Heroes, Outlaws & Artistes

Moe Bandy lauded Hank Williams for seemingly writing Moe’s Honky Tonk life.  Kris Kristofferson didn’t write my life – he wrote his own – but that life has been so inspiring as to rip out Native Texan roots and plop them down in Tennessee 30+ years ago where they have amazingly taken hold for what looks like the duration.

 

I saw Kris Kristofferson live for the first time last Saturday at The Ryman Auditorium.  The show was much anticipated because any moments spent in the presence of one’s heroes is time and price of admission well spent.   I had read most of the major words Kris had written in his liner notes, seen most of the movies and admired the persona of the man since first discovering him while at my Texas Cow Country college. 

 

The Ryman performance was about what I expected.  I knew Kris wasn’t a gifted singer or a great picker.   He had related he didn’t even sing on his own demos before fame suddenly grabbed him by his hoarse baritone throat and thrust him on stage.  His roughness and lack of polish had been part of his allure as a role model for one who decided to write songs and headed to Nashville after college before really learning to play the guitar. 

 

Songwriting was the toughest thing I could think to do and time proved to have sold the prophesy way short.  I reasoned if I could write something as great as Kristofferson then my own performance shortcomings would be overlooked. What I discovered was Kris is such a master at weaving words into song it didn’t really matter whether he could pick or sing.  The other thing I discovered was few can reach the pinnacle of songwriting Kristofferson did during his fertile 1966-1970 period. Imitation may be a pure form of flattery but it’s not much of a formula for success.

 

Kris came out on stage to a standing ovation, the first time I remember an artist getting the sort of reception usually reserved for the pre-encore when the crowd is trying to get the artist back on stage.  The Kristofferson fans gave Kris homage from their feet to start the night as a lifetime achievement award.

 

I tried to capture a little of the performance on my iPhone, but the lens was too weak for the balcony and there is just an image of a man bathed in spotlight with indistinct features, sort of like seeing an angel from afar or a crime show where features have been blurred to protect identity.   I decided the surreal image was metaphoric for my search for Kristofferson through the years and included the clip below.  The sound came through clear and will give a sense of the actual performance.  I decided to look for clues in the performance that would bring this ethereal hero into focus in my mind. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the clip testifies, it was just Kris, a guitar and a harmonica that sometimes was the correct one for the song he was playing and sometimes not.  He sang some of the songs as far as he wanted and then quit when he was satisfied, leaving some listeners wanting more.  At one point my wife Jan asked if he was ever going to sing a complete song and I told her he was doing a medley of the ones that weren’t hits.  He shared about 40 songs on the night and sang the standards all the way through.  Nobody asked for their money back. 

 

I understood this better than my wife as I had read an interview with Kris in Esquire, (http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/kris-kristofferson-interview-0514), that revealed Kris is plagued with diseases of the memory that are a curse of age. His wife keeps his playlist and stays close in case he gets off track and he sometimes plays the same verse twice. I’ve had the same sort of experience  on stage but mine was stage fright. The article had left me sad with a vision of the injustice to one who had written such marvelous words getting to the point where he couldn’t remember them.  As it turned out, I was amazed he could remember so many though I knew he had them handy on the music stand along with a water bottle.  I marveled he could perform alone for two hours at his age and challenges. 

 

I was introduced to Kristofferson by Roger Miller, who had the original recording of “Me and Bobby McGee”, the song Janis Joplin made famous.  I still prefer Roger’s version because I heard Kris there first.  The chorus had a profound effect on my view of the world.  Freedom may seem romantic but can come at a price that steals the romance.  

 

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free.  

 

But it was the first line of “Me and Bobby McGee” that blew me away, a sly internal rhyme of “flat in” and “Baton”.  That was almost as good as Longfellow’s drumbeats in the first lines of “Hiawatha.”

 

Busted flat in Baton Rouge waitin’ for a train
Feelin’ nearly faded as my jeans
Bobby thumbed  a diesel down just before it rained
It took us all the way to New Orleans

 

Kristofferson’s contribution to my life is an expansion of horizons.  He was quoted as being influenced by the paintings of Cezanne and the poetry of William Blake.  Those were the days before the internet and information overload.  I went to the library and checked those guys out and my own life was stretched a little and enriched.

