Kristofferson is the debut album of singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, which was produced by Fred Foster and released in June 1970 by Monument Records. After working a series of temporary jobs, Kristofferson became a helicopter pilot for oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico. While he worked, he wrote songs and pitched them to singers around Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee during his free time. Kristofferson's songs were recorded by country singers Roy Drusky, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roger Miller and later he persuaded Johnny Cash to try his material. Cash invited Kristofferson to perform with him at the Newport Folk Festival, after which Fred Foster signed Kristofferson to Monument Records as a songwriter and recording artist. Foster included on the sessions Kristofferson's material that other artists had already recorded including "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and "Me and Bobby McGee", as well as his new compositions. The arrangements of the songs featured string orchestration, while the themes of the writings included loneliness, love, sexual relations and freedom. Critics gave Kristofferson a positive reception but the album's original release was a commercial failure. In 1971, following the success of Janis Joplin's recording of "Me and Bobby McGee", the album was reissued as Me and Bobby McGee; it peaked at number 10 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart and at 43 on Billboard's Top LPs and the release was certified gold. The album garnered mixed ratings in retrospective reviews, as some critics expressed their negative reception of Kristofferson's singing. Background In 1965, Kristofferson left his teaching position at the United States Military Academy and he moved to Nashville to start work in the music business as a songwriter. He contacted Marijohn Wilkin, the aunt of his former platoon commander, who signed Kristofferson to her publishing house Buckhorn Music. Wilkin pitched Kristofferson's song "Talkin' Vietnam Blues" to singer Dave Dudley. Concurrently, Kristofferson worked a series of odd jobs that included bartender, construction worker and railroad worker. He then worked as a janitor for Columbia Records, a job that afforded him the possibility of talking directly with the artists and a presence during recording sessions. After his second child was born with esophagus issues, Kristofferson took a job with Petroleum Helicopters International in Lafayette, Louisiana. He would fly workers to and from oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and he used the time during flights to compose