Skip to footer

Kris Kristofferson: Award for lifetime achievement presented to Willie Nelson

The pair then teamed on hits like 'Crazy' and 'Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down' during an invitation-only gathering at the venue known as a songwriter's showcase.

|
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Willie Nelson arrives at the 46th Annual Country Music Awards at the Bridgestone Arena, in Nov., in Nashville, Tenn.
  • By Chris Talbott Associated Press

Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson don't get together as much as they'd like. When they do, something amazing usually happens.

This time Kristofferson awarded Nelson with the first Kris Kristofferson Award, the Nashville Songwriters Association International's new lifetime achievement award. Then the two played together Sunday night at The Bluebird Cafe.

"I really thought I was there giving you an award," Nelson joked with Kristofferson afterward during an interview on Nelson's bus. "I had a great speech. Next time."

The pair teamed on hits like "Crazy" and "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" as Jamey Johnson looked on from a corner and producer Fred Foster watched from a stage-side table during an invitation-only gathering at the venue known as a songwriter's showcase.

The 76-year-old Kristofferson joked he was embarrassed the NSAI named the award after him. He's a founding member of the songwriter's organization and like the 79-year-old Nelson a member of its hall of fame.

"If I had seen what's happening right now before right now I would've thought I was dreaming because when I came to Nashville, Nashville was the most exciting place for a creative artist to be," Kristofferson told the crowd. "And the people I hung around with were serious songwriters who were totally unselfish, and their hero and my hero was a guy that nobody else knew. It was Willie Nelson. He's unlike anybody else."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Kris Kristofferson: Award for lifetime achievement presented to Willie Nelson
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0128/Kris-Kristofferson-Award-for-lifetime-achievement-presented-to-Willie-Nelson
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe