(A GRAMMY-winning singer/songwriter and 56th GRAMMY nominee for Best Americana Album for Old Yellow Moon with Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell was featured on the 2006 album The Pilgrim: A Celebration Of Kris Kristofferson with a cover of "Come Sundown," which is featured on Kristofferson's 1970 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame-inducted debut album. And, lest we forget, the man is one hell of an accomplished actor.
Fortunately, recent recordings of "Help Me Make It Through The Night," "Me And Bobby McGee," "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down," "For The Good Times," and "Why Me Lord" had begun seeping into the disinterested listeners' nonmusical psyche, and, practically overnight, introducing even the most obscure Kristofferson tune seemed to trigger in the Old Mill Club clientele something resembling audience refinement.ĭespite the cold fact that the typical "Mill" crowd consisted of, maybe, six inebriated tractor suppliers, a table full of box tape wholesalers and a couple of recently divorced medical assistants, experiencing this subtle shift in the public's taste bolstered in me the notion that I too could someday carve out for myself a career as an artist.įorty-three years later, having gotten to know the man and his wife, Lisa, I feel modestly qualified to scribble down these few words framing his extraordinary musical legacy: By creating a narrative style that introduced intelligence, humor, emotional eloquence, spiritual longing, male vulnerability, and a devilish sensuality - indeed, a form of eroticism - to country music, Kris Kristofferson, without compromising the content and quality of his work, did as much to expand the mainstream accessibility of an all-too-often misunderstood art form as Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Ray Charles (I'm thinking of Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music) and, more recently, Garth Brooks. When in 1971 the news reached my small corner of the world that there was this helicopter-piloting, William Blake-quoting Rhodes scholar by the name of Kris Kristofferson, whose songs were transforming the country and popular music airwaves, I was marooned six nights a week in an East Texas Holiday Inn lounge, fielding requests for "Scotch And Soda" and "99 Bottles Of Beer" from a handful of traveling salesmen and gin swills whose nightcap needs did not include meaningful music.
In the days leading up to the 56th GRAMMY Awards, will present the tributes to the 2014 Special Merit Awards recipients.) Although he wrote less as demand for his services as an actor with more than 80 films to his credit increased, more than a decade's worth of superior song-writing is covered in this collection, which also includes tracks by Kris' friends and fellow members of the 1990s project that was The Highwaymen - Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.(In addition to the GRAMMY Awards, The Recording Academy presents Special Merit Awards recognizing contributions of significance to the recording field, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical GRAMMY Award. He may be primarily thought of as a country writer, but Kris songs have been interpreted by artists as diverse as Isaac Hayes, Dean Martin and Scott Walker all of whom are among those featured here. (The others are, of course, Me And Bobby McGee and Help Me Make It Through The Night). Kris Kristofferson's catalogue has been visited and revisited on scores of occasions over the past half century, with almost 1000 covers alone of just three songs one of which For The Good Times gives this new 23-track collection its title.
Ace's much acclaimed Songwriter Series rolls into 2021 with a long overdue overview of the work of one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century.