Various Artists - Covered: Kris Kristofferson, Volume 1: 1968-1973

In the past couple of weeks (as I write this in October 2024), I've started fixing some cover photos that had some issues with the recently released Krea AI program. Probably the covers that needed the most work were the ones for my "Covered" series, albums that highlight the best songwriters in popular music, especially those who didn't have lots of success with their own versions. I hadn't posted any Covered albums in a long time, but I actually have over a dozen different songwriters (or songwriting teams) ready to go. One thing that held me back though was the cover art, since some of these songwriters have barely been photographed at all. But now that I'm using the Krea AI program, I'm excited to see if good cover art can be made. So I'm going to make an effort to get a whole bunch of these Covered albums posted in the near future.

The logical place to start with this new effort is Kris Kristofferson. That's because he died about two weeks ago (September 28, 2024, specifically) as I write this, so this could make a good way to remember his musical legacy. He was 88 years old when he passed.

Kristofferson was one of the great songwriters for country music, but he wasn't blessed with a great voice. Thus, he was frequently covered by other musical acts, and he had only a few hits of his own. That works well for my Covered series. I only have a few of his albums in my music collection, mostly his most critically praised ones from the early 1970s. But in the wake of his death, there were a bunch of newspaper articles listing what people thought were his best songs (usually top ten lists). So I went through those, and made sure all of his most praised songs were included. 

I found enough material for two solid albums. This is the first one. As I usually try to do with this series, I emphasized cover versions. Only one song (on the second volume) features Kristofferson singing one of his own songs (though there's also a song performed by the Highwaymen, a country supergroup he was a part of).

In the past with these Covered albums, I've written a lot about the artists and the songs. From now on, I'm going to cut that short, so I'll find it easier to post a lot more of these albums. If you want to know a lot more, I suggest reading this Wikipedia page about him:

Kris Kristofferson - Wikipedia

But here's my short version of his career is like this. Kristofferson burst onto the country music scene around the year 1970, when loads of country music stars started covering his songs. Probably the best known cover was "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin, which hit Number One on the U.S. single chart in 1971. But there were others. For instance, in 1970, "For the Good Times" was a Number One country single for Ray Price, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" was Number One country single for Johnny Cash, and "Help Me Make It through the Night" was the same for Sammi Smith. At the time, country music was pretty formulaic, with relatively simple melodies and lyrics. Kristofferson wasn't a big groundbreaker for melodies, but his lyrics really shook up country music with their eloquence and emotional intelligence. One might say he brought a Bob Dylan level of songwriting to country music.

Kristofferson kept his own music career going, while still having his songs frequently covered by others. However, he only had one big hit on his own, "Why Me (Lord)," which reached Number One on the country singles chart in 1974. At the same time he kept a music career going, he also was very successful in the movies, starring in dozens of films, many of them with a country theme.

As usual with this Covered series, I'm sticking to my self-imposed rule of only including one version of any given song. So, for instance, I was torn between the Ray Price and Al Green versions of "For the Good Times." The Price version was a massive hit in 1970, but I liked the Green version better. I had to make many other decisions like that. For instance, dozens of famous musical acts have covered "Help Me Make It through the Night." I also tried not to have more than one song per performer. But I decided to only make that a loose rule. Note for instance two songs done by Johnny Cash here. All the songs are in order of the year these versions came out. Consult the mp3 tags for details on that.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Jody and the Kid (Roy Drusky)
02 From the Bottle to the Bottom (Billy Walker)
03 Sugarman (Sam Baker)
04 Darby's Castle (Roger Miller)
05 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
06 Help Me Make It through the Night (Sammi Smith)
07 Once More With Feeling (Jerry Lee Lewis)
08 To Beat the Devil (Johnny Cash)
09 Me and Bobby McGee (Janis Joplin)
10 I've Got to Have You (Carly Simon)
11 The Taker (Waylon Jennings)
12 Casey's Last Ride (John Denver)
13 For the Good Times (Al Green)
14 Nobody Wins (Lynn Anderson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17230517/COVRDKRISKRISTFFRSN1968-1973Volum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m2XxamgZ

I'm not entirely sure where the cover photo is from. But it looks like it was taken in the early 1970s. The original had some issues, so I used the Krea AI pic to fix it up a bit.