re: Louisiana appreciation thread

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isn't stephen stills from covington?

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Stills was born in Dallas, Texas, to Talitha Quintilla Collard (1919-1996) and William Arthur Stills (1915–1986). Raised in a military family, he moved around as a child and developed an interest in blues and folk music. He was also influenced by Latin music after spending his youth in Gainesville and Tampa, Florida, as well as Covington, Louisiana, Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, and El Salvador. Stills attended Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Saint Leo College Preparatory School in Saint Leo, Florida, before graduating from Lincoln High School in Costa Rica. His siblings are Talitha Stills, Hanna Stills, Butch Stills, George Stills, and Norma de America Hidalgo, from his father's second wife. When he was nine years old, he was diagnosed with partial hearing loss in one ear. The hearing loss increased as he got older. Stills dropped out of Louisiana State University in the early 1960s.

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During a stop in Louisiana this month for a performance at the Paragon Casino in Marksville, he reflected on a musical career that produced the likes of “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Why Me” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” and how it was influenced by his time in the Louisiana oil fields before he caught his first break.

Kristofferson turned down an instructor’s post at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to try and break into the music business in the 1960s. Unable to get any closer than a janitor’s job at the Columbia Records studio in Nashville, Tenn., he came to Louisiana and took a job with Petroleum Helicopters Inc. of Lafayette, flying between the Louisiana marshes and offshore petroleum facilities.

“That was about the last three years before I started performing, before people started cutting my songs,” he recalled. “I would work a week down here for PHI, sitting on an oil platform and flying helicopters. Then I’d go back to Nashville at the end of the week and spend a week up there trying to pitch the songs, then come back down and write songs for another week.”

“Bob Beckham told me, ‘You know, that was the most productive time for you, because you didn’t have anything to do but write songs,’ ” he said. “I can remember ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ I wrote sitting on top of an oil platform. I wrote ‘Bobby McGee’ down here, and a lot of them.”

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