Texas Singer Songwriter Robert Earl Keen
by Terry Smith Athens NEWS Editor - 2/14/2005
My first exposure to Robert Earl Keen, the Texas singer-songwriter performing at Stuart's Opera House this Wednesday, came in the mid-'80s when he played at a mutual friend's wedding near Nashville.
Since that time, nearly 20 years ago, Keen has gone from being a struggling songwriter pounding doors on Nashville's Music Row to his current status as a top-ranked country-folk artist. In his native Texas, one of the most competitive music scenes on earth, Keen has achieved near legendary status.
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It's a small world. A benefit of my short run-in with Robert Keen at that '80s wedding was an autographed copy of his debut LP, "No Kinda Dancer" (1984, Sugar Hill). And guess who wrote the liner notes? None other than J.D. Hutchison, Athens' own pre-eminent singer-songwriter.
Hutchison and Keen apparently became acquainted while playing in an Austin, Texas theater production in the late '70s or early '80s, and struck up a friendship. Hutchison's liner notes for that first record were typically, well, Hutchisonian, though they did match the left-of-center, off-kilter lyrics and presentation in Keen's songs. The twangiest song on the record, a duet with folk artist Nanci Griffith, talks about a former lover "swervin' in my lane, and it's causing lots of danger/I'm honkin' on my horn, I'm a shooting you the finger."
Over the years, Keen has recorded one critically acclaimed album after another. The most recent, "Farm Fresh Onions" (Audium/Koch), won rave reviews from the likes of renowned music journalist Chet Flippo, who included it in his Top 10 for 2004.
Impressively, Keen has carved out a successful career recording a type of leftfield country-folk music that doesn't get played on country radio, at least not outside of Austin. During his career, hundreds of other talented alt.country, folk and Americana artists have tested the waters of music business success and drowned or swam back to shore.
In an interview with The Athens NEWS last week, Keen acknowledged his rare success, and attributed much of it to working the road over the long haul, with a consistent group of musicians. "We tour all the time, non-stop touring," he said. "I think of us as a touring band. We've been together for 10 years, 120 dates a year… We're some pretty road-savvy guys. We put on good shows; that's what we do mainly."
He mused about all the other performers who have come and gone since he started in the business. "We should make a list. I didn't realize it's such a transient profession."
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Over the years, Keen, who has a degree in English from Texas A&M, managed to build a strong fan base among Texas college students. His campus concerts still draw big crowds, with drunken frat brothers caterwauling along to his famous novelty tunes ("Merry Christmas From the Family," "Five-Pound Bass," among others).
But that sort of appeal, which might have driven off fans more appreciative of his balladry, eventually developed into a wider fan base. "It's not like it was, almost only college people," he said. "Now, it's more spread out. I've said before, I feel like I'm the Milton Bradley game of music; everybody from 8 to 80, they all seem to get it and enjoy it."
As is customary with a Robert Earl Keen record, "Farm Fresh Onions" has a heady mix of party songs, ballads, country, blues and rock. The band on the album is essentially the band on the road, with Keen's guitar player and sometimes producer, Rich Brotherton, setting the musical tone.
According to the Rolling Stone's Meredith Ochs, Keen has two faces, "the insightful poet who conjures up heartfelt, sepia-toned American parables, and the redneck shit-kicker whose comic party tunes have made him sort of Grateful Dead for frat guys. Both are present on ('Farm Fresh Onions')..."
Fresh on the success of that CD, Keen has another record coming out in May, "What I Really Mean." Though the process of making the two albums was similar, Keen said, "the songs (on the new record) aren't the same for some reason. They're somewhat more loose and twangier."
So how does Keen feel about surviving the ups and downs of the country-rock/country-folk world (latest term: "alternative country") and managing to build a successful career out of it?
"I never did feel like I was a part of (alt.country), or the way country music is now either," he said. "If nothing else, you can call me left of center, or kind of a mold-breaker, oddball, redheaded stepchild. You should Google that. Really the big difference is sort of my approach, particularly my lyrics. They kind of stick with people; even some died-in-the-wood Nashville songwriter, part of the music mill, they come up to me and say, 'hey, we just wrote a Robert Keen song."
The show at Stuart's Opera House begins at 8 p.m. Shooter Jennings, son of the late country legend Waylon Jennings, will open.
For ticket info call 753-1924.
