Kris Kristofferson - Austin Sessions (12 tracks) +Album Reviews

The Silver-Pilgrim-Bobby Mc Sunday Morning Devil

Shell-Zee | Long Island, NY | 03/04/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"How can anyone not give Kris BIG KUDOS for revisting some of his signature songs. You know he's that Silver-Pilgrim-Bobby McSunday Morning-Devil! Well HELL! He's more than that. He's even Willie's good buddy and he's Johnny Cash's favorite songwriter. So roll on Kris I'm lovin' this great-great CD...And you keep on keepin' on good friend."

RHODES SCHOLAR, U.S. ARMY VETERAN, ACTOR, SINGER-SONGWRITER.

ol' nuff n' den sum | the Virginia coast, USA | 07/02/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Kris Kristofferson has written some of country music's greatest songs; Me and Bobby McGee, Help Me Make It Through The Night, For The Good Times, Sunday Morning Coming Down, Why Me Lord. He is a Rhodes Scholar (Oxford), a standout collegiate athelete (football, rugby), a Vietnam War-era U.S. Army veteran, a helicoptor pilot and a movie-star who's starred as a leading man in several major Hollywood productions. The guy is an American icon.

This 1999 album finds Kris in Austin, Texas (his home state) re-recording his greatest songs with backing vocals from friends like Jackson Browne, Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, Mark Knopfler and Steve Earle.

The songs were recorded live in the studio with acoustic guitars, mandolins, harmonica, piano and pedal steel guitar. The album is very well produced and the crispness of the acoustic sound really stands out. The performances are inspired, energetic and focused.

Kristofferson's songs are so real, alive and human that they are almost out of fashion in this modern age of music where sometimes it seems that self-serving arrogance is the order of the day. As I listen to these songs today, I can remember when they were hits and winning awards (how can we ever forget the long-haired Kris in 1970; showing up wasted at the CMA Awards show on TV, and staggering up to the podium to accept his award for best song, Sunday Morning Coming Down). The world has changed tremendously since then, but the basic human condition that Kristofferson so penetratingly sings about in these songs is still the same. Kris can say it better than I ever could:

He has tasted good and evil in your bedrooms and your bars

And he's traded in tomorrow for today

Running from his devils and reaching for the stars

And losing all he's loved along the way

But this world keeps right on turning for the better or the worse

And all he ever gets is older and around

From the rocking of the cradle to the rolling of the hearse

The going up was worth the coming down

"

Vivid, Striking, and Boldly Performed

Karl W. Nehring | Ostrander, OH USA | 07/25/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD is a reminder of just how many really good songs Kris Kristofferson was responsible for back in the `70s, most of them made into hits by artists other than Kristofferson himself, although he did put out several albums that achieved something of a cult status. A quarter of a century later, Kristofferson has stepped into the studio to revisit his old songs, enlisting the help of some fellow musicians to sing a little harmony (with mixed results: Jackson Browne sounds completely disengaged from and hopelessly irrelevant to "Me and Bobby McGee," Steve Earle stays pretty well in the background but sounds natural in "Sunday Morning Coming Down," Matraca Berg adds a nice touch to "For the Good Times," Vince Gill seems completely miscast singing along with Kris in "Help Me Make It Through the Night," Marc Cohn adds some harmonically helpful vocal support to "Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)," Vince Gill and Alison Krauss sound right at home in "Why Me?," Catie Curtis adds a nice touch to "Nobody Wins," and Mark Knopfler adds both his distinctive guitar style and his voice to the final cut, "Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends."

The arrangements are straightforward, with a minimum of instrumentation (typically a guitar or two, bass, and drums), and the tonal balance is rich and warm--it sounds like a studio job mixed on the board rather than in the air, but it has that nice punchy sound, with no edge, the net result being a sound that will come across well on a variety of audio systems, both at home and on the road.

These songs may be familiar, but they still pack a wallop. They may be melodramatic, but they are fun to listen to, and you may well find yourself singing along. But these songs can also be disturbing. I was playing this CD in our van one evening, really enjoying it, singing along with some of the songs, when suddenly my 17-year-old daughter exclaimed from the back seat, "Dad, how can you listen to this whole CD?! Every song is about beer and fooling around and it's just so--I don't know..." It was clear that she really hated it, and she could not understand how I could possibly like it.

She's right, in a way. The songs really are about sin and self-pity, with a little self-abuse and self-aggrandizement thrown in for good measure. Not a very pretty picture, and not something you would like to think that your father relates to. I suppose the reason many of us like these songs is that they express things we feel hints of but are mostly lucky enough to avoid. "Sunday Morning Coming Down," for example, is a song that resonates deeply in my soul, but I have certainly never been that lonely or that wasted. Maybe hearing it and singing along with it makes me feel glad that I never have been the lonely or that wasted--or makes me feel glad to realize that I have been able to avoid making the bad choices that could easily lead to my having been so. Hearing the song makes me feel lucky--and blessed.

