Kris Kristofferson – Me and Bobby McGee

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  • Two strong sides each earning a Plus or better
  • The sound is big, rich and open with excellent presence
  • Unusually quiet Mint Minus vinyl throughout
  • A 5 Star album on Allmusic with great songs including Help Me Make It Through The Night and the title track

Two great sides on quiet vinyl, giving you a wonderful copy of Kristofferson’s classic debut. This album is an absolute tour de force — every last song on here is a winner. Me and Bobby McGee, Help Me Make It Through The Night, Sunday Morning Coming Down, For The Good Times… it just goes on and on.

Thankfully, the sound is excellent too — at least on a copy like this. We had a stack of originals and early reissues and this was one of a very small group of copies to really deliver. The best originals can be out of this world but good luck finding one that actually sounds great and plays with reasonable surfaces. Most of the reissues are dull and subgen sounding but we got our hands on a winner here.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Blame It on the Stones
To Beat the Devil
Me and Bobby McGee
The Best of All Possible Worlds
Help Me Make It Through the Night
The Law Is for Protection of the People

Side Two

Casey’s Last Ride
Just the Other Side of Nowhere
Darby’s Castle
For the Good Times
Duvalier’s Dream
Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down

AMG 5 Star Rave Review

A sleeve note suggested that Kristofferson had been reluctant to record, but while he didn’t have much range as a singer, he brought a conviction to his vocals and a complete understanding of the nuances of the lyrics. The songs were so personal that they seemed to demand a personal interpretation. Nashville, as it turned out, didn’t have much use for countercultural songs like “Blame It on the Stones” and “The Law Is for Protection of the People” (which had some choice words for the police), but the country music community could recognize a good love song with an erotic edge that was on the cusp of the era’s changing mores, and Ray Price quickly cut “For the Good Times,” which topped the country charts. Then, Johnny Cash covered “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” for a number one country hit, leading to its winning the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year award for 1970, and Sammi Smith gave a twist to “Help Me Make It Through the Night” by recording it as a woman’s song for yet another country number one. The finishing touch to Kristofferson’s sudden renown was Janis Joplin’s cover of “Me and Bobby McGee,” released shortly after her death, which topped the pop charts.

When it was released in 1970, Kristofferson did not reach the charts. By the following year, however, its creator was on his way to becoming a major star, and after his second album, The Silver Tongued Devil and I, broke into the pop charts in July 1971, Monument re-titled the first album Me and Bobby McGee and reissued it.

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