Mitchell. (Although I would love to go for Joni Mitchell anytime!) I just don’t feel like it’s anything to boost your ego. After A Star Is Born was the first time I got really visible. People would start screaming and little kids would look at me like I’m Frankenstein and scream. It got really freaky. Then I knew it wasn’t me, because I had never affected anyone like that.
Almost six-feet in stature, brave and gruff, the performer was as earnest and timeless as one could be, even after having a hand in very time-period-defining events, like the Vietnam War, which he admitted in that same interview that he wanted to go, and being an ex-Captain after trying his hand at being a folk pop singer overseas only helped him be able to tell the tales he wanted to – when the time was right.
“I didn’t have a job,” he told us about his move to Nashville in the mid-to-late 1960s after leaving Vietnam, after leaving West Point, of which he went to after leaving Oxford. “I had $500 a month child support to pay [to his first wife]. I had bills I couldn’t pay and I lived in a slum tenement that was being torn down.” That sort of realism and relatability shook up Nashville as he kept songwriting, kept growing alongside his material, and kept handing these gritty, descriptive tracks to any big guns he could get them to, which started with producer Jerry Kennedy and “Ring of Fire” singer himself, who sang and slung Kristofferson tunes around on his new TV program at the time.
Liberals and conservatives, southern locals and broader audiences, all took to the way Kristofferson expressed what he learned, what he saw, and what he lived, even if expressed through another notable artist. This, we still believe, is why when Kristofferson took to a stage in front of people himself for the first time, they all gravitated to him further. He was one a kind and he was always the messenger – the melodic, boots-on-the-ground messenger.
AQ, 1980: What led you into acting?
KK, 1980: Performing live. See, I was a songwriter, not a performer. Johnny Cash put me on at the last Newport Folk Festival that was held. Then I got offers to do more. Newport was really the first time I was actually in front of people. I remember John saying, “Sing a little louder. I can hardly hear ya across the room.” See, I had only sung at his house before that.
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Kristofferson had something for everyone – an American dream, conventionally good looks, a hunger to succeed on his own terms, a slight air of naivety (at least at first), and lyrical eloquence that was seeped in a grittiness that couldn’t be faked. He had talent, sought out talent, navigated opportunities, and kept his strength and wits about him, even amid relationship woes and possibly “inherited” problems with substances.
As a homegrown performer, but also as a real, human man , Kristofferson was keen on maintaining his image, which to him, meant being honest in all he did, honoring his familial and regional origins, supporting those who supported him, and paying attention to those he cared about – including the next generation of performers, artists, and storytellers. It is hard to remember him, Kris Kristofferson as a man and an artist, for anything else. His eye was always on the prize: to be himself, share his talent and truth, earn his legacy no matter what it paid, and not stray too far from the path he made sure to set out on.
AQ, 1978: Don’t you think there are a lot of people out there in Philadelphia, and here and there and all over, who really have the ability to make it?
KK: It takes such tenacity.
AQ: Never give up.
KK: And talent, you’ve got to have talent.
AQ: And a break.
KK: And audacity to think that you can possibly make a living at it. But that’s all you’ve ever wanted to do. Somebody was asking me the other day about happiness, you know, buggering up your creativity which gets a cure financially. The implication being that you only wrote to keep the wolf away from the door.
AQ: Not because you loved it.
KK: Yeah, and the money didn’t mean anything in the first place or that wouldn’t be what I was doing. I mean, I’d have been doing something that, ah, God knows, the Rhodes Scholarship’s a door-opener. There are many jobs I could’ve had that I could have made money at. Ironically, I probably would have never made as much money as I’m making now, but it’s irrelevant. My mother used to say in the family that Craig, my younger brother, would be rich and…
AQ: You’d be a failure?
KK: And I would never have any money because I didn’t value it. Well, I thought I was going to because I was the only one who worked in the summer. I was the laborer. And they said I didn’t value money. Well, I valued it, it’s just that I didn’t have to stay in a first-class hotel, but money and material things don’t mean a helluva lot to me.
AQ: Let me ask you an honest question. How much did you make last year?
KK: Let me give you an honest answer: I don’t know. I know less about my financial, wait, I better not say that. My accountant may read this. And I give the impression I know more than I do whenever I’m talking to those people. But what I really mean is that it’s not my cup of tea, I tell you, what I made was a helluva lot less than what I grossed.
AQ: Because of taxes, sure.
KK: I pay taxes like I should have a statue made to me. I pay lots and lots of taxes.
AQ: “Here is the man who pays $4 million in taxes.”
KK: I never believed that was that much money in the world to pay for taxes, which is cool if it’s going in the right places.
AQ: Where’s that?
KK: I don’t care. I’m not bitching about it. I’ve got enough to take care of me and mine and I’m able to. I’m so damned fortunate compared to the whole population, 99% of them are doing something that probably doesn’t mean a thing to them.
AQ: That’s really true, Kris.
KK: And if you get to do something that you like….
AQ: That you really get off on…
KK: Get paid for it. Listen, all you need is three squares meals a day and a roof over your head and clothes.
Thanks for being a real one from the very start, Kris Kristofferson. Thank you for the candid conversations and the vital tales on life, the songs and the meanings that were raw and carry weight even today, and the reminder that sometimes you have to be the hardest worker, your own biggest advocate, with an honest outlook on the world in front of you. Thanks for truly being a teacher of sorts, as we dubbed you in 1980 and stand by to this day. Thank you for performing for us time-and-time again.
“I took this photograph of Kris Kristofferson that last time I saw him perform, at City Winery in 2019,” our own Everynight Charley reminded us this morning upon reminiscing on the country singer-songwriter’s legacy and our live history with him here at The Aquarian and here in the tri-state.
“He was well into his early eighties and did not look like we remembered him, but he still sounded wonderful. The first time I saw him perform was almost 50 years earlier. He was fairly unknown and played a week at the Bitter End in May 1971. His opening act was equally unknown – Carly Simon. I enjoyed both of their performances so much that I saw the double bill several times that week. On one of those nights, between the early and late shows, I saw them sitting next door at the Dugout, getting acquainted and seemingly getting a bit romantic. On her next album, she recorded a song called ‘Kris.’ Rest in Peace, Kris.”
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Photos by Everynight Charley
