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The Center for Texas Music History Dr. Gary Hartman, Director
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Biography Robert Earl Keen Among the large contingent of talented songwriters who emerged in Texas in the 1980s and 1990s, Robert Earl Keen struck an unusual balance between sensitive story-portraits ("Corpus Christi Bay") and raucous barroom fun ("That Buckin' Song"). These two song types in Keen's output were unified by a mordant sense of humor that strongly influenced the early practitioners of what would become known as alternative country music. Keen, the son of an oil executive father and an attorney mother, is a native of Houston. His parents enjoyed both folk and country music, and his own style would land between those genres. Keen wrote poetry while he was in high school, but it wasn't until he went to journalism school at musically fertile Texas A&M that he learned to play the guitar. He and Lyle Lovett became friends and co-wrote a song, "This Old Porch," which both later recorded. Keen made a splash in Austin with his debut album, No Kinda Dancer, self-financed in 1984 for $4500. He moved to Nashville during the heady experimentalism of the 1980s that saw Lovett and k.d. lang hit the country scene, but he soon returned to Austin. Texas landscapes and residents provided him with creative inspiration, as his second album, West Textures, made clear. That album yielded one of Keen's signature numbers, an ambitious crime-spree song called "The Road Goes on Forever." By then signed to Sugar Hill, Keen recorded a live album shortly after West Textures but waited several years to release a studio follow-up, 1993's A Bigger Piece of Sky. After that album (which contained "Corpus Christi Bay") came Gringo Honeymoon (1994), which merged Keen's story songs with the emerging sounds of alt-country. Gurf Morlix, who later produced albums for both Keen and Lucinda Williams, played guitar. A young Gillian Welch provided harmony vocals. Once again, after taking his career to a new stage, Keen recorded a live album No. 2 Live Dinner, (1996) and took time to accumulate new material. The 1997 album Picnic, his first for the Arista Texas label, again moved in the direction of alternative country, featuring Keen in a duet with the Cowboy Junkies' Margo Timmins, while 1998's Walking Distance featured sparer textures. Whatever production style surrounded his songs, Keen's musical personality seemed consistent, and his live shows, widely known thanks to a touring schedule that often approached 200 dates a year in the 1990s, grew organically, in depth and control. In the early 2000s Keen signed with the Lost Highway label and released the album Gravitational Forces (2001). He also devoted time to his influential annual concert series and talent festival, Texas Uprising, which took place at several venues around Texas and the Far West. Farm Fresh Onions (2003), What I Really Mean (2005) and Robert Earl Keen Best (2007) were released on Koch. ~ James Manheim, All Music Guide |
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__________________________________________________________ Press Releases Lone Star artists honor Texas/Americana Trailblazer with October 9, 2008 A Who's Who of young Texas/Americana artists and musicians gathered last winter at the annual MusicFest in Steamboat Springs, Colorado to honor a man who has blazed an important trail for them: indelible songwriter/singer/musician Robert Earl Keen. The result of that tribute concert is a live (yes, genuinely live) double CD set appropriately titled Undone: A MusicFest Tribute to Robert Earl Keen. The CD will be released January 6, 2009 by Right Ave/Dickson Productions and distributed by Thirty Tigers in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of Keen's enduring classic party song, "The Road Goes On Forever." Over the last two decades, Keen has earned a deep and abiding respect from his fellow musicians. He's truly a songwriter's songwriter who can move effortlessly from a poignant love ballad to a roof-raising sing-along. Because he's so successfully carried forward those rich traditions from earlier songwriters, while also putting his own distinctive stamp on the music, Keen has done more than any other single artist to inspire a whole new generation of Americana and Red Dirt singer-songwriters, including Cory Morrow, Bonnie Bishop, Cody Canada, Todd Snider, Randy Rogers, Reckless Kelly, and countless others. If anyone has earned the right to be called the "father" of Americana music, it's Robert Earl Keen. Undone is a moving tribute to Keen's important legacy as a singer, songwriter, performer, and pioneer of the Americana music movement. As part of Dickson Productions' annual "Tribute to a Legend" at MusicFest in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, The Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University helped bring together some of today's best young Texas and Americana artists to celebrate Keen's impact on their musical careers. With a great deal of respect and a healthy dose of humor and energy, each one of these musicians adds his or her own interpretation of Keen's material to the mix. From Reckless Kelly's rocking take on "Think It Over One Time" to Bonnie Bishop's sweet and soulful "Not a Drop of Rain," these younger artists demonstrate exactly how much Keen has influenced them musically. As an added bonus, Robert Earl Keen and his band also take the stage to perform a high-octane set of some of his most popular tunes ("Dreadful Selfish Crime," "Wild Wind," "For Love," "The Road Goes On Forever" and his new song "Goodnight Cleveland," for which this is the first recording. As part of Dickson Productions' efforts to honor and support the great traditions of Texas music, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Undone will benefit The Center for Texas Music History. As the only comprehensive, university-based program devoted to the preservation and study of the musical heritage of the Lone Star State, the Center is a non-profit educational organization that offers college courses on Texas music, sponsors research and publishing projects, and organizes exhibits, performances, and other programs to help students, scholars, and the general public better understand how Texas music reflects the rich history and cultural diversity of the Southwest. Track Listing – Disc One Disc 2 For more information contact: |
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