KRIS KRISTOFFERSON & WILLIE NELSON
Music From Songwriter
Columbia, 1984
Oscar-nominated soundtrack to Music Row comic romp starring KK as singer Blackie Buck and Nelson as his partner-in-crime Doc Jenkins.

Ah, Willie! Listen, Willie Nelson was my hero years before I ever met him. Willie was everybody’s hero, he was the underdog favourite. I was just in awe of his work. He had a ranch in Nashville but he was never there, he was always in Texas, so the first time I was really with him was when I was doing Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid with Sam [Peckinpah] down in Mexico. Willie came down to visit and we were fast friends from then on, and he turned out to be one of the funniest human beings on the planet. I liked that film, Songwriter. All my band was in it, and it was creative – by which I mean we were making it up as we were going along! I’d like to bring some of these songs back into my set, there are some things on there that I’m anxious to do: “Crossing The Border”, “Eye Of The Storm”… “Final Attraction” is a good one. They were all written for the film, apart from “Under The Gun”, which I had written already. Honestly, I’ve never really been able to write on assignment. All the albums that I’ve done I’ve used them as a diary of what is going on with me at the time.

THE HIGHWAYMEN
The Highwaymen
Columbia, 1985
Four titans of country music – Kristofferson, Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings – pool their talents to form an outlaw super group.

Oh, it was incredible. I had to pinch myself, standing up there with these guys who were my heroes, going around the world singing together as good friends. Although I know I wasn’t so in awe of them that I didn’t get into a few arguments – we were all pretty, uh, self-sufficient and expressive. I remember singing harmony with John on one of his songs and finally he looked at me and said, “Nobody ever sings harmony on that song with me.” I was so embarrassed. I quit singing it and then later he asked me to sing it with him! So I guess he felt shitty about it, too. Johnny never did get to be life-sized, he was always larger than life.

The whole thing was down to [producer] Chips Moman. He wanted us to sing together on Jimmy Webb’s “The Highwayman”, it came off well so he asked us to sing some others and the next thing you knew we had an album. I’m amazed that it worked, because everyone was such an individual – Willie is like a jazz singer over there, all by himself. We’d get back together every few years and we had some great times on the road. There was enough mutual respect that we put aside anything small. As long as we could just deal with each other and not have to deal with all the wives we did pretty well!

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
A Moment Of Forever
Justice Records, 1995
After a difficult ‘80s, the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship with Don Was marks a resurgence in Kristofferson’s recorded work.

I first started working with Don back when nobody wanted to work with me. My marriage had broken up, I was a bachelor father staying at home raising my daughter, and I’d done Heaven’s Gate, which was one of the biggest bombs of all time. Out of that you get a song like “Shipwrecked In The Eighties”, I guess. I’m sure my songwriting might have suffered in those times when I was doing so much film work, but at the same time I was expressing myself that way, too. I never intended to be an actor, or a performer for that matter. Looking back at it now I can’t believe I was so audacious – and so lucky, because it all worked out.

So Don came along at the right time and we really got along so well, and we do even better today. He brings the best out of artists, I swear. He is a very inspiring person to work with and I’ve been really grateful for the things that I’ve put together with him. A Moment Of Forever was the first one, and I thought it was really good. It’s got a lot of good songs on it. I think I’ve lightened up on my self criticism as I get older. I figure I don’t have to worry about it anymore.