KRIS KRISTOFFERSON This Old Road New West Records ****

Kris Kristofferson introduces The Last Thing to Go, one of the 11 tracks on his first album of new material in a decade, with the observation that a former fighter used to say that the first thing to go was your legs, then your arms and then your friends. It's easy to hear what the old growler means. His voice ain't up to much, though that burnished ragged Texan quality has carried him over many a hump. He's a tad grumpy, though that's understandable living in Dubya's America. And now he just watches as friends such as Johnny Cash depart the scene.

As KK approaches his 70th birthday, he has chosen This Old Road to ruminate and reflect, to remember and redress and to let out the odd howl at the moon for the state we find ourselves in.

It is often forgotten how much of a Renaissance man Kristofferson is. A Rhodes scholar educated in Oxford, a US army helicopter pilot, movie star, and a composer of hundreds of songs, including such classics as Sunday Morning Coming Down. And now, like his late friend Johnny C, he has pared his sound to the bare bones of mostly just guitar, voice and harmonica and songs imbued with dignity, intelligence, humility and bare-knuckled anger over the war. Impressive. www.kriskristofferson.com

Joe Breen