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"Sometimes heroes happen when you need 'em."    Kris Kristofferson

Sometimes, it seems, heroes and legends just kind of roll through town, quietly, under publicized and unassuming.    This happened Sunday afternoon, October 19, as Haugh Performing Arts Center in Glendora, California hosted a concert by Kris Kristofferson with next to no promotion. Even so, the concert was filled to near capacity.   Now in his early 70's, the singer-songwriter kept joking about trying to imagine it was Saturday night rather than Sunday afternoon.   However, by the end of the earthy, magical show, he announced to the enthusiastic audience, they had made him feel like it was a Saturday night.  This is high praise from the poet laureate of the counter-culture's dusty honky tonks of the 70's.   
 
Kristofferson, who has traveled with various forms of back up musicians over the years, has decided to appear alone in the same way he did when he first appeared in Nashville and later on his first trek as a songwriter to L.A.'s Troubadour in 1970.  It was a risky but a wise move for this artist who has always performed best in the most intimate settings.  It was as honest and real a performance as he has ever given in his long career.   There were no fancy guitar parts, no soaring harmony vocals to cover up any limitations or mistakes.  There was barely even any talk between the songs.   It was just Kris, the guitar, the songs and a privileged audience.  
 
Kristofferson's body of work, especially his classic songs like "Me & Bobby McGee", "Help Me Make It Through The Night" and "For The Good Times," create a set list that would allow him to sit out the show artistically by coasting through the familiar crowd pleasers.  Instead, he mixed the two hour show with unfamiliar old and new songs, which were reflective of his personal journey and his moral and political convictions.   The opening song, "Shipwrecked," was dedicated to the veterans of the Iraq war. It takes an insider's look at the alienation a soldier feels serving in the wake of a war.   He originally wrote it for the Vietnam vets.   But the song's universality applies to any war and the cost paid by the soldiers who give not only their lives, but sometimes, their sanity.     
 
A song he described as one of Johnny Cash's favorite, "Here Comes That Rainbow Again," tells a story of two children, a waitress and two truckers from Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.  Its a haiku of a hillbilly, dust bowl story of compassion, humanity and generosity.  
 
But, the strongest moments came as he pulled out songs from his new CD, This Old Road.   The title song is about aging during a time of conflict and confusion.    The song, "In The News," hits the listener between the eyes with the events of the last few years and cleverly ties the murder of a woman and her unborn child to the atrocities of the Iraq war. "Pilgrims Progress," is a meditation on staying vital and young even as time passes.   "Am I young enough to believe in revolution/am I strong enough to get down on my knees and pray?"  He asks. "The Final Attraction," inspired by Willie Nelson, pays tribute to the durability of the poets and troubadours of our times, including himself.   He admonishes on the last line...."Go break a heart."  Two of his most spiritual songs, "Love is the Way" and the classic, "Why Me, Lord,"  were saved for the encore.  Both songs highlight Kris' own journey of faith leading him to stories of peace and redemption.  "Why Me, Lord," is one of the best modern songs of personal salvation with a chorus that says, 
 
"Lord help me, Jesus, I've wasted it so help me Jesus, I know what I am.."
 
According to Kris, he found personal salvation at the church of Jimmy Snow(Hank Snow's son) in Nashville, which inspired this song in 1973.  Later, he avoided much comment about this experience, but the theme frequently show up in his lyrics.    
 
The performance was ragged, intimate and subtly passionate.  It was a living room performance.   He simply invited us in to his own private space and we stepped inside the dreams of one of the great songwriters of the last 50 years.  He's never had a great technical voice sometimes hitting a flat note or two and unable to reach the higher ranges of his songs.   But what he lacked in technical ability, he made up for in heart and passion.  He sings from a place true to his soul and his integrity, whether the song is about love, family, war, aging, redemption or freedom.    
 
After he realized the audience was with him, his own enthusiasm for the songs lifted him from that Sunday afternoon mellowness to a transformed Saturday night of joy and a subtle, but goodtime country gentleman's madness.   In some strange sense, it was even more, like any great concert, it was, as his song says, "A Moment of Forever."  It was, for this writer, a rare moment of concert magic with this legendary singer's rare appearance in the southland.  
 
If you have an inkling of what pre-Achy Breaky, Garth Brooks country music was about, an afternoon with Kris will shed some light for you.  If you have no idea of what I'm talking about, go see Kristofferson when he makes it to your town.  You won't be sorry.     
 
Terry Roland