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Feeling mortal — but full of gratitude — the Rhodes scholar outlaw troubadour looks back on a life of song and bold decisions while embracing his |
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At 76, Kris Kristofferson is currently making some of the best music of his career. The veteran troubadour is in the midst of a creative resurgence that began with 2006’s politically charged This Old Road (his first album of new material in more than a decade), continued with 2009’s musically and emotionally raw Closer to the Bone, and reaches new levels of intimacy and immediacy with this year’s Feeling Mortal. Your album is titled Feeling Mortal, but the general vibe of these songs conveys more gratitude than any sense of dread.That’s how I feel. Being 76 is older than I ever thought I’d be. I didn’t ever think I was gonna live longer than Hank Williams, to be honest, and he died at 29. So from then on, I felt like I was gettin’ away with something. I did everything I could do to die young, but it didn’t work. This Old Road, Closer to the Bone and Feeling Mortal all feature spare, stripped-down arrangements and emphasize the immediacy of a performance, rather than attempting to create a perfect track. One of my favorite moments on Feeling Mortal is on “The One You Chose,” where you laugh a couple of times in mid-vocal. It’s a really compelling performance, yet most producers would have yelled “cut” right there.Don left it in there. He’s good with that kind of thing, and he’s good at putting together just enough good musicians to fill up the right amount of space. I really love Mark Goldenberg’s guitar work on this one, and I like that Don’s production doesn’t call attention to itself. I’ll probably continue recording with him until they throw dirt on me. The approach of the last three albums also seems related to the fact that you’ve been playing solo acoustic shows for the last decade or so, rather than touring with a band.That happened because I was overseas working on a film, and I got an offer to go out and play in Ireland and couldn’t get the band together in time. So I did it on my own, and I enjoyed it so much that I just continued with it. There’s a freedom being by myself up there, because I don’t have to worry about what anybody else is doing. There’s a real good communication between me and the audience, and people keep coming out to the shows, so it made sense to continue doing it that way. Once I get past the initial nervousness of being in front of people, it’s always an enjoyable experience. I like it when Dylan does that, and I liked it when Johnny Cash did it towards the end of his life. I actually find it less stressful to do it this way, to be honest, because when I go out on the road, it’s just my family with me. My daughter Kelly is now singing some songs with me onstage, and my wife Lisa does all the hard work and runs the monitor, so it makes it very easy. So I think I’ll do it this way until I quit doing it. Several songs on Feeling Mortal, like “Bread for the Body,” concern characters who make conscious decisions to take their lives in a different direction. Which is obviously something that applies to you, considering where you started and where you ended up after deciding to pursue songwriting as a career.“Bread for the Body” is from back when I had made the decision to change direction and write songs. It was a pretty radical break when I decided that I wasn’t gonna go in the direction everybody thought I was going in, from all the college education I’d had and my years in the Army. Fortunately for me, I never questioned it and never looked back. But some of the songs that I was writing, like “Bread for the Body,” were sort of expressing my feelings about the direction I was taking. A drastic life decision like that is still pretty daring by today’s standards, but I’d imagine that it must have been even more radical in the mid-60s.It was. I was kind of disowned by my mother, who really was embarrassed to say that her son was writing country music, which she very much looked down on at the time. She came around eventually, after she saw me singing with Johnny Cash. I remember seeing my mother embraced by John and thinking “She’ll never forget that.” I think she respected John enough that it reflected well on me. “Ramblin’ Jack” is another song on Feeling Mortal that concerns a character choosing to risk everything in order to pursue his muse. Is that song about Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, or is it about you?I think that everything you write is kind of autobiographical, even if you don’t realize it at the time. I guess most of the characters in the songs are me to one degree or another. “Ramblin’ Jack” is supposed to be about Ramblin’ Jack, but it’s also about me. To me, it’s a lot like “The Pilgrim (Chapter 33).” I started writing that about (songwriter) Chris Gantry and a bunch of other people, including Ramblin’ Jack, but I was also writing about myself. I felt like we all had something in common, which is that the most important thing in our lives was our work, or our art, or whatever you want to call it. The songwriting was what mattered, not the stardom or whatever. Has songwriting changed much for you over the years? I get the impression that when you started, it was an all-consuming pursuit. Did that change once you began recording, touring and doing movies?Actually, it hasn’t changed at all, except that it’s gotten slower. When I went to Nashville, the songs just came pouring out of me, and just about anything could inspire a song. I’ve never been able to be disciplined enough to sit down and make myself write every day. I know Tom T. Hall used to have a schedule where he’d get up and make himself write every day, and I could never do that. I always just waited until the inspiration hit me, and it hits me a lot slower today than it did then. I just trust in it to come, and it eventually does. If I’m in a place where I can fool with the guitar for awhile, I’ll stay with it longer, but usually I just wait until an idea develops itself. It wouldn’t break my heart if I never finished another song. On Feeling Mortal, you revisit your song “My Heart Was the Last One to Know,” which Connie Smith originally recorded in 1967. What made you include it on this album?I think I was just trying to visit some of the places that I’ve gone with my songs. That was a time of my life that I’m not in anymore, and haven’t been in for 30 years, but to me it’s like an authentic country song — the kind of country music that I listen to, anyway. Where does acting fit in for you at this point? Do you approach making films as artistic expression, or as a day job?It depends on the film. Just as performing onstage can be a creative act, the acting can be, too. It’s definitely best when you have a great director and a great piece of work, but that doesn’t always happen. I don’t think I’ll have to worry about doing too much acting anymore; they don’t hire many old guys. But I’ll keep doing it as long as it feels like a good experience.
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