Kris Kristofferson
USA, 1965–2024
American songwriter and actor (1936-2024), a Rhodes scholar and army captain who swept floors at Columbia Studios in Nashville to be near the work. 'Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down', 'Help Me Make It Through the Night' and 'Me and Bobby McGee' brought adult ambiguity into a form that had not much wanted it.
MusicRoots documents 3 artists who influenced Kris Kristofferson and 0 artists Kris Kristofferson influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.
Who influenced Kris Kristofferson?
- Bob Dylan — Kristofferson credits Dylan with making a different kind of songwriting possible - that you could suddenly write like a poet, in private imagery those old songs had no room for.
- Hank Williams — Hank Williams is the country songwriting Kristofferson started from, before Dylan showed him what else it could carry.
- Johnny Cash — Cash is among the writers Kristofferson names, and the man who first put his songs in front of an audience at the Newport Folk Festival.