“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” That one line summed up Kris Kristofferson’s singular songwriting skill. It was like the entire Sixties ethos in a single phrase.

He could create a single phrase that would paint a much bigger picture and those words, and their resonance, would stick in your mind for ever.

A Texan from a military family who studied literature at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, the strikingly handsome and talented Kristofferson was a proper polymath: after songwriter, singer, actor, activist.

As the first of those, he composed some of the best known and best loved songs of all time, though they became standards in the hands – mouths – of other artists. His one-time girlfriend Janis Joplin had a posthumous No.1 with Me And Bobby McGee.

Lena Martell also topped the singles chart with One Day At A Time, Gladys Knight reached the top ten with Help Me Make It Through The Night (also a hit for Sammi Smith) and Perry Como had a huge hit with For The Good Times.

Meanwhile, Johnny Cash topped the country charts with Sunday Mornin’ Coming Down after Kristofferson – a trained helicopter pilot – landed a National Guard chopper on his lawn in order to hand deliver a tape of his songs.

Then there was his film career, which began with Dennis Hopper’s film The Last Movie, took in Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese (Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More) and hit the mainstream alongside Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born.

But for me his greatest performance was in John Sayles’s film Lone Star, playing a small town Texan sheriff with dark secrets.

Here he is with his second wife Rita Coolidge, with whom he recorded an album of duets, back in 1973.

RIP Kris Kristofferson (1936-2024)