Remembering Kris Kristofferson: Essential Albums 1970 – 2013

Kristofferson’s journey starts here, and so should anyone exploring his output. He was already 34 when his debut album came out, but he became country music’s enfant terrible in a heartbeat. “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “For the Good Times,” “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” — a record containing any one of those would have made him a phenomenon. 

Offering up all these cuts at once made him the devil incarnate to those who’d been happily hauling in the bucks by sticking with the saccharine, buttoned-down Nashville Sound. For anyone yearning for a departure from the mainstream production-line, he was closer to a savior, though.

At no point in Kristofferson’s career would anyone call him anything like a crooner. However, on his second album, The Silver Tongued Devil and I, he sounded a lot more comfortable with putting his boozy rumble on a record. The title track is the most poetic way anyone’s ever said, “Stay away, baby, I’m trouble.” 

“Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)” is dazzling even as a title, and its elegantly unfurling verses are among Kristofferson’s most expertly rendered. “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” was ostensibly inspired by Kris’ cohorts. But the line “He’s a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction” has been so often taken as an equally apt assessment of its author that it’s become tied to his public persona.

Kristofferson had already started inserting cronies like bassist Billy Swan (who would have a huge hit on his own with 1974’s “I Can Help”) and keyboardist Donnie Fritts into the mix on the previous album. But here, the band settles into more a laid-back funky simmer, bringing a new kind of sonic heft to the tracks. Kristofferson leans deep into that smoky stew with his down-and-dirty vocals on the bluesy title tune and his slow-burning snapshot of a troubled former flame, “Little Girl Lost.” 

The lady sharing the front cover photo with Kristofferson is his future wife Rita Coolidge, who chimes in on a couple of tracks and would make a triptych of duo albums with him before the couple’s 1980 split. Jesus Was a Capricorn is bookended by two of Kristofferson’s most undeniable killers. The album-opening title track wasn’t the era’s only song to view Jesus Christ as an archetypal hippie dude, but it’s definitely the best, and it’s worthy of the nod to John Prine in its parenthetical subtitle. Jesus figures into the closing cut “Why Me,” too, with close-to-the-bone themes of sin and salvation and a soul-sanctified gospel vibe that helped make it the biggest hit Kristofferson ever had as a recording artist.

More than any other Kristofferson album up to this point, Who’s to Bless and Who’s to Blame sounds like KK is having a hell of a lot of fun. “Rocket to Stardom” is loaded with endearing silliness and a straight-up circus vibe. “The Year 2000 Minus 25” and “Don’t Cuss the Fiddle” would both find their way onto Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings’ outlaw-country milestone, Waylon & Willie, both songs managing to broach serious topics with a winningly loosey-goosey attitude. Still, none of that sways Kristofferson from closing the record with the eight-minute epic “Silver (The Hunger),” serving to allay any concerns about his continuing status as a “serious” songwriter.

When This Old Road came out, it had been 21 years since Kristofferson’s last album of new tunes. At 70, he had soaked up a lot of wisdom since then, and he invests the songs with those hard-learned lessons, coming off as much like a Zen philosopher as anything else, but never far removed from his earthly ties. You can hear the years in his voice. All his experience is equally audible, lending the record loads of gravitas. Don Was’ spare, sympathetic, all-acoustic production pulls off something similar to what Rick Rubin accomplished on Johnny Cash’s American Recordings.

Sequels rarely equal the original, but Closer to the Bone is one of the few that does. Anyone in love with This Old Road will find themselves at home with the follow-up. Don Was returns to provide another understated, unplugged framework, and Kristofferson offers another unguarded peek into the deepest parts of his heart. At times it seems Kristofferson’s looking back over the figures who shone the brightest, recalling his long-ago support of Sinéad O’Connor’s controversial exploits on “Sister Sinead” and ensuring there’s nary a dry eye when he salutes his fallen friend Johnny Cash on “Good Morning John.”

Producers Mark Linn and Matt Sullivan provided a public service for posterity by shepherding the release of this collection, which gathers demos of Kristofferson’s late ‘60s/early ‘70s tunes. The focus is squarely on the songwriting here, as Kristofferson delivers the material in unadorned solo acoustic mode. 

These recordings were never meant for public consumption, but thankfully, Kristofferson gave the project his blessing. Hearing history in the making on these candid snapshots of everything from “Me and Bobby McGee” to deep cuts like “Duvalier’s Dream” and “Gettin’ by, High and Strange” feels a little like being let in on a long-held secret.

This is the last batch of new tunes Kristofferson left for us. Feeling Mortal could be viewed as the conclusion of a trilogy that began with This Old Road. From a posthumous perspective, it’s tough not to read too much into lyrics like “The time that we travel from cradle to grave was meant to be spent and not meant to be saved” from “Bread for the Body,” not to mention the entirety of the almost elegiac title track. 

Even at the end of his career, Kristofferson was still firing on all cylinders. More than a decade before his passing, he may have been feeling mortal, but the final tunes he shared are timeless.