Grammy-winner, actor, Rhodes scholar, college football player, United States Army captain, helicopter pilot, boxer ... Kris Kristofferson has, not surprisingly, written many songs about many subjects. Yet it's one of his most recent that stands out.
In the title track to his latest album, last year's Feeling Mortal, he sings: ''Wide awake and feeling mortal/At this moment in the dream/That old man there in the mirror/And my shaky self-esteem ...''
In those few lines, Kristofferson embraces a range of themes: mortality, obviously, but also self-scrutiny and even self-doubt.
To some, that last element might come as a surprise, given his success in such varied realms.
In a series of email questions before Kristofferson begins a solo New Zealand tour that includes concerts in Invercargill on Thursday, May 1 and at the Dunedin Town Hall on Friday, May 2, the Maui, Hawaii-based American songwriter is asked to explain that reference.
His answer: ''I don't dwell on self-doubt, but having been a small slow football player and a boxer with a history of concussions, I've always been aware of my limitations.''
On that subject, Kristofferson's forthcoming seven-date New Zealand tour is likely to be the last of its kind to this country.
At 77, he has decided to wind down his musical and movie careers ''to spend more time with his family and enjoy his home in Maui'', New Zealand promoter Andrew McManus explained.
Honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the recent Grammy Awards, Kristofferson is bringing an intimate approach to the tour, during which he plans to perform classics such as Me and Bobby McGee, Help Me Make it Through the Night, Sunday Morning Coming Down and For the Good Times as well as a scattering of newer material off Feeling Mortal, his 28th album.
Kristofferson ends that album with Ramblin' Jack, an ode to folk music friend Ramblin' Jack Elliott, whom he describes as ''one of those people whose whole life was music ... He's like William Blake and Bob Dylan and other people who just believed and lived for whatever poetry they could come up with. That's probably the thing I was trying to be.''
Kristofferson is referring to his genesis as a songwriter when, in the early 1960s, he discarded a military career and went in search of songs with a soul.
Although it resulted in him being disowned by his parents (his father was a United States Air Force general), the move eventually bore fruit as he, along with fellow writers Willie Nelson and John Prine, among others, brought both nuance and emotional truth to country music.
In Kristofferson's biographical notes, producer Don Was, who has worked with the artist for the past 17 years, including on his last album, describes early hit Sunday Morning Coming Down as a ''brutally frank, first-person narrative that just happens to hit a common nerve among millions of people ... that's why Kris is such a great artist''.
Asked to share his thoughts on lyricism, Kristofferson says: ''I've always written about whatever I was going through at the time. The songs have always come naturally to me, since I was 11 years old.''
In a 2009 article in Rolling Stone magazine, American actor and author Ethan Hawke described Kristofferson as ''part of the landscape of my country - an amalgamation of John Wayne and Walt Whitman ... a unique figure in the history of American music and cinema''.
''The late sixties and the seventies saw a creative explosion for American artists,'' Hawke wrote.
''Cinema and rock'n'roll were in a full-blown renaissance, and Kristofferson stood dead centre in both revolutions.
''He wrote a No1 hit single [Me and Bobby McGee] for Janis Joplin, played at Jimi Hendrix's last concert, appeared on The Johnny Cash Show with other ''new discoveries'' like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, won three Grammy Awards, starred in films directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Paul Mazursky and Sam Peckinpah, and became one of the hottest male actors in the US after appearing in A Star Is Born.
''Today, Kris' songs have been recorded by more than 500 artists, and he has acted in more than 70 films,'' Hawke wrote.
Kristofferson says his film record actually stands at more than 105, ''according to the Internet Movie Database''.
Of that body of work, he is most proud of 1996's Lone Star and 1976's A Star Is Born, in which he plays a musician who finds his career in decline.
The role, which earned him a 1976 Golden Globe Award for best actor, was prophetic: the flop that was 1980 film Heaven's Gate heralded a slowdown in Kristofferson's fortunes, although the man himself drily describes it as a ''transitional'' period.
''It would have killed a normal man. It allowed me to focus on being a better husband to my new wife and five new children,'' Kristofferson says, referring to his marriage to Lisa Mayers in 1983.
(His previous marriages were to Fran Beer, 1960-1969, and Rita Coolidge, 1973-1980. He has eight children.)
A turnaround came in 1985, when The Highwaymen released their self-titled debut album, which went platinum and topped the Billboard country chart.
A band comprising Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willy Nelson and himself? Surreal? You bet.
''To be performing with them on stage together and as best friends was a dream come true.''
Playing
Kris Kristofferson performs the following dates in the South:
• Civic Theatre, Invercargill, Thursday, May 1
• Dunedin Town Hall, Friday, May 2
Win tickets
The Otago Daily Times has three double passes to the Dunedin show to give away. To go in the draw answer the question below, then email playtime@odt.co.nz with your name, address and daytime phone number, with Kris Kristofferson in the subject line.
Question: For which film did Kristofferson win a Golden Globe?
