Happy Birthday, Kris.

Thanks for the info. According to wikipedia [[en.m.wikipedia.org]]
he left the Army after the flying helicopter and Ranger thing relatively early in the eyes of his family.

And from [[clashmusic.com]]
“Follow Your Heart
I was in the army, and my next assignment would’ve been to teach English Literacy at West Point Military Academy, but instead, I was in Nashville for two weeks on leave between assignments. I just fell in love with the music community that was going on there. The way the old heroes helped out the new guys. It was a very soulful business at the time; I don’t know if it’s anything like that now. but it was definitely the best move I’ve ever made.”

[people.com]

“Born in Brownsville, Texas, the eldest of three children of a career Air Force officer who died in 1971, Kris was the family prodigy: a football star who was Phi Beta Kappa at Pomona (Calif.) College, he won four Atlantic Monthly prizes for fiction and was awarded a Rhodes scholarship in 1958. Returning from Oxford two years later, he married Fran Bier, a Pan Am pilot’s daughter from San Mateo, Calif., and soon afterward volunteered for the Army. He became a chopper pilot during his five-year hitch, and rose to the rank of captain, but discovered that his imagination was too frequently AWOL. Willie Nelson and Joseph Heller were his heroes (“When I read Catch-22, it changed my life” ), and when he was assigned to West Point to teach English, he bailed out and headed for Nashville to write music. ”

So maybe not quite to West Point but still cool.

I may have been aware of The Highwaymen thing at the time. My dad was huge into Waylon, Willie, and especially Cash who I like.

Wasn’t aware of his Rhodes scholar stint at Oxford. That’s pretty high status for country. Mick Jagger was at LSE.

I did not care for his genre, but his poetry -- both ion his formal poetry and in his songs -- has been notable.

I've known this for a long time. I also know about him and Joplin and I know the real words to Bobby McGee. Patty O'Neal (now deceased) sang that song better than Janis and she was the "Janis Joplin" of any entertainment hall she ever went into. I grew up with Patty. She sang backup with a lot of groups.

I'm a big fan.
❤