Kris Kristofferson comes to Newport News this November

Kris Kristofferson returns to the essentials of his finely honed craft on his New West album Closer to the Bone.
Like the master singer-songwriter's 2006 New West bow This Old Road, the new album is produced by Grammy Award winner Don Was. The previous collection - Kristofferson's first recording in almost a dozen years - was hailed by critics as "one of the finest albums of his storied career" (Rolling Stone), "a stripped-down stunner" (Esquire), and "a return to his best work" (Q).Kristofferson says, "I like the intimacy of the new album. It has a general mood of reflecting on where we all are at this end of life."

Much like its predecessor, Closer to the Bone is a deftly observed, honestly executed work about love, separation, loss, and mortality. The subject matter ranges from the musician's family ("From Here to Forever," "The Wonder") to Kristofferson's late friend Johnny Cash ("Good Morning John").
Was views the new album as a sort of sequel to its much-acclaimed predecessor: "The recording conditions were a little more controlled, but it's based around Kris singing and playing guitar, and nothing was to get in the way of that. If anything got in the way of it, we pulled it out. I think the two albums are completely of a piece. I love This Old Road. There's something really immediate about it, and really profound. I personally think this is a better record, overall. It's the songs."

Some of the album's songs were penned relatively recently, while others Kristofferson had never managed to successfully record. He laughs when he recalls a previous attempt to cut "Good Morning John" with Willie Nelson - like Cash and Kristofferson a member of the country supergroup the Highwaymen -- on harmony vocals: "I got to that line where I say, ‘I love you, John,' and Willie sang, ‘He loves you, John.' I said, ‘C'mon, Willie, you can say, ‘I love you, John.' I guess it embarrassed him. Anyway, we ended up not putting it out then."
While the recording of Closer to the Bone doesn't entirely replicate the off-the-cuff methodology of This Old Road - which was tracked with surround-sound equipment in a single session in the lounge of a Hollywood studio - the new album, made at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles, aimed for the same earthy simplicity.