The party's all over
Drink up and go home.
It's too late to love her
And leave her alone.
Epitaph (Black and Blue) is evidence of how Kris
Kristofferson took personal heartache and soul-numbing regret and faded-jeans
despair and seldom-success and turned it to poetry.
He sliced open his heart and shared it with the world in his
songs, like this particular one about a lover and a friend who died with a
needle in her arm, figurative and literal.
This song, literally, came to Kris and his wingman “Funky”
Donnie Fritts, the Alabama Leaning Man, when they shared the quiet, after all
of the farewells and tears, after their friend Janis Joplin “died all alone.”
Janis was the best female rock singer ever (I am hyperbolic,
yet truthful). One of her greatest accomplishments was turning Kris’ windshield
wipers-punctuated, harp-driven tale of loneliness and lost souls in a dark, wet
night, “Me and Bobby McGee,” into a Top 40 (when there was such a thing) radio
classic.
Kris -- with the Leaning Man’s musical help -- turned his
heartbreak, Janis’ self-destructive waste, Funky Donnie’s bluesy accompaniment,
and his own “why couldn’t we have saved her from herself and the world”
melancholy and turned it into “Epitaph (Black and Blue),” a song that is one
most people skip over. To say it’s one
of his best is opinion only. How many songs qualify in that ranking?
Fittingly, “Epitaph” is the final song, the 10th
track, from his breakthrough album, The Silver-Tongued Devil and I, that
proved this student of William Blake’s recommended life of excess, an admirer
and by then a friend and student of John R. Cash, was not to be ignored.
He was, with his words, changing the vocabulary of country
music. Yes, there were the beer-soaked pickup lines at The Tally-Ho Tavern – my
own favorite watering hole a half-plus century back.
There also was the lover’s lament – “Loving Her Was Easier
(Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again),” the contradictions offered by beliefs in Christ,
peace and patriotism in “Good Christian Soldier,” the love, innocence and subtle
melancholy of “Jody and the Kid.” Janis’ death, mourned in “Epitaph” is
revisited in “Billy Dee” – “yesterday they found him on the floor of his hotel,
reachin’ for that needle arm that drove him down to hell.” He took his “why?” reaction to Janis’ death
and used it to populate the tale of promise snatched away by the world.
It may be his
soul was bigger than a body's oughta be
singin' songs and bringin' laughter to the likes of
you and me
cause the world he saw was sadder than the one he
hoped to find
but it wasn't near as lonesome as the one he left
behind
yesterday they found him on the floor of his hotel
reachin' towards the needle, Lord, that drove him down
to hell
some folks called it suicide, others blame the speed
but we all called it crucified when Billy Dee O.D.'d
“See him wasted on the sidewalk in his jacket and his jeans, wearing yesterday’s misfortunes like a smile. Once he had a future of money, love and dreams, which he spent like they was goin’ out of style….”
It was that album, his second with his The Border Lords band, that announced to the Baby Boomers -- the folks who digested every word by Dylan and Lennon and McCartney, every wail of Clapton’s and Hendrix’s guitars, every tale of debauchery and resulting conquest by Richards and Jagger … well, you get the idea – that there was a voice as complex on Nashville’s 17th Avenue South. And it was accompanied by Dobro players like Uncle Josh Graves or the flattop picking of Mac Wiseman.
I bought that album in 1971 at the same store and perhaps on
the same shopping trip that I bought Led Zeppelin’s first (and by far, best)
album. A year or so before I bought Steppenwolf’s debut there. Everything by Dylan. Of course, Beatles and
Stones and Sly and Who, Simon & Garfunkel and Airplane, Dead and Messenger
Service. Hell, even Vanilla Fudge and
Iron Butterfly and Moby Grape ended up on my turntable.
But suddenly, there was this voice telling -- not in
psychedelic wordplay but in plain, simple language turned to Blake-style poetry
-- tales of misery and dreams and a cussing kid kicking a can down lonely 17th
Avenue South on a hungover Sunday Morning.
I smoked my brain the night before on cigarettes and
songs that I’d been pickin’.
That song of a regretful and quiet Sunday was on his
self-titled first album (later titled “Me and Bobby McGee” to capitalize on
Janis’ impact).
In that album, that includes “Bobby McGee,” by the way,
there’s a wicked slash at American middle-class hypocrisy – told in a Salvation
Army Band growl -- titled “Blame it on the Stones.
