By Chris Samson
Thirty years ago, I bought the debut album of a then-unknown singer-songwriter named Kris Kristofferson. I still have the LP, and this week I dusted it off and put it on my turntable for the first time in several years. It's the only Kristofferson album I ever bought, but it's a classic – it's got “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “For the Good Times” and “Sunday Morning Comin' Down.”
These are spiritually powerful, emotionally charged songs, with heartfelt lyrics and simple melodies, songs that helped to define the progressive Nashville sound in the late 1960s. Kristofferson, along with fellow “outlaws” Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings, challenged the clean-cut, all-American image of country performers of the time. Over the past 30 years, he has written hundreds of songs and recorded more than 20 albums. In recent years, his acting career has overshadowed his music; appearing in dozens of movies, most recently “Lone Star,” “Blade” and “A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries.”
But his songwriting is still his forte – the thing that sets him apart. The Texas native writes songs of hard luck, disappointment and lost romance, with elegance and intensity. These days, the so-called “new country” crooners with names like Garth, Vince and Clint fill arenas and sell millions of records, but their talent pales next to Kristofferson.
I was listening to his first album again because I was going to see Kristofferson in concert for the first time. He hasn't done many concerts in recent years, but he was coming to San Francisco's Great American Music Hall as part of a tour to support his new album, “The Austin Sessions.” This would be the next-to-last stop on a seven-city that would end at the Troubadour in Los Angeles the next night. Edy and I listened to a cassette tape of the album as we drove down Highway 101 late Thursday afternoon to the show. The songs rang as true and powerful as they did when I first heard them. When we pulled up in front of the venerable music hall at about 5:15 p.m., a line was already forming along O'Farrell Street for the 7 o'clock show, the first of two performances he would do that night. The doors opened at 6 and we got seats at a table about 25 feet from the stage.
The lanky Kristofferson and his three musical sidemen took the stage at 7 o'clock sharp. The craggy-faced, squinty-eyed singer wore black jeans, a black “Free Peltier” T-shirt with cut-off sleeves and a black leather jacket which he shed after four songs. He had a blue guitar slung over his shoulder and a harmonica on a rack around his neck. A youthful 63, Kristofferson – who had triple bypass heart surgery five months ago – looked slender, fit and energetic. He acted like a man who had been given a new lease on life. And over the next two hours, he poured his heart and soul into more than 30 songs.
I didn't recognize the opening song, but he followed with some of his best early tunes: “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down.” The latter is an achingly beautiful and melancholy song about a lonely soul down on his luck: “… then I crossed the empty street and caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken, and it took me back to somethin' that I'd lost somehow somewhere along the way.”
“Simple Song of Freedom,” “Casey's Last Ride” and “Best of All Possible Worlds” were next. Then he introduced “Here Comes That Rainbow Again” as a song he “co-wrote with John Steinbeck.” “Johnny Lobo,” he explained, was based on the real-life story of Native American singer John Trudell.
Between songs, someone in the audience yelled out, “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” and without missing a beat, Kristofferson launched into the opening words of his classic love song: “Take the ribbon from your hair, shake it loose and let it fall …” as his band stayed right with him.
“Oh, boy,” Kristofferson sighed, “a lot of memories.” Then he gazed out into the audience and remarked, “What a nice club. Everybody's sitting so close together.”
Kristofferson's sidemen provided a tight, spare backup, giving his music a full sound without getting in the way. Stephen Bruton, who has played with Kristofferson off and on for more than 20 years, was a virtuoso accompanist. Seated in a chair on the left of the stage, he played lead guitar, mandolin and dobro, and sang harmony.
The charismatic Kristofferson talked to the audience enough to establish a rapport, but concentrated on the songs. He sang abbreviated versions of some and had fun with others, including a song called “The Race,” which he said was inspired by “Wind Beneath My Wings.” The chorus goes, “You are the shit beneath my shoes.”
Halfway into his show, Kristofferson showed no sign of slowing down, singing “The Silver-Tongued Devil and I,” “Lovin' Her Was Easier,” “What About Me,” and “Good Love.” He segued from “Darby's Castle” into “Jesus Was a Capricorn” and then “The Law is for Protection of the People,” his tongue-in-cheek law-and-order song: “'Cause the law is for protection of the people, rules are rules and any fool can see, we don't need no hairy-headed hippies, scarin' decent folks like you and me, no siree.”
Next was “My Sister Sinead,” written after Kristofferson defended Irish singer Sinead O'Connor when she was booed off the stage of a Bob Dylan tribute in 1992 after her controversial pope picture-shredding incident on “Saturday Night Live.”
The thrice-married father of eight dedicated “The Promise” to “my children and their mamas”: “So darlin' when it's time you can spread your wings and I'll set you free – to fly away – and it's OK, 'cause darlin' time changes everything, but it won't change me, I love you, oh, I love you.”
Kristofferson switched from poignant to whimsical with “The New Mister Me,” then sang the reflective “For The Good Times.” After “The Prophet” and “Help Me, Jesus,” he said goodnight, only to be called back for a four-song encore, which he concluded with “To Beat the Devil” and a Hank Ketchum song, “Dear Anna Lee.”
On the former, a spoken-word song with a sung chorus, Kristofferson says, “You see, the devil haunts a hungry man; if you don't want to join him you've got to beat him. I ain't sayin' I beat the devil, but I drank his beer for nothing, and then I stole his song!” Then he sang, “I was born a lonely singer and I'm bound to die the same, but I've got to feed the hunger in my soul; And if I never have a nickel I won't ever die of shame, 'cause I don't believe that no one wants to know.”
The crowd slowly drifted out into the San Francisco night, warmed by the feeling that they had just shared a special evening with an old friend.
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