Kris Kristofferson: The Legendary Years

Kris Kristofferson seems to be unfashionable most of the time, possibly because he's spent to much of his career making slightly dodgy movies and TV. But he's also been in some great movies — Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Trouble in Mind, Heaven's Gate; I even quite liked Flashpoint — and I haven't seen the rubbish ones.

I've only dipped into bits of his musical career, but it contains a handful of priceless songs, some underrated political songs (which will come up when his 1990 album features here), and I'm a sucker for the kind of country music turn of phrase that Kristofferson has down to a tee. How can you resist a song that starts, "Once my future was shiny as the seat of my pants" (from I May Smoke Too Much, included on this album)?

It was those considerations that probably led me to buy this album when I was browsing Amazon four and a half years ago. It covers the first decade of his career and only overlaps a little with the other, much older compilation of his stuff that I have.

Listening to the album now, I'm surprised to find that the God songs seem marginally to outnumber the drinking songs. Sounds to me like he stole the intro to his own Magdalene (pronounced as in Mary, rather than our alma mater) for his later song Sandinista.

The sleeve notes (by Lynda Morrison and John Tobler) remind you that Kristofferson was 32 before he got a record deal. Like Leonard Cohen he had a career before being a singer-songwriter. He spent five years as a helicopter pilot in Germany for the US Army, and got his Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford after winning short story competitions. Then when he was about to take up a post at West Point, he jacked it in to move to Nashville, where he was allegedly working as a cleaner in the studio where Dylan recorded Blonde on Blonde. I think you can hear the benefit of those experiences in his songs.

MusicBrainz entry for this album