Father's at the office, nightly working all the time
Trying to make the secretary change her little mind
And it bothers him to read about so many broken homes
Blame it on those Rolling Stones.
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In this little piece, I’m only a human being, a Boomer, of hand-rolled,
hoisting Mad Dog vintage, who listened to this man with stubble-bearded wisdom
and values. I’m no music nor social scholar, I’m a normal guy who discovered
Kris’ music as tonic for my own long nights and my real fears of being drafted back
in 1971. So much of this stuff, from the 1960s and 1970s was crafted at 1717 17th
Avenue South – a long-gone, rotting, redneck tenement-like apartment building
where my friend the Rev. Will Campbell told me the floors were dirt, even the
upstairs ones. They also were so flimsy,
Will – a walking contradiction as a civil activist Baptist preacher, liberal
leftist and kind old man – told me he always feared his upstairs neighbor Kris
would come right through the ceiling at the end of a long shift serving and
drinking beer at The Tally-Ho.
Of course, The Tally-Ho Tavern – later The Country Boy – was
actually a character in Kris’ tales. It is where The Silver-Tongued Devil fuels
his seductive nature with a bottle of beer or two.
Kris actually worked at that tavern – now a Curb building is
in that spot – and told me many times about how he was paid something like $50
a week and all he could drink. “I came
out ahead on that,” he’d say, with that charming laugh. It may have been $100 a
week. I am just visiting my head for this tale, not doing any research. If I
miss a lyric or two, a year or two, a street or two, that’s only because my
mental transmission falters with grief.
Kris long-ago moved from Nashville. But he kept coming back.
Waylon, Cash, Vince Matthews, Billy Ray Reynolds, Captain Midnight all were here
to greet him. Now all are dead. One of
his few remaining close friends from those days is Chris Gantry, who, when I
told him how sorry I was that his old friend had succumbed to the physical and
mental maladies of the last many years said: “At least now he’s free.”
On one of Kris’ visits to Nashville, after Johnny Cash died,
he and his family stuck around awhile for a planned tribute special. He’d not
been to Music City Row (as he called it) during the daylight in the 30 years
since he moved West – to Malibu and Maui. Swimming pools. Movie stars … as his friends
Lester and Earl sang.
I asked if he’d like to spend his Sunday with me, walking
down the Row, resurrecting memories of what had been the Hollywood of country (and some rock and blues) recording. I was surprised, kind of, that he took me
up on the idea.
“Can I bring my son, Johnny, along?” he asked.
It was a Sunday Afternoon Coming Down, filled with comrades’
laughter, sure, but always downcast by reality.
“I wish the old stuff
was still here,” or something like that, he said, as we walked what are the
various Music Squares East, West, etc. – the “identities” given to 16th
and 17th avenues south and their cross streets when the city began
to bastardize history for the sake of tourism and to make way for condominiums
where historic homes and recording studios once stood. Hell, my friend Chet Atkins’ office and the
house it was in, the building where the Nashville Sound was fertilized, didn’t
even survive the front-loaders and swinging ball-busters.
In that civic effort, a massive statue of nude dancers,
penises and vaginas fully exposed, was installed in the middle of a new
roundabout in a spot where one of Hank Williams’ homes had stood, neglected.
But now gone. No one in Nashville now
would miss it, of course. And they would have little idea of who Hank Williams
was or that Kris did his best to bring that troubled son of Alabama’s musical
grit intact and even push past those honky-tonk heartache boundaries.
“Look, Ethel, they’re nekkid!” hooted Kris, imitating the
character in an old Ray Stevens’ Shriner song, as we rolled past the massive
statue I refer to as Nudica. It’s impressive, but has little to do with three
chords and the truth.
Of course, I wrote a long story about that day spent with
Kris on Music City Row. I was joyous for the pleasant surprise that was offered
by having Kris and Lisa’s son, Johnny, along for the ride, and the walk. Johnny, 16 then, had no knowledge of his
dad’s history on these streets. Johnny was and remains a great young man, hatched
and raised in the glory that was Maui. (“We are safe, the fires are on the
other side of the island,” Lisa told me when I called after Maui’s “main city,”
Lahaina, disappeared in flames a year ago.)
Johnny made a video of that excursion as his dad and I
walked and talked, as Kris reflected and allowed slight melancholy for what
already was lost – and this was more than 20 years ago – of the history of Music
City Row.
