Kris Kristofferson: the soldier turned star made a tough life into tender poetry

No other musician could have landed a helicopter in Johnny Cash's yard to deliver a new tune, or renounced a debut in praise of the Vietnam war with decades of activist songs

• Kris Kristofferson, US country singer and actor, dies aged 88
• Kris Kristofferson - a life in pictures

In 2009, the actor Ethan Hawke wrote a profile of Kris Kristofferson for Rolling Stone magazine. It's an intimate, illuminating interview, ranging from the Grand Ole Opry to Heaven's Gate, that runs to several thousand words. In truth, it could be boiled down to a single sentence: Kris Kristofferson is cut from a thicker, more intricate cloth than most celebrities today."

Kristofferson's life was quite remarkable: an Oxford-educated army captain who abandoned his military career to pursue music in Nashville, he would win four Grammys, sidestep into acting, work with Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese and score a Golden Globe. His songs would be performed by everyone from Johnny Cash to Janis Joplin, Al Green to Gladys Knight. In his 40s, he would form a chart-topping outlaw country supergroup alongside Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. He would continue to record and perform into his 80s.