 

Kristofferson was the definition of cool in the early ‘70s when I still held that state as a holy grail.  Kris had the primo full beard, so I grew one that stayed on my face for over 30 years, long after Kris had already moved on to clean shaven.  My wife finally talked me into paring down to just a mustache & goatee, which is why I can be over 60 but my cheeks are only 35.  My cheeks spent 25 years under cover. 

 

I tried to emulate Kris’ journey in hopes of reaching that songwriting nirvana he found in the late ‘60s in Nashville.  Kris had that period before he went Hollywood where he introduced the bedroom to country music and wrote several perfect standards for the genre.   I never quite got there and in retrospect I realize I never paid the price he did.  He may not have actually stolen his songs from the devil as he related in “To Beat The Devil,” but he added plenty of hardship and immersed himself in Nashville to generate creative angst.

 

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 ashamed.
'Cos I don't believe that no-one wants to know.

 

My wife was impressed with Kris’ story, how he threw everything away to chase his dreams of becoming a songwriter.   He was a Rhodes Scholar, Golden Gloves boxer, Army Ranger, Helicopter pilot and on his way to teach at West Point when he came through Nashville and dropped out of his straight life for a shot at stardom he couldn’t even fathom at the time.   Jan marveled at how poorer the world’s experience would have been if Kris had gone to West Point on the straight and narrow road.

 

Instead, Kris dug ditches and cleaned out ashtrays as a janitor at a studio.  He got to the point where he could write lines that stuck with people in similar situations:

 

Back when failure had me locked out on the wrong side of the door
When no one stood behind me but my shadow on the floor
And lonesome was more than a state of mind

 

I realize now I took shortcuts to the Kristoffersonian process that may have contributed to never reaching creative success.  I came to Nashville two different times.  The first was right after college graduation, when I fooled nobody.  I got a job at a Stop ‘n’ Rob and after about six months and two stickups ended up back in Texas in the newspaper business.

 

I percolated for five years in Texas, writing and learning , and made a couple of vacation trips with demos to pitch songs.  A guy at Al Gallico Music listened to my stuff encouraged me to gamble on myself and make the move to Nashville again.     

 

In retrospect, I hedged my bets. I took jobs that paid better than janitoring or working in a Stop ‘n’ Rob, but with them came crushing time commitments.  I told myself it was because I needed to make enough money to stay in Nashville as I hadn’t the first time. If that was the gig I’ve succeeded as I’ve been here 33 years.

 

The line about nobody standing behind you but your shadow has been an image that stuck with me.  But my problem was I didn’t have enough people standing in front of me. My biggest weakness is I’m a terrible networker.  I wasn’t raised to ask for help, but to be self sufficient.  The result was I only sporadically made music business contacts and wasn’t an open-minded cowriter.  I played Douglas Corner & Bogeys but never the Bluebird.  I never landed a helicopter in Johnny Cash’s front yard.

 

I didn’t follow Kristofferson’s formula for commitment to songwriting, but I did embrace his formula for raising Hell:

 

He has tasted good and evil, in your bedrooms and your bars
And he’s traded in tomorrow for today
Runnin’ from his devils Lord and reachin’ for the stars

Losin’ all he loved along the way

I had a songwriter friend, Wild Billy Gibson, who had a ’68 Camaro that used to transport us on misadventures when it didn’t leave us on the side of the road.  We were looking for “Princess Charming”, but after about eight years I came to realize the kind of girl I was looking for wasn’t anywhere the Camaro could take us.

 

I had also jumped out of the straight and narrow boat financially and tried to employ myownself to the point where I went to an ATM one day and wasn’t able to withdraw my money because I didn’t have enough for an even amount.  It’s an eye opener when your last eight dollars is trapped for the weekend.

