Great line-up of musicians take part in special evening of music by Kris Kristofferson and others tonight (Saturday) at Luddington Village Hall
A special evening of music by Kris Kristofferson and others takes place at Luddington Village Hall this Saturday (23rd November) from 7.30pm.
Entitled ‘Once More for Dessert’ the charity music night will support CRISIS and Macmillan Cancer Support.
The celebration of great music features a host of fine artists, including: Nigel Clark (Dodgy); Dan Sealy (Ocean Colour Scene); Steve Steinhaus; Chessi O'Dowd; with musical direction comes from Jack Blackman and Jono Wright.
Tickets are £10 from www.luddington.org/events/luddington-live-music - and must be booked in advance. Raffle is cash only; bar takes card or cash.
Ahead of the Luddington concert, Steve Sutherland looks back at the life of great actor and musician, Kris Kristofferson.
Back in October 1992, Sinéad O’Connor was taking part in Bob Dylan’s 30th anniversary concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden. And the crowd were loudly booing her because a few days earlier, O’Connor had torn up a photo of Pope John Paul II on the satirical TV programme Saturday Night Live to draw attention to child abuse in the Catholic church.
The crowd grew so hostile that the show came to a halt. On the bill that night were Dylan himself, George Harrison, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Chrissie Hynde and Lou Reed among others but only one performer was brave enough to come out on stage and risk his career and livelihood to support O’Connor as she stood silent while the crowd had a go at her. That man was Kris Kristofferson.
“I walked out to her and whispered, ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down’,” he recounted later. "She smiled and said: ‘I’m not down.’ It seemed to me very wrong, booing that little girl. But she was always courageous.”
Kristofferson was what we used to call, before it became unfashionable, a man’s man. Born in Texas, raised in an army family that travelled a lot, he was a collegiate sports star and earned an honorary doctorate in literature. In 1958, at the age of 22, he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, where he got a blue for boxing. Upon graduation he joined the US army and became a helicopter pilot before leaving the military to try his hand as a songwriter in Nashville.
He struggled for a while, working as a janitor, but eventually his songs reached Johnny Cash who liked the cut of his gib. The songs Kristofferson wrote were raw to the bone and lyrically economical heralding an outlaw revolution in American country music which had succumbed to saccharine production and cliched sentimentality by the late-1960s. Sunday Mornin' Coming Down, Help Me Make It Through The Night and Lovin’ Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again) still stand as stone cold classics no matter their genre, composed with the unvarnished simplicity and unflinching honesty of short story writers like John Cheever and Larry Brown. And whether sung by others or by himself in his untutored gravelly voice, they struck a chord of emotional recognition with the public and Janis Joplin took his Me & Bobby McGee posthumously to the top of the US charts in 1971 where it stayed for weeks.
He also garnered plaudits for his role in The Highwaymen – a supergroup he formed with like-minded country renegades Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash.
Another notch to his belt was that Kristofferson became a splendid actor, his rugged good looks and laid-back, laconic demeanour a throwback to Gary Cooper and forerunner of Harrison Ford. While his work will forever feature in lists of the greatest country music songs of all time, so will his contributions to the movie business where his resume is second to none, his talents employed by an admirable posse of legendary directors. He was Sam Peckinpah’s lead in the memorial Western Pat Garret & Billy The Kid and also featured in a trio of other Peckinpah greats. Dennis Hopper put him in the Last Movie, Martin Scorsese cast him in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, he was the main character in Michael Cimino’s ill-fated but since feted Heaven’s Gate and he won a Golden Globe for his performance alongside Barbra Streisand in the 1976 version of A Star Is Born.
Despite his success, Kristofferson was one of that rare breed who didn’t let threat to his fame or fortune gag him from expressing his opinion on things he considered mattered far more. He opposed the Gulf and Iraq wars, spoke out against Apartheid in South Africa and performed benefit concerts in aid of Native American causes and Palestinian children, the latter of which, he said with good humour, “found (me) a considerable lack of work as a result.”
He died in his family home on Hawaii on 28th September at the age of 88, rightly mourned and eulogised as an awesome talent and stand-up guy.
Kristofferson said that he would like the first three lines of Leonard Cohen's Bird on the Wire on his tombstone:
Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
Upcoming concert: One More For Desert
A celebration of music by the likes of Kris Kristofferson is on offer from a host of top musicians at Loxley Village Hall on Saturday, 23rd November, 7pm.
One More For Dessert is a celebration and charity night with an amazing line-up including:
Nigel Richard Clark (Dodgy), Dan Sealey Music, Steve Steinhaus of Boss Acoustic: The Sounds of Springsteen, Chessi O'Dowd, Jack Blackman, Jono Wright, Greg Brice Music, Katherine Abbott, Jen Waghorn, Geoff Carr, Jon Beynon, Jon Bird, Ben Haines, Chris Quirk, James Maguire, Renny Badham, Euan Blackman, Dom James, Tom Forbes, plus poetry from Spoz Giovanni Spoz Esposito and loads more talented artists.
Tickets £10, no tickets on the door, all must be booked in advance from from: https://www.luddington.org/
Everyone is giving their time for free so we can raise money for Crisis and Macmillan Cancer Support.
There will be a cash raffle on the night and Bottle Bar run by volunteers - profits from Bar go to the Village Hall Charity to help with upkeep and ensuring it can stay open.