Johnny wanted to share this bit of his dad’s history in a
class project for his school not far from the Kristofferson homeplace on the
edge of a volcano on Maui.
Outside the Curb building, in the space where once stood The Tally-Ho, Kris
and I looked at each other, nodded and put our arms over our shoulders and sang
“The Silver-Tongued Devil and I”:
I took myself down to the Tally-Ho Tavern to buy me a
bottle of beer
I sat me down by a tender young maiden whose eyes were as dark as her hair
And as I was searchin' from bottle to bottle for somethin' unfoolish to say
That silver-tongued devil just slipped from the shadows and smilingly stole her
away
I said hey little girl don't you know he's the devil he's everything that I
ain't
Hidin' intentions of evil under the smile of a saint
All he's good for is gettin' in trouble and shifting his share of the blame
And some people swear he's my double and some even say we're the same
But the silver tongued devil's got nothing to lose I'll only live till I die
We take our own chances and pay our own dues the silver-tongued devil and I…
There were many more days and evenings with Kris (and
usually his family was there, too) for the next couple of decades.
Once, backstage at the Ryman, Kris and Lisa said I was one of their favorite things about visiting Nashville. Perhaps hyperbole? But I know when I got to spend time with them, those were some of my favorite things about living in my world.
One time, in 2005, they were here to promote a racehorse
feel-good movie, Dreamer. The interviews were taking place in his room
at The Hermitage Hotel, but mine was scheduled in the dining room, giving him a
more-casual, friendly respite and time for a few cups of coffee.
I told the greeter at the dining room that Kris was going to
be down there in a few minutes and he and his publicist would be looking for
me. “When he gets here, I’ll just be the
old man sitting at that table way back in the corner,” I said. The table was
well out of eyeshot from the dining room entrance.
Five minutes later, big hands gripped my shoulders from
behind. “Hello, Old Man,” Kris said, with a typical broad laugh.
“Hello, Young Man,” I replied, as I signaled to the waiter
that he’d better bring us a full coffee pot. I had trimmed down to maybe a
dozen cups a day from my 40-cups-a-day heyday.
And I knew Kris liked his coffee bold and black or in a glass over ice,
with a wedge of lime.
There were other stories I wrote about him, about his music
and his movies. There were more times when there was no story, just two old
friends talking about life and family.
Sometimes, those visits turned more into talks with Lisa, as
Kris conducted movie star business. That was fine, as I came not only to love
Lisa but admire her deeply for taking a man whose fast-paced life was directed
toward an early grave and turned him into a happy adult, a great fellow and
friend. The guy who worshiped above all his family and his home. And, obviously,
his music. Lisa said Suzanne and I made
a perfect couple, perhaps because she sensed the similarities of the women’s
challenges and triumphs.
The most foolish I felt during our friendship was when word
came to the guys on my entertainment writing staff that Ray Price had
died. That is big news in Music City,
and so I jumped in with chief music writer Peter Cooper and entertainment
columnist Brad Schmitt to work on getting reaction so we could put a story
together for the front page. (Peter, by the way was a treasure, my best friend
in Nashville, who seemingly had a world of “almost-best friends,” including Kris. He’s
been dead almost two years. Stupid.)
I always chipped in on those deadline obituaries, since it
is hectic to track folks down. I was entertainment editor, and we shared a
“shotgun” approach to quote-getting: Just keep calling and asking and see who
you can get. In the next 40 minutes if not sooner.
I told the guys I’d get Kris, whose “For the Good Times’’
was turned into a forever classic by Ray, who I was fortunate to know. Kris
regarded it as one of his life’s great achievements. So did Ray.
I called and Lisa answered. They were up in Toronto, Canada,
touring. They were out for a seven-mile run, so I told her what had happened,
and she said Kris would call back when they got to the hotel, and he caught his
breath and composure.
Kris called within minutes, and he was both breathless
and teary as I filled him in on the widespread national news reports about the
death of his friend.
Then I immediately called Kris and Lisa to tell them their
friend was still breathing.
“We already sent flowers,” said Kris.
I said I was sorry for the fake news that made he and Lisa
send their condolence floral arrangement, and he thanked me. “Nah, it’s better
this way. He can get the flowers while he’s living.’’
I don’t need to rattle on about other encounters, other
interviews, other chats.
