There are some performers who you just can't be ambivalent about. Whether it's the sound of their voice or the subject matter of their songs, there is something about them that makes people either really like them or not like them at all. Sometimes I can have more respect for a performer I dislike entirely than one I'm ambivalent about, because they at least have a quality that causes me to form an opinion about them one way or another.
A singer/songwriter who falls into the category of people either loving or leaving him is Kris Kristofferson. I've found that there is usually two reasons that people get their backs up over Kristofferson, his voice or the material he performs. As I don't fall into either of those two camps I can't pretend to understand the reasons behind either feeling, except to say that Mr. Kristofferson is probably the only person, save perhaps Johnny Cash, who can get away with singing the particular type of material that he writes.
A great many of Mr. Kristofferson's songs could easily slip across the border from a genuine expression of emotion to saccharine sentimentality in the hands of a lesser performer. There is just something about his delivery and the genuine quality to his voice that allows him the license to sing or write a lyric which another person either couldn't get away with or would mangle and cheapen.
Perhaps it is his almost monotone and laconic vocal expression, with no attempts to embellish the songs with unneeded accents or pyrotechnics, which keeps them honest and real. When he sings his material they appear to be an expression of his own life and the losses or wins that he has experienced. Songs like "Help Me Make It Through The Night" and "Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)" are statements of fact and need, not self-pitying moans of "woe is me I'm so hard done by".
Big concert venues have never served this type of performer's needs very well, because the intimacy that is required for a rapport to be developed with the audience is not possible. In the past, for me anyway, it has been far more satisfying to listen to a CD of Kristofferson's then feel frustrated by the inadequate experience of watching him perform in some large concert format.
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