KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
Silver Tongued Devil And I
Monument, 1971
His breakthrough album followed Janis Joplin’s posthumous No 1 hit with “Me And Bobby McGee” and contained “Epitaph”, written in her memory.
Janis having a hit with “Me And Bobby McGee” changed everything. I think it probably got me in the movies, too, because Dennis Hopper loved that song so much and he cast me in The Last Movie. Everything just seemed to fall into place. From then on it was all a big blur. The only problem I had was whether my band were going to show up for work or not!
“Epitaph” was written when Janis died. I hadn’t been able to listen to her singing “Bobby McGee” since it happened. I finally played it in the publisher’s office, there was no one else there so I kept playing it over and over to get used to it, so I wouldn’t break up. Donnie Fritts came in, we started fooling around with a piano, and we wrote and recorded “Epitaph” that night. It’s the kind of song you write because you have to, not because you want to. “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” is about a few other people I knew but it’s about all of us, really – it was the way of life that I believed in at that time. The reception was so positive for all these songs. I felt so confident because everybody liked what I was doing and I was doing it by my own rules. I started to have more faith in myself.
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
Jesus Was A Capricorn
Monument, 1972
A beautifully conceived record, featuring country smash “Why Me” and the teary “Nobody Wins”, a big hit for Brenda Lee the following year.
Steve Earle likes this album a lot. This was right after I’d gotten together with Rita [Coolidge]. There’s a crack team of Nashville session players on it – they were a tremendous bunch of musicians who had all worked with Dylan. Of course I knew all those guys cause I’d been their janitor for years! I remember watching Dylan record Blonde On Blonde with them. He’d sit at the piano all night long and the band would be off playing ping-pong or pool, and then at 5am he’d call them in and they would cut some masterpiece. Nobody ever recorded like that in Nashville back then. It was always three songs in three hours. That had changed a little by the time we made Jesus… but not completely. I had more freedom because I was working for a publishing company that was owned by the record company, and they gave me a lot of space. I was probably quicker than I am today, though! I wrote “Jesus Was A Capricorn (Owed To John Prine)” because I was so influenced by John. When I heard his songs I felt like his writing had kicked me into doing it. You take things from all over the place, though you don’t always admit it! I was really influenced by Roger Miller, Shel Silverstein and Mickey Newbury. Everybody you admire influences you somehow in your art.
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON & RITA COOLIDGE
Full Moon
A&M, 1973
The first of three duet albums with Rita Coolidge, his wife from 1973 to 1980, is a smooth mix of covers and husband/wife co-writes.
I think it was probably my idea. I love singing with people anyway, and I loved to sing with Rita together in harmony. I grew up with the Everly Brothers, harmony was always something I loved, and Rita sang backup with people all the time. Harmony came easily for both of us, it was very natural. I haven’t listened to this in a long time, but I think the songs were more or less what we felt we wanted to do and what the producer David Anderle felt we could do well. It was a very different thing to what I was used to. We recorded it at Sunset Sound in LA – different city, different producer. I was doing so many different things at that time… hell, Booker T Jones was my brother-in-law! [Coolidge’s sister Priscilla had recently married Jones]. I’m sure that I made some stupid mistakes and pissed some people off, but looking back at it now the album went pretty smoothly. I liked working with Rita, it wasn’t tense at that time. We worked well together at first, and it hadn’t gotten to where we were fighting – yet. There were several years that were pretty nice.