When it comes to people who’ve lived eventful, successful, and astonishing lives, few have done it better than country music and film star Kris Kristofferson. The Texas-born singer and actor passed away on September 28th, 2024 at the age of 88. Starting his music career in the 1970s, Kristofferson’s art spanned decades with 21 studio albums, over 60 film credits, a Golden Globe win, three Grammy wins out of an impressive 13 Grammy nominations, and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.
A man of many talents and achievements, Kristofferson started his creative pursuits by studying writing at Pomona College in Claremont, California, and writing multiple award-winning essays in his undergrad years. Upon graduating from Pomona, Kristofferson attended Oxford University as a Rhode scholar. It was at Oxford that he began writing music and recording his first songs. It was only after his academic career at Oxford, several years in the military, and an offer for a career teaching English that Kristofferson decided to leave his academic, English, and military careers behind him to fully pursue songwriting in 1965.
Not only is Kristofferson admirable for his intelligence, achievements, and talent, he’s also an inspiration for the rags-to-riches story that ensued once he moved to Nashville to pursue country music in 1965. Having left behind everything he’d ever known, Kristofferson found for the first time in his life that he wasn’t succeeding. He finally got a job as a janitor at Columbia Records. He used his time sweeping floors at Columbia to his advantage, bringing cassettes of his music to work and offering them to producers, telling them to play the songs for Johnny Cash. Finally Kristofferson was able to get through to Cash and his producer with the song “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down”, which went on to win song of the year at the Country Music Association Awards.
Kristofferson would finally have a singing credit of his own in 1967, when he signed with Epic Records and recorded “Golden Idol/ Killing Time”. Kristofferson continued to write successful songs for other people like Billy Walker, Ray Stevens, and Jerry Lee Lewis, and performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1969. One of his most famous songs, “Me and Bobby McGee” was recorded and released on Janis Joplin’s posthumous album Pearl in 1971, which placed one of Kristofferson’s songs at #1 on the Billboard charts for weeks.
In the following years, his songs continued to top the charts, both from his own albums, and being covered by popular country artists like Willie Nelson. He also continued to perform and collaborate with multiple popular artists like Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Billy Joel. In 1985, Kristofferson formed the Highwaymen with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash, which would prove to be one of the most successful highlights of his career. The group led the country subgenre known as ‘outlaw’, making them one of the most influential country groups of all time. His work with the Highwaymen contributed to Kristofferson being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004.
As an actor, he’s best known for his role alongside Barbara Streisand in the 1976 reboot of A Star is Born, but his acting career started in the year 1971 with Cisco Pike, contained several successful films like the Blade trilogy and Payback in 1999, and lasted until his retirement from acting in 2018.
Throughout his career, Kristofferson also established himself as an anti-war activist, talking about his opposition to current violent events in interviews and in his music for multiple decades. This activism caused him much backlash during his career, but he remained persistent in his views until his death.
Kris Kristofferson ended his songwriting and performing career in 2020, performing his last show in Fort Pierce, Florida, and announcing his retirement for the following year. Through all of the incredible and unprecedented achievements of his nearly 60 year-long career, Kristofferson has cemented his place as one of the best and most influential people in the country music world.
Written by Steph Stone
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