Kris Kristofferson

Rhodes scholar.

Outlaw troubadour.

Movie star.

Highwayman.

Songwriter.

Kris Kristofferson is one of American music’s greatest artists, a songwriter of uncommon emotion, lyrical dexterity and passionate intensity. His songs have been recorded by a stunning variety of artists, from Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson to Frank Sinatra, Bryan Ferry and Janis Joplin. “THE AUSTIN SESSIONS” — Kristofferson’s Atlantic Records debut and first new recording since 1995 — finds this consummate musician revisiting a number of his best-loved songs.

“THE AUSTIN SESSIONS” sees this three-time Grammy Award-winner performing all-new renditions of such classics as “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “Help Me Make It Through The Night,” and of course, “Me And Bobby McGee,” backed by the cream of Nashville and Austin’s session players, including John Willis (guitars), Stephen Bruton (mandolin), Paul Franklin (steel guitar), Larry Paxton (bass), Jim Cox (organ, piano, accordian), Joe Spivey (fiddle), and Mike Baird (drums). In addition, Kristofferson’s unmistakably rough-hewn vocals are supported by harmonies from such famous fans as Steve Earle, Jackson Browne, Matreca Berg, Vince Gill, Mark Knopfler, Catie Curtis, and Atlantic recording artist Mark Cohn. With its striking new versions of songs we know by heart, “THE AUSTIN SESSIONS” stands as yet another shining moment in Kris Kristofferson’s long remarkable career.

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Kris Kristofferson was born June 22, 1936 in Brownsville, Texas, just across the border from Matamoros, Mexico. The son of an Air Force Major-General, he spent much of his youth moving around the country to wherever his father was stationed. After finishing high school in San Mateo, California, Kristofferson attended Pomona College, where he majored in Creative Literature. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, where he studied William Blake, while never abandoning his lifelong admiration for Hank Williams.

After a stint as an Army pilot, he declined a teaching post at West Point and moved to Nashville to pursue a writing career in the country music scene. He took on various jobs, including bartender, janitor at Columbia Studios, and helicopter pilot ferrying workers and execs back and forth to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1970, his music career began in earnest when his “Sunday Morning Coming Down” — which his friend Johnny Cash had turned into a Number One hit — won the Country Music Association’s “Country Music Song of the Year.” In addition, Kris received the Nashville Songwriters Association’s “Songwriter of the Year” award, quite the honor for a relative newcomer to Music City USA. The following year, Janis Joplin released her instantly classic rendition of Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” (which had been previously covered by Roger Miller), notching another Number One chart success. That year also saw Sammi Smith’s version of his “Help Me Make It Through the Night” becoming a crossover hit on both the country and pop charts. “Help Me Make It Through The Night” brought Kristofferson his first Grammy Award, for “Best Country Song.”

In 1973, Kristofferson saw two of his albums — “THE SILVER TONGUED DEVIL” and “JESUS WAS A CAPRICORN” (which included Kristofferson’s first Number One hit as a singer, “Why Me”) — earn RIAA gold. His duet collaborations with Rita Coolidge brought him a pair of “Best Country Vocal Performance By A Duo or a Group” Grammy Awards, for “From The Bottle to the Bottom” in 1973, and “Lover Please” in 1975.

Kristofferson’s acting career also took off in the early ’70s, beginning with Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie (1971). Among his many acclaimed perfomances are roles in such classic films as Cisco Pike (1972); Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973); Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) and Convoy (1978); Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974); The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976); the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born (for which he received the Golden Globe Award for “Best Actor”); Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980); Alan Rudolph’s Songwriter (1984) and Trouble In Mind (1985); John Sayles’ Lone Star (1996) and Limbo (1998); James Ivory’s A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries (1998); Blade (1998); and Payback (1999).

For his many contributions to music, Kristofferson has been named to the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. In addition to his acting and solo careers, Kristofferson is also a member of the outlaw country supergroup, the Highwaymen, with his longtime friends Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. The group has released three well-received albums: “THE HIGHWAYMEN” (1985), “THE HIGHWAYMEN 2” (1990), and “THE ROAD GOES ON FOREVER” (1995).

The stunning songs of “THE AUSTIN SESSIONS” make plain that this multi-talented tunesmith is, quite simply, an American musical treasure. While his career may haven taken many twists and turns over the years, Kris Kristofferson still lists “writer” as his occupation on his passport.

“It’s where the stuff you feel in your heart is expressed, it’s the closest thing to your soul,” he says of his work. “To me it’s satisfying to express things that you feel and have other people say, ‘That’s exactly how I feel, too.’”