On Saturday, Chris Christofferson died. He was 88 years old. He died at home peacefully with family around him. I thought I'd spend today on the Daily Grateful talking a little bit about Chris and telling you something a little personal about him, having to do with one of my family members.
Let's think about this for a while. My goodness. Welcome to the Daily Grateful, I'm Michael Croes. Chris Christofferson was born on June 22, 1936.
Gosh, he was old in Brownsville, Texas. He was raised in a military family. Yeah. His dad was an Air Force officer and they expected Chris to follow in his footsteps, which he started to.
You know, he served as a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army after completing his degree because, you know, he became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University where he studied literature and became interested in writing and music, but still joined the service. But he decided that wasn't for him. His breakthrough was as a songwriter.
He got a job at Columbia Records in Nashville as a janitor while he was trying to break into the music industry. And Johnny Cash heard one of his songs because, you know, when Johnny Cash was such a nice man, he knew Chris because Chris cleaned up things. And he recorded one of his songs called Sunday Morning Coming Down in 1970, which became a huge hit. And then that was the beginning of the Chris Christofferson that we knew.
But, you know, he was not one-dimensional in any stretch of the imagination. He wrote a lot of hits like me and Bobby McGee that we all heard Janice Joplin sing. Help me make it through the night for the good times. Loving her was easier than anything I'll ever do again.
These songs, they just, you know, gave him such a reputation. And then he wanted to get out in front of people and sing. And he had a couple of albums. His debut album in 1970, Chris Christofferson was followed up by another one.
I think it was called Silver Tog Devil. And they both earned them. You know, lots of acclaim. I remember when these albums came out.
I said, this guy doesn't have the greatest voice in the world. But my goodness, the way he sings, you can just feel the emotion coming through it. It was really good. In the 1980s, he joined forces with Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash and Whalen Jennings.
And they formed a group called The Highwayman. It was like a country music version of a rock supergroup. As a matter of fact, they were the first country supergroup. I think they may have been the only.
I'm not sure. But I'm going to tell you something else. Again, not being one dimensional. He became an actor because he had these really rough looks.
All right. And he was in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Alice doesn't live here anymore in 1974. A star is with Barbara Streis and I got to tell you.
He and Barbara Streis and when they recorded that, when they made that movie, they did all of the songs live on film. In other words, they didn't, you know, when people do these musical type movies, they go into a recording studio and they record the music and then they lip sync it on film. No. In this movie, every song that you saw them sing in a star is born.
They were singing it live onto the film, which made it more authentic and better. I love that movie when it came out. Gosh, I think he won a Golden Globe. I'm not sure.
He was a political activist. But in later years, he struggled with health. But before we get to that, I want to talk about the Clearwater Rock Festival that happens, I believe, in New York. And several years ago, my son Tyler, my oldest son Tyler, who is a down syndrome person, if you don't know, and a music expert.
You ask, I will not go to a trivia contest without Tyler because Tyler, when it comes to rock music, 50, 60, 70s, 80s, even now, he knows all the answers. And, you know, he had our team winning all the damn time. But, and also Tyler was not afraid to talk to anybody. And at the, that years ago, at the Clearwater Festival, Chris Kristofferson came walking by and Tyler just walked up to him.
He was with his brother Kyle. Tyler was with my other son Kyle. He just walked up to him and introduced himself to him. And they sat down and talked for the longest time.
And they talked about music. They talked about acting. They talked about his ex-wives. You know, and, and I think Chris was surprised, you know, that he knew so much about his second wife because she was a recording artist as well.
And, read a Coolidge. And Tyler knew some of her songs. And Chris was impressed with that. Anyway, that was a meeting that they had there.
Let's fast forward a couple of years, several years. Clearwater, Florida now, where Tyler now lives. And he's, they're filming a movie here about a dolphin. I forget, Dolphin Tail.
And I think they were doing Dolphin Tail too. And, Chris Kristofferson was in it. And they had a call for extras. And, of course, Tyler's an actor.
If he didn't know that. He's an actor. He showed up for that. Well, guess who he runs into there?
He runs into Chris Kristofferson who remembered him. And, again, they had a wonderful conversation. It's been a lot of time together talking. And, you know, I feel as though they were friends.
Today, when I opened up Tyler's Facebook page, he had changed his profile picture to a picture of him and Chris that was taken in Clearwater, Florida. And he was just a great guy. He had a lot of health issues later in life. He had memory loss.
People originally thought he had Alzheimer's disease. But then later, they found out he actually had Lyme disease. And he kept, he just kept performing into his 80s after that. He just kept going back at it.
And finally, I think in 2021 in Florida, he put on his last concert. And pretty much retired at that stage of the game. But his impact on both country music, Hollywood, is very profound. His impact on the way he treated people, especially my son Tyler, is extremely profound.
He was just an incredible guy, an incredible actor, and an incredible musician. With a daily grateful, I'm Michael Grusch.