It might be hard for some people under 30-35 to believe but country-western music was actually at one time very revolutionary in its delivery. Old school musicians were considered “outlaws” and the music was full of anger, sadness, hurt, desperation and vitality.
Kris Kristofferson was one of many along with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, David Allen Coe, Merle Haggard and Townes Van Zandt who brought the music out of the honkytonk bars but still kept it on the fringe of mainstream. Even Hank Williams Jr., 40 years ago, would’ve laughed at the way he has acted and especially how awful the music turned into in the last 30 years.
The fingers could be pointed at Garth Brooks, but at least he tried to experiment. (Coincidentally, it’s the 25th anniversary of that whole Chris Gaines thing where Brooks tried to experiment with rock as a different character.) Country western music around the turn of the millennium became Adult Contemporary Country which sounds more like an interior design style than it does music. It might explain why it led to people like Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Toby Keith and Luke Bryan becoming big stars. Kristofferson was part of The Highwayman along with Cash, Nelson and Jennings. What a line up!
According to Ethan Hawke who wrote a profile on Kristofferson for Rolling Stone, a country-western star implied to be Keith, who had just hit it big, thought he could tell Kristofferson what to play at a 70th birthday celebration for Nelson. Well, Kristofferson put this younger musician in his place. As a military veteran as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Kristofferson didn’t care for Keith whose “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)” was romanticizing warfare.
Hawke said it was tense as the unnamed musician warned Kristofferson about “none of that lefty shit.” This didn’t sit well with Kristofferson but Hawke recalled it looked like he was fighting to urge to get in a physical fight. He later recalled a quote Jennings, who had passed away in February 2002, said about people like the musician who may or may not be Keith.
“They’re doin’ to country music what pantyhose did to finger-fuckin.”
Yep, the Outlaw Movement was a change of the Nashville Sound which is best described as the easy listening pop version of country-western. But Kristofferson, who died on Sept. 28 at the age of 88, had always been an outlaw. In the 1970s, he branched out in acting appearing in many risky roles where he often appeared nude such as A Star is Born where he has a sex scene with Barba Streisand who he also dating in real life. He had another sex scene with Sarah Miles in The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea.
He had brief and turbulent romance with Janis Joplin in 1970 that started in the Spring but ended with her death from an accidental drug overdose on Oct. 4 of that year. One of his most famous roles as Billy in Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, which was directed by Sam Peckinpah. However, the director fought with MGM over the final cut of the movie and it was taken away from the famous director and re-edited against his way. Most of the cast and crew disowned the movie, even though Kristofferson’s role is actually pretty good along with James Coburn as Garrett. The movie also starred Bob Dylan and features his son, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.”
Other film roles would include a kind rancher who becomes the boyfriend to Ellen Burstyn’s character in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Even though A Star is Born wasn’t a critic’s favorite, Kristofferson got the role mostly because Col. Tom Parker (who wasn’t ever a military officer) didn’t want Elvis Presley getting second billing to Barbra Streisand. Also he requested The King get a $1 million paycheck with a $1,000 per diem. And there were also concerns Parker didn’t want Presley portrayed as a drunk, even though by the mid-1970s he was taking a lot of narcotics and pills.
To be honest, it might have revived Presley’s career as an actor, but Kristofferson, who was only 40 at the time of the movie’s release, had that rugged look of a man who spent too much of his prime years on the road, heavy drinking on long nights. And that was his appeal really, with his Texas-born accent and bushy beard and hair, Kristofferson looked like a modern-day outlaw. He looked like the guy you’d find in a rough bar or smaller concert venue where there’s chicken wire covering the stage.
Kristofferson would return to film Convoy with Peckinpah playing the Rubber Duck trucker who is the thorn in the side of Sheriff Lyle Wallace (Ernest Borgnine). And he co-starred with Burt Reynolds in the sports comedy Semi-Tough. Both movies were modest successes. I can just imagine a lot of men and women flocking to both movies as Kristofferson was becoming a sex symbol.
And then came Heaven’s Gate. Cast as a very fictional version of the real-life Jim Averill, the movie was about the infamous Johnson County War in Wyoming in the 1890s. The movie became notorious for going insanely overbudget as director Michael Cimino demanded that an entire set be torn down and rebuilt even though it would’ve been more cost efficient to only do half of it. The movie was a disaster both commercially and financially, ending the era of New Hollywood, revisionist Westerns and bankrupted United Artists that it was sold to MGM.
Kristofferson’s movie career faulter as he mostly appeared in forgettable movies. He was wrongly miscast as Mace Montana in Big Top Pee-wee. And then he was cast in one of the leads in the horrendously bloated Amerika miniseries which aired seven episodes totaling about 14-and-a-half hours of an alternative 1997 where the Soviet Union has overtaken America. Of course, in the real world, the Soviet Union had collapsed in 1991.
But in the mid-1990s, he rebounded playing a heavily bigoted sheriff alongside Matthew McConaughey in John Sayles’ Lone Star. Then, he was cast as Whistler in the first Blade movie, bringing him a new legion of fans as he reprised his role in the far better sequel as well as the notoriously bad third one.
In 1992 when Columbia Records were doing a concert for the 30th anniversary of the release of Bob Dylan’s first Kristofferson performed along with Cash, George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder. However, when Sinead O’Connor appeared on stage, people began to boo and jeer her. This was after the outspoken artist/activist had tore apart a picture of Pope John Paul II while performing on Saturday Night Live and screaming, “Fight the real enemy!”
There was a lot of backlash including Joe Pesci appearing as the host the next week and saying he would have smacked her hard if he was present, too applause. However, O’Connor was talking about all the child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church and how it was being covered up. A decade later, the Boston Globe would break the story and even though he was near death, it was announced how much the Pope and others had covered it up.
Kristofferson went on stage and whispered to O’Connor, “Don’t let the bastards get you down!” She responded, “I’m not down.” She said years later she didn’t need a man to rescue her. But it was bold of Kristofferson to offer support at a time in which people were beginning to distance themselves even if they agreed with the person.
I find it funny people argue about leaving the politics out of music but at the same time they’re ok with people like Keith or Jason Aldean who take a pro-conservative stance. It doesn’t matter what your politics is, but music has always has a political stance. Look at Woody Guthrie or “Strange Fruit.” Apparently when the CMA mock Obamacare, it’s ok, but Beyonce shouldn’t be singing country-western.
And yet, while Kristofferson may have leaned toward the left on the political spectrum, he still gave it his all in Amerika despite the pro-conservative stance mainly because playing a former politician who finds himself a political prisoner crosses boundaries. But music is meant to reach everyone.
And Kristofferson has actually decided to use lyrics from another singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, who passed away in 2016, to be used on his tombstone. Cohen and Kristofferson may total opposites as Cohen was much more of a crooner. The following lines have allegedly been taken by Cohen from other songs for his song “Bird on a Wire.”
“Like a bird on the wire / Like a drunk in a midnight choir / I have tried in my way to be free.”
Rest in power.
What is your favorite song and/or acting role of his? Please comment.
Zane Says 