The family of Kris Kristofferson have announced via Facebook the passing of the singer-songwriter and outlaw country legend: ““It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, September 28 at home. We’re all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”
Born Kristoffer Kristofferson in the border town of Brownsville, Texas on June 22, 1936, Kristofferson changed the language of country music. 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.
Kristofferson scuffled for more than four years in Nashville, at one stage working as a janitor at CBS’s Nashville studio. Things began to roll Kristofferson’s way when Ray Stevens recorded his “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” and Johnny Cash recorded the same song and took it to the top of the country charts. Cash performed “Sunday Mornin’” on his ABC television show, and, despite the cries of network censors, refused to change Kristofferson’s line “Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned” to “Wishing, Lord that I was home.” That song was voted the Country Music Association’s song of the year in 1970.
Kristofferson’s first solo album came out in April of 1970. It contained now-classics including “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” “Me and Bobby McGee,” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night”. “You can look at Nashville pre-Kris and post-Kris, because he changed everything,” said Bob Dylan.
In 1985, Kristofferson joined Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson to form the supergroup now called The Highwaymen. “Every time I look at a picture of Willie and me and John and Waylon, I find it amazing that they let the janitor in there,” he told journalist Mikal Gilmore.
In 2003, Kristofferson received the Free Speech Award from the Americana Music Association and in 2004 he became a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Since then he has received lifetime achievement honors from BMI, The Recording Academy, the Country Music Association, and the Academy of Country Music, among many others.