Kris Kristofferson Dead at 88

Legendary songwriter Kris Kristofferson has died. The singer, songwriter, actor and country and rock influencer was surrounded by family when he passed on Saturday (Sept. 28) at age 88.

No cause of death was given but family expressed gratitude for their time with him and for his many fans. “Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all,” a statement reads.

Kristoffer Kristofferson was born on June 22, 1936, in Brownsville, Texas. His father was a U.S. Army Air Corps officer, and the family moved frequently during his childhood, eventually settling in San Mateo, Calif., where Kristofferson graduated from high school.

He enrolled in Pomona College in 1954, where he was a star athlete, playing rugby and football and running track and field. After graduating summa cum laude in 1958 with a BA in Literature, Kristofferson — who aspired to be a novelist — earned a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, where he first began playing music while studying for a Master’s degree in English Literature. He released his first recordings for Top Rank Records under the name Kris Carson during that period, which were unsuccessful.

Though he wanted to pursue writing and music, Kristofferson’s family pressured him to join the military, which he did after college, rising to the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army and becoming a Ranger. While stationed in West Germany in the early 1960s, Kristofferson formed a band and resumed his interest in music, and when he was offered a position teaching English Literature at West Point, he decided instead to leave the Army and move to Nashville to pursue songwriting full-time — a move that caused his family to disown him. They never reconciled.

Kristofferson worked odd jobs in Nashville, including a gig as a janitor at Columbia Recording Studios in Nashville, where he met June Carter and gave her a tape to give to Johnny Cash. Weeks later, in a move that would become a Nashville legend, Kristofferson landed a helicopter on Cash’s lawn to get his attention, though contrary to popular myth, he later said Cash was not home at the time. The bold move did get his attention, and Cash cut one of the songs from the tape, “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down,” which became a huge hit and won Kristofferson a CMA Award.

His songs now in demand, Kristofferson earned a slew of cuts as a songwriter over the next few years, including classic hits like Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Once More With Feeling,” Faron Young’s “Your Time’s Comin’,” “For the Good Times” by Ray Price, Waylon Jennings’ “The Taker” and Sami Smith’s rendition of “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” “For the Good Times” won the 1970 ACM Award for Song of the Year, while “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” took the same title at that year’s CMAs.

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Kristofferson launched a solo career in the wake of that attention, releasing his self-titled debut album in 1970. It was initially unsuccessful, but became a success when it was re-issued under the title Me & Bobby McGhee the following year, after Janis Joplin scored a posthumous hit with that song. His second album, The Silver Tongued Devil and I, was a success, yielding the hit “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again), and while his third, Border Lord, was a commercial disappointment, Kristofferson’s fourth album, 1972’s Jesus Was a Capricorn, scored a success with “Why Me,” which went on to become one of his best-known songs.

Kristofferson spent the rest of the 1970s and most of the subsequent decades splitting his time between music and acting, starring in a long string of movies that included forgettable titles like Convoy and Vigilante Force, as well as bright spots including Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and A Star Is Born opposite Barbra Streisand, for which he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor. He continued to record and tour, though his un-commercial sound and increasing focus on writing about social issues meant his commercial peak was behind him.

In 1985 Kristofferson teamed with Willie Nelson, Jennings and Cash to form the Highwaymen, a supergroup that produced a successful album and earned Single of the Year honors at the ACM Awards for “Highwayman,” a Jimmy Webb song. The group recorded a second, less successful album in 1990. He returned to a period of less commercial success as a solo artist in the 1990s, but revitalized his movie career with appearances in films including the Blade trilogy, Planet of the Apes and Payback with Mel Gibson.

Widely considered one of the most important all-genre songwriters of all time, Kristofferson was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985, and the Country Music Hall of Fame followed suit in 2004. He received the BMI Icon Award in 2009, and in 2016 his career was the subject of an all-star tribute concert in Nashville that featured a Who’s Who of past and present country stars performing his songs live, at which Kristofferson himself appeared. He revealed that he was suffering from memory loss in 2013, but continued to act, write and record as his health allowed.

After decades of much-publicized alcohol and drugs, fighting and two failed marriages, the icon seemed to settle into a happy life after marrying his third wife, Lisa Meyers, in 1983. They had five children together, in addition to his three children from two previous marriages. In 2006 he teamed with producer Don Was for This Old Road, the first in a trilogy of albums that included 2009’s Closer to the Bone and culminated in 2013’s Feeling Mortal, a reflection on life, the passage of time and where he was in his life at the age of 76.

“Going back to the beginning, the songs have been reflections of where I was at that point in my life,” Kristofferson said in his official biography. “I always try to be as honest as I can in the songwriting, otherwise there’s no point in doing it: I might as well be doing an advertising job or something. And what I’m finding, to my pleasant surprise at this age, is that I’m more inclined to laughter than tears. I hope I’ll feel this creative and this grateful until they throw dirt over me.”

Kristofferson quietly retired from music in 2020 after one final, star-studded concert performance.

Among his most recent public appearances was last year’s Country Music Hall of Fame Medallion Ceremony where he helped welcome Tanya Tucker and more.

He did the same for Hank Williams Jr. in 2022. His last performance may have been at Willie Nelson’s birthday party in May 2023.

He leaves behind wife Lisa and eight children, plus seven grandchildren.