Pop Reviews : A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson

SANTA ANA —  Kris Kristofferson doesn’t have a backing band on his current tour, his voice is more ragged then ever, and on Monday at the Crazy Horse here, his sound system periodically made noises that sounded like an airliner’s wheel falling on the roof.

But it was all part of the casual charm of a show that in its ramshackle way celebrated the words of one of pop and country’s essential songwriters.

Backed by keyboardist Danny Timms, who also took a few solo turns in a soaring, soulful, Bob Seger-like voice, Kristofferson offered a career retrospective, and the vintage tunes he performed--”Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Help Me Make It Through the Night”--had the authority and enduring quality of classics.

Kristofferson’s more recent songs might not rank with the timeless tunes he wrote in the early ‘70s when he was redefining country music, but some of the newer collaborations with Timms sounded fine, from the anthemic “Between Heaven and Here” to the pop-gospel Timms showcase “Without Love.”

The instrumentation’s narrow range and Kristofferson’s sometimes mumbling delivery slowed the momentum now and then, but an intimate encounter with a body of work like this is worth a few slack moments. Kristofferson and Timms also play the Belly Up in Solana Beach on Thursday.