75 years of Kris Kristofferson

75 Years of Kris Kristofferson

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. An All-American athlete, a fighter pilot and a Rhodes Scholar walk into a bar. His name was Kris Kristofferson.

75 years ago, on June 22, 1936, Kristofferson was born a star. It was a role he’d eventually play out in film, and in real life.

He could have played professional football but he chose instead to study at Oxford. It was there he first started writing and recording songs before family pressure led to him enlisting in the army. His father had been a Major General in the Air Force and Army, and his grandfather a captain in the Swedish Army. Despite Kristofferson’s musical dreams flying sky high, he followed in their footsteps and became a military pilot.

Throughout his time in the service, his passion for music never subsided. He formed a band that played original tunes from port to port while honing two skills that would eventually write his ticket to stardom, and write a story that lives in country music infamy.

As the story goes, Kristofferson was trying everything he could to break his way into the music business. He worked part time mopping floors at Columbia Records while earning his living as a commercial helicopter pilot. Powered more by courage than kerosene, Kristofferson landed his helicopter on Johnny Cash’s front lawn in an attempt to introduce the music icon to a set of his demo tapes. It would begin a lifelong friendship between the two, and catapult Kristofferson onto the national music scene.

While his athletic prowess was featured in Sports Illustrated and his rugged good looks and blue collar charm built a 30 year film career, highlighted by a leading roll opposite Barbara Streisand in A Star is Born, Kristofferson is first and foremost a songwriter. He has the uncanny ability to tell a story as well as he can write it. He’s written hits for the best of the best, earning him induction to both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame.

He is a songwriter’s songwriter, authoring songs Bob Dylan has said he wished he’d have written himself. Cash even wrote in his autobiography that Kristofferson’s “Here Comes that Rainbow Again”, a tale depicting a scene from Blackwing user John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, was his “favorite song by any writer of our time.” After having so much success recordingKris’s songs, Willie Nelson even released an entire album in 1989 titled “Willie Nelson sings Kristofferson” to critical acclaim.

Pencils.com salutes Kris Kristofferson on 75 years of brilliant songwriting and distinguished inspiration. Regardless of how much longer he graces stages or recording studios, his words and music will live forever.