This is something that my daughter does not begin to see or feel, and as a father, I rejoice in her innocence and am in a way quite pleased that she finds this music so revolting. She's a great kid whose favorite group is They Might Be Giants, a group that I get a kick out of but will never like as much as she does, even though I am so glad that she really likes them. They are fun and stimulating in a positive way, worlds apart from Kris Kristofferson.

Enough dimestore literary criticism and pop psychology--the point is that these songs are vivid and striking, boldly performed and recorded. If you have ever enjoyed any of Kris Kristofferson's songs, you are going to want to pick up this CD."

Texas tea and sympathy.

Yaakov (James) Mosher | Connecticut, USA | 08/08/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"You don't realize what a giant of American poetry and songwriting Kris Kristofferson is until you hear a CD full of him doing his own stuff. Success of friends like fellow Highwayman Johnny Cash ("Sunday Morning Coming Down") singing KK's material has partially obscured KK's greatness. "The Austin Sessions" will cause any scales of obscurity/ignorance to fall from the eyes.

Recorded at Arlyn Studios in Austin, Texas, in 1999, Kristofferson reviews his art on the cusp of a new century in powerful and very spiritual ways. Remarks in the CD's jacket notes bring to mind the biblical prophecy of the valley of the bones (Ezekiel 37) - Kristofferson: "Time and the road have whittled the fat away `til there is nothing but bone and sinew. I am struck by how alive they are...I will carry these versions of these songs as my artistic ID into the hereafter." And, at that time, Kris, I suspect you'll be dealt kindness and truth since that's the road you chose in life.

An all-star cast backs Kristofferson in "The Austin Sessions" including Jackson Browne (harmony vocal on "Me and Bobby McGee"), Marc Cohn, Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straights. The pace and messages are pure Kristofferson, though.

True fans will notice subtle changes. Contra Janis Joplin's rendition, Bobby McGee is a woman in KK's version. Kristofferson changes the line in "Help Me Make It Through The Night" from "...it's SAD to be alone..." to "...it's BAD to be alone..." (although the jacket lyrics lists the original "sad" line). Again, the artist is reaching for something highly spiritual/biblical - see Genesis 2:18 when G-d says it's not good ("lo tov" in Hebrew) for man to be alone.

Kristofferson also displays a Jewish sensibility in the "Silver-Tongued Devil and I" when he describes the Devil as being in all of us (known as the yetzer ha-ra, or evil inclination, in Judaism) as opposed to an identifiable personage walking around sporting horns, a red tail, and pitchfork. KK bridges it wisely here and in "To Beat The Devil" when he shows the Devil to be like a whole other personality yet as tied to us as our own shadows.

"Why Me?" is a potent Christian spiritual. Its gratitude and contrition could do more to promote true G-dly living than 100 speeches by Reverend...Well, let's leave off the names. Sadly, Kristofferson's music isn't played much on Christian radio and much less on corporatized, bulls**tized mainstream radio. This great song is falling between the cracks. Past time that it made its way into Protestant hymnals and the air waves.

Insightful social commentary also flows from Kristofferson's pen. Historian Tony Judt, in his fine collection of essays "Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century," wonders if Western man has accepted the ethos of globalist capitalism along the lines of how Karl Marx explained the "iron laws" of economics. KK comes at the question in a different way, showing us that economics can't be dismissed although Judt and Kristofferson would agree that economics isn't an end-all. In "To Beat The Devil," Kristofferson urges persistence against what seems like a stacked deck.

"You see the Devil haunts the hungry man

You don't want to join him

You gotta beat him

I ain't saying I beat the Devil

But I drank his beer for nothing

Then stole his song."

Freedom isn't an end-all either. Note the crucial difference between Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee" and Kristofferson's. The Full-Tilt Boogie Band Janis version reflects the spirit of the 1960s, holding out freedom as The Goal. Janis sings: "Nothin' ain't worth nothing IF it ain't free." A mature Kristofferson is skeptical of that - "Nothin', ain't worth nothing BUT it's free." KK seems to have found something higher than freedom. The CD cover photo of Kris prominently sporting a wedding ring may be the answer.

Looking from one end of his life to the other, our artist with the redundant name (little joke there) concludes "The Austin Sessions" with "The Pilgrim: Chapter 33" and "Please Don't Tell Me How The Story Ends." (Tell me if you don't recognize yourself in these lines).

Past and present:

"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 walking contradiction

Partly truth and partly fiction

Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home."

("The Pilgrim: Chapter 33.")

Present and future:

"Never's just the echo of forever

Lonesome as a love that might have been

Let me go on lovin' and believin' `til it's over

Please don't tell me how the story ends."

"

Search - Kris Kristofferson :: Austin Sessions

CD Details

Synopsis

Similar CDs

Similarly Requested CDs

CD Reviews