MUSIC

Texas road warrior Keen pulls up at Rev Room

Robert Earl Keen
Robert Earl Keen

— Over the course of three decades, Robert Earl Keen has worked his way from a cult figure among fans of wonderful, yet sometimes weird music, to one of the giants in the music of his native Texas. Indeed, Keen is so respected that his younger peers got together in 2008 and assembled Undone: A Musicfest Tribute to Robert Earl Keen, a doubledisc collection.

Some of the included commentary explains how and why the other musicians came to honor Keen and some of the comments are almost as funny or profound as Keen’s songs.

“Robert mapped out the way of the independent artist touring for a living,” says Bonnie Bishop, who sings Keen’s “Not a Drop of Rain” on the CD. Wade Bowen wrote in the liner notes that his father had bought him his first Robert Earl Keen album when he was 17, and that after he went off to college in Lubbock, he saw Keen as soon as possible and “decided right then and there I wanted to do this with my life and write songs. Thank you, Robert Earl, for messing up my life.”

Other participants include many musicians who themselves frequently perform at either the Revolution Room or Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack: Reckless Kelly, Randy Rogers, Roger Creager, Cory Morrow, Jason Boland, Cody Canada and Chris Knight.

Keen, for his part, at first resisted being the focus of a tribute, figuring he might be perceived as being on his last legs or at least having one or more legs in the grave.

“After I heard them all, I was OK with the deal,” the 56-year-old recalls. “Now I can die with a smile on my face.”

One of Keen’s latest honors happened a month ago, when he was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Association’s Hall of Fame in Austin, along with the late Townes Van Zandt and Keen’s old college buddy, Lyle Lovett. Keen and Lovett collaborated for a time, co-writing “Front Porch Song,” which recalls their carefree days strumming and humming on a front porch in College Station.

Last summer, Keen released his 16th studio album, Ready for Confetti, which topped the Americana music chart. The album contains one of his new story songs, “I Gotta Go.” The song — which Keen reckons qualifies as having “stick” as defined by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point — quickly became a fan favorite, as has the entire album, which Keen maintains is his best ever.

“I put my heart and soul into that record, which came out last September,” he says, “and it’s gratifying when we play somewhere and all the fans know all the words as if it had been around for years and years. I don’t exactly play stuff that’s in ‘heavy rotation’ on any radio or TV or anything.”

Keen studied English at Texas A&M University, and after graduation he moved to Austin and worked as a newspaper reporter by day and a musician at night, releasing his debut album, West Textures, in 1989. Thanks to such songs as “Five Pound Bass” and “Copenhagen,” Keen soon became a favorite among a young, collegiate crowd, with his fame gradually spreading across a broad demographic spectrum.

“My secret, I guess, is that I tour,” Keen says. “I play a lot, sometimes 180 days a year. Sometimes I’ve got four suitcases in my closet at one time, I go home, kiss the wife, grab one, and I’m off again. And another part of my success is the guys in my band, who have all been with me since 1998. We get along, I keep writing songs, putting out music, and we try to mix things up, go on some of those music cruises, go to Europe for some shows.

“We went to Woodstock about four years ago and played one of those Rambles that Levon Helm puts on, and that was great fun. We all got to sing ‘The Weight’ at the end, and later we wrote a song about him: ‘The Man Behind the Drums.’”

There are a couple of Keen songs, “The Road Goes on Forever” and “Merry Christmas From the Family,” that Keen might be presumed to have tired of doing over the years. Indeed, he even came up with a sequel of sorts to “The Road Goes on Forever” called “The Road Goes On and On,” on Ready for Confetti.

But Keen doesn’t put himself in the category with Don McLean or Arlo Guthrie, both “doomed” to have to do a signature song of great length at every performance.

“I feel sorry for those guys,” he says, “but I’ve got tons of songs, and doing ‘The Road Goes on Forever’ is my way of getting out of playing ‘Free Bird’ when some drunk yells that out. I just start up ‘The Road ...’ and the crowd goes wild.”

One of Keen’s favorite recent experiences was giving a convocation address at Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, in his neighborhood, he notes, and telling new college students what they should be aware of in their new surroundings.

“It was really weird, the first time I’d ever done anything like that,” Keen says. “And later the college officials told me it was the first time in 16 years a speaker had ever gotten a standing ovation. I guess if they ever bring back the chautauqua kind of learning experience, I might have a new career, if I ever need one.”

Keen was not reluctant to comment on his alma mater’s recent switch to the Southeastern Conference.

“I miss the Southwest Conference and the ‘wishbone’ offense,” he mourns. “I’m not really excited about how it’s become all about more money for agents and lawyers and some coaches. It doesn’t really buy more.”

Robert Earl Keen

8:30 p.m. today, Revolution Room, 300 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock

Opening act: Chris Craig

Admission: $25

(501) 823-0090

revroom.com

Weekend, Pages 34 on 04/05/2012

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