 

I was contemplating moving back to Texas as if I wasn’t going to push my songs I wasn’t exactly sure why I needed to stay in Nashville.  But you can’t get too far down the road to Texas on eight dollars and so I went to church.  I was just lost enough to think they might welcome an apathetic Methodist back into the fold.

 

I wandered into West End Methodist and a nice girl named Claudia Nygaard, who I learned later was a singer on the rodeo circuit, recognized me as a foreigner and got me a program that helped through that first service.  The preacher was talking about Matthew 14:29 where Peter got out of the boat to walk to Jesus and became afraid.  I was right there with old Pete, out of the narrow boat scared to death and felt like I had gone down for the third time more than once.

 

Jesus reached down and saved us both a couple thousand years apart. It’s amazing the reach that Son of a God has!

 

Claudia took me down front to meet Russ Montfort, who was the senior pastor.  She kidded him about liking the dress he was wearing and he took it good naturedly.  I shook his hand and began a friendship that led me to God and most of the good things I can count in my life, especially the 22 years of marriage. Russ baptized me later that year. Two years later Russ married Jan and I.  I met the girl I couldn't find in low places after disregarding Garth Brooks and looking in the place most likely.  

 

I realize I’ve strayed a ways from Kris Kristofferson’s concert.  But, this wasn’t a review as much as an exploration of what Kris has meant to my life as one of my heroes. It’s hard to bring anyone’s life into sharp focus:  In some of his most intuitive lines, Kris sang about himself in Pilgrim Chapter 33:

 

He’s a walkin’ contradiction partly truth and partly fiction
takin’ every wrong direction on his lonely way back home

 

Kris said as he sang that song that his life is mostly fiction, but the truth is what makes his life an Epic as Turk Pipkin said in the Esquire article.     Kris’ life is like a compelling novel and that’s what the crowd at The Ryman was applauding with the standing “O” before he ever played a chord.  There is a whole generation, who is getting older now, who used his lyrics to underline things they couldn’t do or say on their own. 

 

My life has not been an epic and that Saturday night I was just a face in the crowd seated too far back for my iPhone to focus.  But shed no tears as I’m pretty happy with where I’ve ended up, following first Kris’ path and then striking out on my own to discover God’s. If I had stayed in Texas I would never have met a girl from Pennsylvania. Our lives and paths are where God has led both Kris and I and am thankful that for one night we intersected and I heard his words live. The common thread I came away from The Ryman is Kris and I share amazing grace and forgiveness.

 

In searching YouTube for a better example of his show at The Ryman, I found the clip that ends this article.  Ralph Emery is interviewing Kris about "Why Me, Lord".  Willie Nelson, Janie Fricke & Jerry Jeff Walker are there also.  I told Jan Kris had to end the night with “Why Me Lord”, which is somewhat derivative of Amazing Grace but probably my favorite gospel song.  I've always been amazed the consummate country songwriter could write one of the best tribute’s to God’s grace.  I guess you have to sin to need this sort of forgiveness:

 

Why me Lord, what have I ever done
to deserve even one of the pleasures I’ve known

Tell me, Lord, what did I ever do
That was worth lovin' you or the kindness you've shown

Lord help me, Jesus, I've wasted it so
Help me Jesus I know what I am
But now that I know that I've needed you so
Help me, Jesus, my soul's in your hand

 

The encore came and Kris did indeed end his performance with “Why Me Lord”.  To help him came out three old friends, Billy Swan, Chris Gantry and another guy I didn’t recognize nor catch his name.  These three guys were Kris’ oldest friends in Nashville and all had played in his band back in the day.  They sang harmony on “Why Me Lord” and helped Kris’ increasingly fading voice tremendously.

 

At the end, the four walked off with their arms around each other, a bunch of old guys who lived and worked together a long time ago and had developed genuine affection and respect for one another.  I realized that picture was what I want the “A Country For Old Men” website I’ve started to be about, a bunch of old guys who enjoy each other’s company and damn the advancing years.

 

I reached for my iPhone to try and capture the picture, but they were too far away.  I had to do it the old fashioned way, etch the picture in my mind instead.  That will be just enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                   Kris reveals the Why in "Why Me, Lord".