Country music legend Kris Kristofferson has retired from the music business, according to a press release.
Kristofferson’s music stardom saw him write and record classic tunes like “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” and cross over into acting in films like “Heaven’s Gate” and “Blade.”
However, in recent years Kristofferson, 84, had been dealing with memory loss, which he attributed to Lyme disease.
If the retirement sticks, Kristofferson’s final performance would have been on the Outlaw Country Cruise in January 2020.
“It wasn’t any big stake in the ground, like ‘I’m retiring! I’m not doing this anymore!,” Tamara Saviano, Kristofferson’s longtime manager, told Variety. “It was an evolution, and it just felt very organic. There was no big change — it was this sort of slow ‘What should we do now? What’s next?’ And here we are in the middle of a pandemic… It was like, ‘Yeah, let’s retire.’ To us on this side of the fence it was an organic, normal, ‘things are changing’ thing. Kris is aging; Kris is 84. It didn’t feel like such big news to us. That’s why there was no announcement: It was just sort of a slow changing of the guard thing.”
The singer is also handing over business operations of his record label and management of his music catalog to his son John Kristofferson.
“The name has always been synonymous with songwriting as an art, and we’re excited to reintroduce his work to new and old fans alike,” John Kristofferson said in a statement. We have many exciting projects in the works and I look forward to getting them out into the world.”
However, Kris Kristofferson will continue pursuing his creative passions and might even un-retire if he gets inspired.
“I’m not gonna say Kris will never record again, Kris will never take the stage again, because the moment I say that Kris will prove me wrong,” Saviano said. “Never say never. He might wake up a month from now and go ‘I’m gonna go in the studio and make an album,’ and he will.”
