Kris Kristofferson
Closer To The Bone

The wind slams the half-opened veranda door, an old Texan man with a white beard armed with a guitar and harmonica is intent on accompanying the arrival of the evening, seated on an old creaking chair. His warm and enveloping voice tells stories of freedom, pain, and does so in solitude like an old uncle narrating to his young nieces and nephews what life is and how it should be faced. It is rumored that this man was also a handsome and dangerous actor who made women swoon and who wrote that song that brought such success to the young and likewise doomed Janis Joplin, yes that "Me and Bobby McGee" was written by that very old man.

On the verge of seventy-three, Kris Kristofferson releases a wonderful album, which could very well be the sixth missing chapter of the "American recordings" of the late friend Johhny Cash. It was precisely Cash's last recordings that inspired producer Don Was to rekindle Kristofferson's artistic career. Following Rubin's path, Was enriches the melancholic vein of these eleven compositions, all written by the Texan artist, with a cutting operation. Few instruments and a band (including the recently deceased guitarist Stephen Bruton and drummer Jim Keltner) reduced to the bone make the songs penetrating and full of that melancholic and moving feeling that the latter-day Cash had created.

One of the most sunny compositions of the album, "Good Morning John", is dedicated to Cash. This song is a tribute and a memory of the late friend, who already in the sixties encouraged the young Kristofferson to pursue music. It's useless to deny or hide it, Cash's specter emerges somewhat from all the grooves of this work as in the twilight "From Here To Forever" and "Holy Woman". The initial title track, already known at the time of the supergroup Highwaymen and supported by Kristofferson's harmonica, is a protagonist in several tracks and often brings to mind the early splendid ballads of the young Dylan.

Closer to the bone is a folk album with a country soul, full of tributes; besides the one for Cash, we find "Sister Sinead", dedicated to O'Connor, and finally the final tribute to the companion of a thousand adventures, Stephen Bruton, guitarist of his band who passed away shortly after the recordings.

An album from another era that fits well with the arrival of another winter, capable of warming the soul and heart, lulled by Kristofferson's husky and wise voice that also gives us a hidden track that only confirms the goodness of this work and the new path undertaken by this artist intent on living as a protagonist even in this late-career phase. The album was released by New West Records and in the limited edition, it features a bonus disc with a live recorded in Dublin in 2008, where some of his old successes like "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" can be heard.