Written by Bill Trott
(Reuters) – Kris Kristofferson, who became one of the most influential American songwriters of his time with works such as “Me and Bobby McGee,” and a successful actor, died on Saturday at the age of 88, Rolling Stone reported. , quoting his spokesperson.
Kristofferson has been suffering from memory loss since his 70s.
Kristofferson was a Renaissance man – an athlete with a poet's genius, a former army officer and helicopter pilot, a Rhodes scholar who took a job as a security guard in what turned out to be a brilliant move.
Kristofferson first established himself in the music world as a songwriter in the country music capital of Nashville – writing hits like the Grammy-winning “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times,” and one-time girlfriend Janis. 1 Joplin's hit single, “Me and Bobby McGee.”
In the early 1970s he became popular as a loud, unpolished, and in-demand actor, especially opposite Barbra Streisand in “A Star Is Born,” one of the most popular films of 1976.
Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas, on June 22, 1936, and traveled frequently because his father was a general in the Air Force. After graduating from Pomona College in California, where he played football and rugby, Kristfferson attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship and followed a family tradition by joining the Army.
He went through the Army's Elite Ranger School, learned to fly helicopters and reached the rank of captain. In 1965 Kristofferson was offered a position teaching English – he was fascinated by the works of the poet William Blake – at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, but turned it down to head to Nashville.
Kristofferson became a caretaker at the Columbia Records studio because it would give him the opportunity to give his songs to big-name stars recording there. He also worked as a helicopter pilot ferrying boats between Louisiana oil fields and offshore drilling rigs.
During that time, Kristofferson wrote some of his most memorable songs, including “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” which he says he wrote on an oil rig.
His greatest hit came when he landed his helicopter on Johnny Cash's lawn – although he denied Cash's version that he exited the cockpit with an audio cassette in one hand and a beer in the other. Cash would later have a No. 1 hit. 1 with Kristofferson's “Sunday Morning Comin' Down”.
“NOTHING LEFT TO BE LOST”
Kristofferson's best songs were filled with seekers, wastrels and broken souls trying to find love, redemption or relief from the hangover life had given them. The heartbroken narrator of “Bobby McGee,” a song Kristofferson inspired from the Federico Fellini film “La Strada,” summed it up with the line “Freedom is just another word that doesn't mean anything.”
“Kris brought (country music) the genre from the dark ages to the present, made it acceptable and delivered the best songs — I mean, the best songs,” Willie Nelson, Kristofferson's early role model, told CBS. “60 Minutes” in a 1999 interview. “Simple but profound.”
Kristofferson recorded four albums with Rita Coolidge, the second of his three wives, in the 1970s and joined Nelson, Cash and Waylon Jennings in the country music group the Highwaymen in the 1980s and 1990s.
Kristofferson's good looks led to roles in movies such as “Cisco (NASDAQ:) Pike,” “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid,” “Grace With the Sea,” “Convoy,” “Heaven's Gate,” “Lone Star” and “Blade.”
Kristofferson had a hard time growing up. There was a line of girlfriends and girlfriends that he didn't remember because he was drunk. He stopped drinking – but not marijuana – when a doctor told him he was suicidal.
“It was fun,” Kristofferson told “60 Minutes.” “It was the way I thought a musician should live. I always agreed with Blake when he said that the high road leads to the palace of wisdom … I think God protects fools and songwriters.”
After his initial popularity, Kristfferson took up causes such as the United Farm Workers and spoke out against the US government's involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s.
Kristofferson began to experience progressive memory loss in his mid-70s and his playing suffered as a result. Doctors told him it appeared to be the onset of Alzheimer's disease or dementia, possibly caused by blows to the head while boxing and playing football and rugby in his youth.
But in 2016, his wife, Lisa, told Rolling Stone magazine that Kristofferson had been diagnosed with Lyme disease, which can cause memory problems, and that after treatment and stopping Alzheimer's medication, his memory began to slowly return.
Kristofferson continued to work with a 2016 tour that included playing with Nelson and stops in Europe. That year he also marked his 80th birthday by releasing “The Cedar Creek Sessions,” an album featuring live versions of his best-known songs.
Kristofferson and his third wife, Lisa, whom he married in 1983, lived on the Hawaiian island of Maui for more than 30 years. He had eight children.
(Writing and reporting by Bill Trott; Editing by Diane Craft)
