Reissues We’d Love to See: Kris Kristofferson’s To the Bone
August 14th, 2008 | 1:16 pm est |
Few people know it, but songwriter Kris Kristofferson issued one of the greatest divorce recordings of all time with To the Bone. It also served as a creative renaissance for a man who seemed to have lost his way as a recording artist, as an actor (due to the commercial debacle that was director Michael Cimino’s film, Heaven’s Gate), and as a married man.
Kristofferson’s five previous solo albums were almost all commercial failures, and his immediate predecessor, Shake Hands with the Devil from 1979, felt like he phoned it in. Add to this the coming shift in country music at the dawn of the Urban Cowboy era, and Kristofferson seemed to be down for the count. This set proved to be his final offering for Monument, his label throughout the 1970s. But To the Bone– issued only briefly on CD by the now-defunct One Way label in the 1990s — is one of Kristofferson’s least heard, yet greatest recordings ever (second only to his self-titled debut from 1970). It is an angry, bewildered and bitter album; a harsh assessment of both love and life that’s filled with self-recrimination and a ravenous hunger for redemption.
To the Bone belongs next to Leon Payne’s self-titled album on Starday from 1963, Willie Nelson’s Phases and Stages, Steve Young’s Seven Bridges Road, Dwight Yoakam’s Buenos Noches from a Lonely Room and Townes Van Zandt’s self-titled 1969 offering as an unromantic meditation on personal darkness that holds on by the skin of its teeth.
This baby goes for a ton on CD if you can even find it, so it’d be nice if Sony’s Legacy imprint would make this part of their generous reissue program for 2009 and let the punters discover this rarely heard country-rock classic. Check the original AMG review here, and the samples below.
- Magdalene
- Star-Crossed
- Blessing in Disguise
- Devil to Pay
- Nobody Loves Anybody Anymore
- Last Time
- I’ll Take Any Chance I Can with You
Absolutely…’To The Bone’ needs to be reissued YESTERDAY. I’m at least lucky enough to have a CD burn of it (a friend of mine used to own the original) and it is amazing.
Good call, Thom, but let’s not stop there. Of the 10 albums Kristofferson made for Monument/Columbia, only his first “Kristofferson” and “The Silver Tongued Devil And I” are currently available on CD. Sheesh, even “Jesus Was A Capricorn” is out of print now. We all have our favorites and personally I’d also love to see “Border Lord” and “Spooky Lady’s Sideshow” back in print as well. Really, if Legacy won’t do it they should at least allow one of the reissue labels out there (Collector’s Choice, Raven, Wounded Bird) to put these back in print. Too many of these major label refuse to reissue back catalog and at the same time refuse to allow anyone else to license them and handle the reissue. Or at the very least, they should put them up on iTunes and other digital sites. It’s just insane how these major labels complain about sinking sales and yet won’t make an effort to make their back catalog more available digitally (which would cost them next to nothing). And while we’re at it, let’s get Universal to reissue the first Kristofferson/Coolidge duet album, “Full Moon.” By far their best effort together it’s never been on CD, although two much lesser releases on Columbia are easily available. And then how about the first 5 Rita Coolidge albums which have never been released on CD. OK, I’ll stop now.
Well, Columbia/Sony/BMG hasn’t done well by Johnny Cash as far as reissuing all of his original albums on CD… I mean, where the hell is “Strawberry Cake,” “Rainbow,” etc.
Kris is Great.
Somebody needs to reissue Seven Bridges Road and a whole bunch more Steve Young. Talk about an artist whose profile needs to be raised. He’s it.
Good news Kris fans. Wounded Bird Records is reissuing all the cds mentioned above and more. From what I gather, they will be “two-on-one” discs, with “Jesus Was A Capricorn paired with “Border Lord”. Spooky Lady’s Sideshow, Easter Island, Who’s to Bless and Who’s to Blame, To the Bone, they’ll all be available. Great news or what?!