Friday Night Concert: Cash and Kristofferson, “Sunday Morning”
“Sunday Morning Coming Down” is one of Johnny Cash’s best-known songs, and (for my money) one of the most evocative ever recorded — both sad and optimistic at the same time, if that makes any sense. It was written by Kris Kristofferson, who said not long ago that “I’m just real grateful for that song because that opened up a whole lot doors for me. So many people that I admire, admired it. Actually, it was the song that allowed me to quit working for a living.” It’s a great interview.
Y’all have a great weekend.
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Most Americans, I would bet, think of him only as a minor country western singer and a now-and-then movie actor. But there’s a lot more to Kris Kristofferson than that. He graduated from Pomona College summa cum laude in 1958 with a major in literature and was also a Rhodes scholar. After a stint in the army, he was offered a job teaching English literature at West Point. His father, by the way, was a major general in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He has written more than 250 songs including such hits as “For the Good Times,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” “Me and Bobby McGee” (he also dated Janis Joplin), “One Day at a Time” and “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.” He has appeared in more than 25 movies, some good, some not so good. In 1976 he won a Golden Globe best actor award for his appearance in “A Star is Born” opposite Barbara Streisand.
If this was recorded at the Sydney Haymarket in 1995, I was in the audience.