Photo: Johnny Cash and Kris | Official Biography from Kris’ Website: Born Kristoffer Kristofferson in the border town of Brownsville, Texas on June 22, 1936, Kristofferson changed the language of country music, with extraordinary internal rhymes, Shakespearean iambic pentameter, and socially progressive subject matters that found the personal within the political.
He was an Oxford scholar, a defensive back, a bartender, a Golden Gloves boxer, a gandy dancer, a forest-fighter, a road crew member, and an Army Ranger who flew helicopters. He was a peacenik, a revolutionary, an actor, a superstar, a Casanova, and a family man. He was almost a teacher at West Point, though he gave that up to become a Nashville songwriting bum.
Sam Peckinpah cast him as Billy the Kid. Willie Nelson recorded an entire album of his songs, then joined him in supergroup The Highwaymen, with Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. Muhammad Ali sat side-stage at his concerts. Mama Cass Elliot called him “No Eyes.” Atlantic Monthly published his short stories.
He believed that songwriting is a spiritual communion of mind, body, and soul, and he believed that William Blake was correct in asserting that anyone divinely ordered for spiritual communion but buries his talent will be pursued by sorrow and desperation through life and by shame and confusion for eternity.
“(Blake) is telling you that you’ll be miserable if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do,” Kristofferson said in the Ken Burns’ documentary Country Music.
Kristofferson’s devotion to spiritual communion brought much in the way of sorrow, desperation, and misery, but it led to triumph.
By the 1960s, most prominent country musicians viewed music as a way out of poverty and struggle. A child of privilege, Kristofferson was among the first (if not the first) country music stars to remove the silver spoon from his mouth and seek an artistic destination.
His work ethic was evident from an early age, celebrated by his parents and, when he was a teenager, the supervisor who told him he was the best worker on a construction crew.
“I took pride in being the best labor or, the guy that could dig the ditches the fastest,” he said. “Something inside me made me want to do the tough stuff . . . Part of it was that I wanted to be a writer, and I figured that I had to get out and live. I know that’s why I ran in front of the bulls in Pamplona.”
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Read more of Kris’ bio here:
https://kriskristofferson.com/biography/
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OTHER NOTABLE MUSICIANS’ DEATHS
We are really starting to lose our icons of the last 50 to 60 years, people we grew up with and whose music is the weave of our lives. While we included short bios of Dave Allison and Kris Kristofferson, we want to honor Broadway actor and singer Gavin Creel, Eurovision winner Martin Lee (Brotherhood of Man), and more of our heroes.
Warning Signs of Suicide – National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or if you want to discuss, call the old numbers at 800-273-TALK or 800-273-8255 for English and 888-628-9454 for Spanish. Learn the signs of someone who may be contemplating suicide.
If you want to know more about any of the musicians we lost, please check them out at http://www.wikipedia.com
October 2024
2: Arbogaste Mbella Ntone, 82, Cameroonian singer.
1: Vyacheslav Dobrynin, 78, Russian composer and singer, stroke; Fritz Escovão, 81, Brazilian samba rock musician (Trio Mocotó).
September 2024
30: Dave Allison, 68, Canadian guitarist (Anvil); Gavin Creel, 48, American actor (Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Book of Mormon, Hello, Dolly!), Tony winner (2017), malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor; Fayo, 46, Canadian singer-songwriter, cancer.
29: Rohan de Saram, 85, British-born Sri Lankan cellist; Martin Lee, 77, English singer (Brotherhood of Man) and songwriter (“Save Your Kisses for Me”, “Angelo”), heart failure; Stoika Milanova, 79, Bulgarian violinist (1970 Carl Flesch International Violin Competition) and academic (National Academy of Music).
28: Kris Kristofferson, 88, American Hall of Fame singer-songwriter (“Me and Bobby McGee”, “Help Me Make It Through the Night”) and actor (A Star Is Born), Grammy winner (1972, 1974, 1975).
27: John McNeil, 76, American jazz trumpeter; Pit Passarell, 56, Argentine-born Brazilian singer-songwriter and bassist (Viper), complications from pancreatic cancer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2024
Photo: Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson | From Kris’ Official Website | Johnny Cash takes Kris’s song “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” to No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart.