Rita Coolidge - Delta Lady

I was doing the dishes when I realized I was going to be all right. It was March 1977 and my life was in turmoil. I was about to turn thirty-two and my tumultuous six-year marriage to Kris Kristoffersonthe love of my life and father of our three-year-old daughter, Caseywas nearing an acrimonious end. Two months earlier, Id miscarried our second child, whom Kris and I had both hoped, unannounced to the other, would heal our relationship. I had been numb to the world ever since. But that afternoon, washing the dishes in the simple ranch house that Id found for us in the hills above Malibuwhere I had once thought Kris and I might live for the rest of our livesI suddenly heard my voice float out of the kitchen radio.

By then I was used to hearing myself on the air. Id sung on everything from Stephen Stillss Love the One Youre With to Eric Claptons After Midnight and Ray Charless R&B classic Busted. Id released four solo albums, which tended toward rock-tinged pop and romantic ballads. Kris and I had won a Grammy in 1974 for our performance of Kriss From the Bottle to the Bottom and another in 1976 for Lover Please. (Our signature number on stage was Help Me Make It Through the Night, which when things between us were right we sang as much to each other as to the audience.) My albums had sold moderately well and I was thrilled to have devoted fans, but Id yet to break through as a solo artist.

Id just released my sixth album, Anytime... Anywhere. My producers David Anderle and Booker T. Jones and I had decided to record several covers of R&B hits, including Jackie Wilsons (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher built around a really inventive arrangement by Booker that just floored me and my label, A&M, which released the song as the first single off the album. Higher has such an affirming vibe, and I was looking for hope wherever I could find it that afternoon in Malibu when the song came on the radio. I shut off the water, wiped my hands on my apron, and listened. Your love, I sang a cappella, at a hymns tempo, is lifting me higher... than Ive ever been lifted before... After a full stop, a bass drum thumped four times, a killer guitar riff kicked in, and my version of Higher took off like one of the gulls kiting over Los Flores Beach far below. Listening to myself sing about the redemptive power of love stirred my heart for the first time in months, and in that moment I had an epiphany: Not only would I survive this difficult time, but I would thrive. As I have heard so many times from other artists whose ships finally came in, it was also such a typical moment. The song that would become my anthemwhich I close my shows with to this dayarrived while I was laid low by grief and, literally, washing the dishes.

The next thing I knew, Higher had shot straight up the charts to number 2. Id never had a song remotely that big. Anytime... Anywhere hit number 6 and was certified platinum, selling more than a million copies. Id never sought stardom or success at that level but it had come anyway, at the bleakest moment of my life. It also put me on equal footing, professionally, with Kris. We toured together behind Anytime... Anywhere but it was different from past shows. He would be on stage for his portion of the show and people would be yelling Rita! between his songs, and Id feel so bad about that. Despite our differences, Kris was proud of my success, even though it might have been tinged with envyhe was in great shape with his movie career (hed costarred with Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born the year before) but more than anything wanted to be recognized as a singer and songwriter. Hed written classics like Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplins biggest hit, and Sunday Morning Coming Down, for Johnny Cash, and had cofounded, with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and other renegade singer-songwriters, the so-called Outlaw movement that had shaken Nashvilles traditional country music scene to its foundations. But as his movie career took off, Kris spent less and less time on his music, which frustrated him and fueled some of the heavy drinking and anger that inevitably was turned toward me.

Touring together when we were having such grave problems in our marriage was a challenge. For years, Id been pressing Kris to go to counseling with me, but he steadfastly refused. We both had strong personalities and tended not to back down in an argument. When you factored in Kriss drinkingthough hed abruptly quit after A Star Is Bornand his desire to fulfill his outlaw image whenever and wherever possible, we were rapidly approaching an emotional cul-de-sac that I knew we might not escape. The worst part of it was dealing with his womanizing. Connie NelsonWillie Nelsons former wife and still one of my best friendsused to laugh and say, Isnt it great? Were the younger women. Guys usually left their wives for younger women, and Kris was nine years older than me. Little did Connie and I know (but we should have): theres always a younger one.

It wasnt that Kriss fame blinded me to his faults. Before Kris Id had serious relationships with Leon Russell and Graham Nash, and had spent plenty of time around famousand famously unpredictablemusicians such as Joe Cocker and Eric Clapton. But by the time of Anytime... Anywhere Kris had escalated his emotional attacks. He didnt think I was as good a writer as he wasI wasntand had begun to actively belittle my work. I tried to keep the marriage togethernot only for Caseys sake, but because the love that had enveloped Kris and me was unprecedented in both of our lives and, I believed, worth fighting to keep.

Kris and I were on the roadCasey was with uswhen the breaking point arrived. I had returned to our hotel suite from running an errand and Kris just started yelling at me, needling me, demanding to know where Id been. It was a fight wed had a hundred times before. Casey was pleading, Please stop, please stop. I turned to Kris and said, Done. Im done. I cant do it anymore. Thats when I made the decision to leave. But the actual walking out the door came later that year when Kris was shooting Michael Ciminos Heavens Gate in Montana, and I sussed out that he had something going on with his leading lady, Isabelle Huppert. At that point, after all wed been through, I just didnt feel like I fit in to his life anymoreunless I was willing to be the wife who stays at home and turns a blind eye.

I dont remember confronting Kris on the Heavens Gate shoot. I dont remember the words that were said, though I must have said them. What I do remember is walking out of the hotel suite and going home finding a house in Hollywood to rent packing everything up and taking Casey with me. It didnt hit Kris until he walked in the Malibu house and saw that some of the furniture was gone. Of course once I left, Kris was willing to do all the things I had asked him to do for years. He wanted to see a marriage counselor, but it was too late. Once I walk out the door, I dont come back, I had always warned him. Once its done, its done. And now it really was done for me.

Kris and I were together eight years. Eight years. There were fabulous times. We literally made beautiful music together. What we went throughfrom the moment we met and for eternityis something bigger than Ive ever had with anybody else. I never laughed with anybody in my life like with Kris. Everything we did was larger than life. When it was good I was absolutely over-the-moon happy. And when it was sad it was almost too much to bear.