Kris Did More Than Make Us Swoon

Kris Kristofferson’s life was on the upswing when he visited New Haven in June of 1983 to perform at Toad’s Place. Four months earlier he had remarried, landing Lisa Meyers, who would remain with him for the rest of his life — up until his death this week at 88. He had stopped drinking, had cut out marijuana and he even took a run around the New Haven Green that afternoon. He and his new bride were looking forward to welcoming their first child.

“I’ve got my life back together,” he told me when I interviewed him for the New Haven Journal-Courier in “the green room” downstairs at Toad’s. “I run just about every day now, since I quit drinking and smoking. I’m cleaning up my act!”

Throughout our brief interview, I reported, “the squealing continued outside the door.” A few of the excited female mob overrunning the club had managed to get downstairs. Many of them had camped outside Toad’s on chaise lounge chairs as early as 6 a.m. That’s why the headline of my story was “Daddy Kris still makes ‘em swoon.”

This was happening because Kristofferson was more of a movie star than a popular musician. At that point he had already appeared in, among other films, “A Star Is Born,” “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” “Blume in Love, “Semi-Tough” and “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”

Also: “Heaven’s Gate.” Remember that one? It’s often cited as one of the all-time epic Hollywood flops. Kristofferson was a tad defensive about this when we spoke. Acknowledging it “wasn’t appreciated by the critics,” he said, “No one got a chance to see it. I thought it was a real piece of art. The critics attacked Michael (Cimino, the director) so viciously because he attempted something great.”

He then rhapsodized about the movie “Gandhi,” saying it inspired him to write a song about Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ. “I’ve been a religious person for a long time. Maybe I’m expressing it more now. But I don’t go to church. I’m not into organized religion.” (However, the last thing he said to that adoring crowd at Toad’s was “God bless you.”)

During our interview, when Kristofferson got back to discussing his lifestyle changes, he said his daughter Casey, then nine, “told me she wished I’d start smoking again because I was so grumpy.”

He threw back his head and laughed. I reported what happened next: “There was a knock on the door and a half-dozen lucky women were escorted in to be photographed with the star, who cheerfully put his arms around various shoulders.”

I also reported about that night: “He was besieged by hordes of women. They screamed and sighed long into the night as he performed two sets, then had to make his way through the eager women waiting outside his dressing room as well as those surrounding his tour bus.”

Kristofferson had treated them to some of his most popular songs, including “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “Me and Bobby McGee,” which Janis Joplin recorded just before she died. It became her only number one hit.

From my review: “They loved him when he smiled, when he took off his black leather jacket, when he sang his ballads. Women of all ages swooned as he crooned, ‘Lay your head upon my pillow. Hold your warm and tender body close to mine.’”

In the book I co-wrote with Toad’s owner Brian Phelps, “The Legendary Toad’s Place: Stories From New Haven’s Famed Music Venue,” I quoted “Tank” Dunbar, who had his hands full overseeing security the night of the Kristofferson show. He remembered the guy as being “a chick magnet.”

“The women wanted him but he didn’t want them,” Dunbar told me. ”He was just a friendly guy who signed autographs after the show until the line was done. A husband who was dropping off his wife for one of those shows said to her: ‘Just don’t come home pregnant.’ And I’m wondering, ‘Why is he bringing her here?’ I told her, ‘I don’t think you’re going to get pregnant tonight.’”

Kristofferson really just wanted to be remembered as a good songwriter. “Writer” was the occupation he listed on his passport. And the lines he came up with are still quoted everywhere, especially this from “Me and Bobby McGee” — “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.”

On Tuesday morning of this week, after I learned Kristofferson had left us, I put on his CD “The Austin Sessions” while driving up the Connecticut coastline and marveled at his lyrics. Here’s another, from “Sunday Morning Coming Down” — “Well, I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt/ And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad. So I had one more for dessert.”

It’s true what the Toad’s bouncer “Tank” Dunbar said about Kristofferson: despite the man’s many talents, he was “just a friendly guy.” And he showed that by giving me a few minutes of his time, and being nice to all the women who came out to see him that night in New Haven.