I guess I should add that he was an enthusiast of my writing:
“Tim is a wordsmith unlike any other,” he wrote as a Pilgrims, Pickers and
Honky-Tonk Heroes’ cover blurb after he’d read advance copy. “We’ve shared
some good times together, and he encapsulates the experiences as if they were
yesterday. A truly gifted writer and friend.”
I do need to add though that Kris is one of the main reasons
I’ve spent my half-century as a journalist in the Nashville area.
Once my future was shiny as the seats of my pants are
today, till old mother luck and all her daughters started ducking me.
I’d become a disciple of his music, and especially his
writing, while I was still in college. My folks moved from the Chicago area to
Nashville after my junior year in college.
The thought of spending my last undergraduate summer in
Nashville rather than drinking beer in the leftfield bleachers at Wrigley Field
was tempered by one thing: I was going to make sure I met Kris Kristofferson,
the guy who sang songs that narrated my life so far.
He's a poet, he's a picker
He's a prophet, he's a pusher
He's a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he's stoned
He's a walkin' contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction,
Takin' ev'ry wrong direction on his lonely way back home.
But I did begin taking myself down to the Tally-Ho Tavern to
buy me a bottle of beer. And I wandered Music Row, where I met a lot of guys
with guitars. I did watch as folks like Billy Ray Reynolds, Charlie Daniels,
Funky Donnie Fritts, Billy Swan and Kris picked and sang at the picnic tables
behind the bar. I didn’t interrupt them. I had nothing good to add.
And I went to Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, had long talks with
Tootsie and drank at least one beer. Forty years later, I joined Kris and Lisa
at Tootsie’s where bar owners installed a copper or brass plaque in the floor,
honoring Kris as the first member of their “Floor of Fame.’’
He said a few generous words, then climbed down from the
stage, asking me if I thought his words were OK. I patted his back with approval.
I don’t go to Lower Broadway anymore. Drunken bachelorettes
in crotch-exposing flimsy dresses and conventioneers and tourists stumbling and
barfing really isn’t my scene. So, I have no idea if there have been more
plaques added to the floor at Tootsie’s.
It was in that old lounge that I began to listen to the musicians,
like Lefty, E.T., Porter and the rest talk about their misadventures while they
savored a beer or two between sets across the alley, when the Opry was at the
Ryman full-time.
He has tasted good and evil in your bedrooms and your bars, and he's traded in tomorrow for today, runnin' from his devils Lord and reachin' for the stars and losin' all he's loved along the way ....
In recent years, Kris has been fading. In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, he
and Lisa retired from constant touring and filmmaking and settled in at the
house at the edge of a volcano in Maui.
There have been occasional appearances. A couple of months
ago, he sang with Rosanne Cash at Willie’s televised 90th birthday
tribute. He appeared happy. Withered. Not
well.
After that, as I often have done, I called the home on the
edge of the volcano to check in with Lisa. Most times, I don’t get a voice,
just a message box, and I leave words of love and admiration for Kris, for her
and her beautiful spirit and for his family.
When I learned Kris was gone, that he had died Saturday,
surrounded by his family, I was sad. But I was grateful he was with those whose
lives made his own worth giving up evenings at the Tally-Ho or Tootsie’s or waltzing with the stars on Hollywood
Boulevard to stay home with family. Reading books, picking his guitar. Singing songs and bringing laughter.
“He is happy,” Lisa told me several months ago. “He sits
here and sings his songs.”
One of his favorites was “Here Comes That Rainbow Again,” an
O. Henry-meets-John Steinbeck tale, a look at the sometimes-hidden goodness of
the human spirit.
She sent me a video showing a smiling Kris, out in the yard
in Maui, looking for both ends of the rainbow.
And the daylight was heavy with thunder
With the smell of the rain on the wind
Ain't it just like a human?
Here comes that rainbow again
But if this world keeps right on turnin' for the
better or the worse,
And all he ever gets is older and around
From the rockin' of the cradle to the rollin' of the hearse,
The goin' up was worth the comin' down
Drink up and go home….
Such a heartwarming remembrance of your lovely friendship with my hero. I met him briefly when I worked as Assistant to the GM at King of the Road in 1971. Kris was a beautiful man in every way...
ReplyDeleteThank you, Wanda.
DeleteThat's a beautifully written remembrance, Tim. Worthy of its subject. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jeff
ReplyDelete