“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” Joplin sang in her signature blues-rock yowl — perhaps the best-known piece of wisdom in Kristofferson’s very wise catalog. “Me and Bobby McGee” topped the Hot 100 in March 1971, less than six months after Joplin’s death at age 27.

Kristofferson wrote "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Sunday Morning Coming Down," huge hits for Janis Joplin and Johnny Cash, and was a Rhodes scholar, military man, janitor, helicopter pilot, actor and more.

Kris Kristofferson, the award-winning country singer and actor who worked with Johnny Cash and Martin Scorsese, has died aged 88. A representative said he passed away "peacefully" at his home in Hawaii on Saturday,