It’s a sundown time, these days. For most of my life I’ve been a follower of poets, actors & gypsy singer-songwriters.  But it seems now, these legends who have helped me make sense of the world are aging and following an old road toward a horizon that’s in descent.

When Kris Kristofferson died peacefully at his home in Hana, Hawaii on September 28.  I knew this would not be just any celebrity passage. I was not a casual fan of Kris. His words & music filled holy kind of space from childhood to present day.  His passing took me back in time 54 years. And even though I did not know him, I mourn this loss.  It helps to remember, to reconstruct the original experience of hearing one of America’s finest songwriters.

The summer of 1970 was lonely for this 15-year-old awkward, shy acne covered kid.  I was born in West Texas but raised in Manhattan Beach, California, a mile from the Pacific Ocean. The counterculture and the music it spawned were all around me.  And I absorbed all of it. But my family’s musical origins came from hoe-down Saturday nights with my stepfather, L.W. Hutson and his best friend, Uncle Ed Blackwell.  They learned their instruments in the West Texas Panhandle town of Tulia. When they got together, they would break out their fiddles and guitars and consjure up some fine homemade country music.

One of my mother’s ways to nurture her children was to sing to them. Hank Williams was her favorite, so I grew up going on long road trips to the San Bernadino Mountains with her singing “Kawliga,” “Jambalaya” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” at my request. We were a strange bunch of West Texas transplants. We lived in a small grey beach bungalow a mile from the Pacific Ocean’ Along with the country music we brought with us, we were devoted members of the First Southern Baptist Church of Manhattan Beach. From there the vintage Baptist hymns would go sailing out into the western winds of Southern California. As I grew into a teen, after my older siblings left home, I had a few close friends who shared my love for the rock music of our times. We were raised on local bands who played high school gymns and small pub.  The bands who were local to us included The Beach Boys, The Doors, Love, The Turtles, and Buffalo Springfield.

When my family moved in 1970 to the small college village of La Verne, 50 miles east, a drive-by town off Route 66, I experienced the loneliest summer of my young life. It was hot, but the beach was out of my reach.  I had a stereo and my record collection, which became my best friends.

During that summer of 1970 I closed myself up in my bedroom with the stereo and my black & white television and allow myself to be transported to whatever came on through air waves.  That was the summer I discovered James Dean in East of Eden and Jack Kuroac’s On the Road.  On one hot July night, television lit up my dark room and became a holy space.  It was the first time I saw Kris Kristofferson.  He didn’t look like a country singer. He looked like a folk troubadour with shoulder-length hair and holding his acoustic guitar backed only by the low hum of an organ and a bass player. He was singing country songs. Original songs. His low, soulful bass voice was rough-edged, but gentle. The only song I had heard was “Sunday Morning Coming Down” by Johnny Cash.  For 30 minutes, I was transfixed. It was hearing his stories of Casey’s Last Ride and Darby’s Castle were like short stories…..I had never heard country songs like these. He took storytelling through songs to a level I had only experienced with Bob Dylan and Hank Williams.  There in the dark of my lonely room, I felt not quite as alone as I did before hearing Kris.  His songs touched me down to the bone.  They have stayed there all of these years. Sometimes, when I’m tired, feeling down or need to rest my mind, the words to songs just rise up and I quietly sing them.

I bought his first and only album during that 1970 summer. It was simply titled, Kristofferson and included the songs I heard on the PBS broadcast-“For the Good Times,” Help Me Make It Through the Night,” “Me & Bobby McGee.”  For the next 54 years, I absorbed his music and his releases. Silver Tongue Devil, Border Lord, Jesus was a Capricorn, and Spooky Lady Sideshow defined and provided a soundtrack for my life as I grew from a teenager to a young adult.  He was a counterculture country singer-songwriter who reminded me of my Texas roots and childhood b hometown on the edge of the Pacific coast.

Over the years, I cannot count how many times I’ve been to his concerts.   I followed his film career, especially during my senior high school year when he starred in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid with Bob Dylan. I don’t know how I did it without getting busted, but I watched the movie in a local theater four times in one weekend and smoked so much cannabis my lungs nearly exploded.

His concerts, for me, were historic. I saw him and Rita Coolidge at Doug Weston’s Troubadour in 1973.  Then, at the Troubadour again in 1993.  I saw him at the Crazy Horse country music club in Orange County in the late 80s, I saw him with Willie Nelson a few times, and I was there for both Highwaymen shows at Universal Amphitheatre. There was also 1987’s Benefit for Leonard Peltier where he shared the bill with Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson and Family, Jackson Browne, The Graffiti Band with John Trudell and Jesse Ed Davis, Billy Vera and Robin Williams.

But it was in 2008, another lonely time. I was caught in my man cave of an apartment fighting off a bout of depression following a long battle with addiction & the result of a divorce.  I happened to notice in the local paper, Kris was appearing the next day at Haugh Performing Arts Center in Azusa.  It was a Sunday matinee.  For this show, he returned to his original form. He played alone on the stage for two hours. He conjured up that old magic and lifted me out of the depression I was caught up in. Again, in the lonely darkness, his songs comforted the audience, and his performance gave his songs a new life and new context for my adult life.  It was the power of one artist willing to open the door to his unique world of American country songs. In a way, it was full circle back as Kris, who had always traveled with a full band, stood alone on the stage with his guitar and hundreds of people mesmerized by the draw of his words, music and that amazingly soulful voice.

So now he’s gone. I wish I could simply say “Thank you, Kris.”  The sound of his deep quiet voice still heals my deepest sadness on lonely restless nights.   These days the PBS show can be experienced thanks to YouTube.  So, for now, I’ll remember that awkward summer of 1970 when so much of life was new.  I’ll think of Kris, his family, and especially his wife, Lisa. I’ll let the words to his songs rise in me again.  And I will sing. Maybe I’ll dream tonight that he’s out there with the stars writing new songs that heal and bring the mercy to the heavens that he generously gave to us through his words, music and his unforgettable voice.