Kristofferson Enchants Audience With Humor And Song At Ford Theater

Kris Kristofferson is hardly a crooner, and he barely knows his way around a handful of chords on the guitar. And yet as his intimate, sold-out show at the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Ford Theater on Tuesday confirmed, the man who did more than anyone to bring country songwriting into the modern era sure can hollow the marrow out of the human desire for intimacy and connection.

You have moved around a bit and have written about those moves in your songs. What is it about moving that inspires you to write about your transitions?

You know, it’s funny. I was reading a book about Steve Earle a few years ago, and in it he mentioned that he was always buying new guitars because he felt that he would write the guitar out of songs… as if to say that the songs were stuck in the guitar until he would get them down on paper, but that there was only a finite number of tunes in there. That statement was interesting to me, because I’ve always felt that way about places. There’s something about a new place that inspires me to write at a pace that’s about 4 or 5 times faster than I would in a familiar place… and that lasts for a while. So, with each new move I make, my writing seems to enjoy some sort of revival. It’s like creativity transplant for my brain, or something.