“Oh no, I can’t wait to get out there again because it I get to indulge my great passion which is photography,” says the gravel-voiced crooner.

“It’s got like my road manager has become my Sherpa as he gets to carry my things for me and I get to see all these wonderful places. I have my fourth photography book about to come out, it’s called Places I’ve Been Things I’ve Seen. It’s examples of my work I’ve taken all over the world including Africa and China and all over Europe.”

Kenny is really animated about taking photos. His other books include volumes of his celebrity friends (“Elizabeth Taylor was on the front, Michael Jackson was in it and four American Presidents”), as well as This Is My Country, in which he photographed country music stars.

“I’m a creative person and I have to be doing something. Photography is great because it gives me something to do in the day. If it wasn’t for photography I’d be sat in my bus watching Fox News all day and that’s not too healthy.”

Kenny is back on the road – “These days my people just point me and push me, but I think we’re due in London on June 7 and then we’ll be coming to Bournemouth the very next day” – to celebrate the first 50 years of a career that stretches back to the late 1950s. With some 65 albums to his name, selling more than 100 million copies worldwide, he’s lost count of the number of times he’s sung hits like The Coward of the County, The Gambler, Ruby Don’t Take Your Love To Town, Lady and Islands in the Stream. I wonder where he finds the challenges these days.

“You know, one thing I’ve always been is a realist,” he tells me. “I know where my abilities lie and where I am in the scheme of things. I didn’t write many of my biggest hits because I know there are people who are better songwriters than me and I can leave that to them.

“I don’t write so much anymore. I have identical twin five-year-old sons and it may not be how I envisaged spending the latter part of my life, but they’re the single greatest gift I have ever been given. They’re also very time consuming!

“Writing takes a lot of time and you have to give everything to the writing of that song and live it completely until you finish it in order to get to the depth of the emotion you’re writing about. But sometimes I’ll get an idea for a song and get someone to co-write it with. They go away and write and then come back to me and I’ll help finish it off.”

Kenny is not one of those stars hell-bent on retaining his youth by trying ever more desperate measures to keep up with the times. He’s a product of his age and very happy about it, readily admitting the peak of his career is behind him. Not that he’s giving up any time soon.

“I’m very thankful to have come up in this business when I did at a time I could enjoy my celebrity and not have it overwhelm me. The young stars today have life made very difficult for them by the paparazzi and I worry about them.

“The ones that make it fast are often the short-lived stars and that’s very sad, they get their three minutes of fame then spend a long time chasing for more and it’s just not there.”

• Kenny appears at BIC on Tuesday.

Tickets: 0844 576 3000 or visit bic.co.uk