Kris Kristofferson

I went to a John Mellencamp concert six or seven years ago. Carleen Carter was the opener. Her music was okay, but she told some great stories.

After her mom married Johnny Cash, they bought a house and property in Tennessee. She ( about 12 years old) and the other kids were outside playing when they heard a helicopter landing on the property. She said the helicopter door opened and  Kris stepped out wearing black leather pants. She said she didn’t know a man could be that pretty! She said she had thoughts a twelve year old girl should not be having.

@mcstin: Carlene is quite a gal. She was married to Nick Lowe for a while, then Tom Petty’s bass player Howie Epstein. Lowe wrote a song called "Homewrecker", and I’ve long wondered if it was she to whom he was referring.

Carlene was brought on stage at some big Nashville awards ceremony, and her greeting to the audience---which included her ma June Carter and her step-pa Johnny Cash---was "Howdy, I’m Carlene Carter, and I put the c*unt back in Country."

Kris was the quintessential "Man for all Seasons". Laborer, Writer, singer, actor, Army Ranger and Rhodes Scholar. 

He requested that the first three lines of Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a wire" be on his tombstone.  "Like a bird on the wire Like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free".  And so you are Kris, and so you are.

To me he was very much of a man of the times, a troubadour, Zelig, and mostly back- to mid-field player with a light touch who showed up almost everywhere that mattered(in music Cash, Joplin, Coolidge, Webb; in film Peckinpah, Cimino, Sayles), broadly educated(military, oil rig roughneck, helicopter pilot, Pomona, Oxford).  Great instincts and lots of courage.

dgarretson

Good to see you as always. What gear is in your System currently?

I did not see anything in Virtual Systems?

Happy Listening!