Vince Gill sharing some nice words about Kris Kristofferson.
Last weekend, the country music world lost one of the greats when the singer, songwriter and actor passed away in his Maui, Hawaii home at the age of 88. Kristofferson lived a full life, and almost had too many titles too count (country singer, helicopter pilot, bartender, Army Ranger, among other things on a very long list).
When you accomplish as much as Kristofferson and become so ingrained in country music, you are going to have plenty of artists and songwriters share their tributes and stories to honor the icon. Vince Gill was asked about Kristofferson’s passing in a recent interview with American Songwriter, and he had nothing but great things to say about his friend:
“He changed the face of how songs were written here (in Nashville). The vocabulary of his depth was unheard of for here.
I had a song I had written on a record of mine back in 1997 or something. Put it out and never even thought about it. And then one day I was listening to it and it dawned on me that it was the exact same melody as ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night.’ I saw him, said, ‘Hey, I’m really sorry. I think I just completely copied one of your songs.’ He goes, ‘I don’t care.'”
Kristofferson was a pretty easy-going guy.
Gill and his wife Amy Grant went on to recall some pleasant memories they shared with Kristofferson, and named some of their favorite songs from Kris’ catalogue – like “For the Good Times” and “Help Me Make It Through The Night.” Vince stated that it was hard to just pick one or two songs as favorite since the entirety of his work was so impressive:
“Once again, it’s a great testament… would you call this guy a great singer? Not necessarily. But the songs were so stinking great, nobody cared. They’re just so well done. That’s impressive to accomplish…. that legacy of songs.”
And Gill couldn’t talk about Kristofferson without mentioning his favorite story about him, which revolved around the late great country singer and writer finding a creative way to pitch a song to the Man in Black:
“I love the story of him taking the helicopter out to Johnny Cash’s house. He flew helicopters in Vietnam I think and decided he wanted to pitch Johnny ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’ and he rented a helicopter and flew it out and landed it in Johnny’s yard. Took him the tape and Johnny loved it.
(They didn’t know each other), and Johnny ends up doing the song on The Johnny Cash Show. Johnny told Kris, ‘They want me to change the line about being stoned. On network TV, they don’t want (that).’ And Kris said he was there and just wanted him to sing those words and he did. He just basically told them to go to hell. Sang it anyway.”
Truly one of a kind. You can hear Vince Gill and Amy Grant speak more on their favorite Kris Kristofferson memories and moments in the interview below:
