Texan Robert Earl Keen Brings Literary Gifts to Americana Music

By John Roos

Robert. Earl. Keen.

This Texas troubadour with three names has been crafting story songs for nearly four decades now. Although such timeless, character-driven gems as “Mariano,” “Whenever Kindness Fails,” “Shades of Gray,” and “Gringo Honeymoon,” among others, rival the songwriting quality of fellow Texans including Joe Ely, Lyle Lovett, Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Keen has never had a hit record.

Yet the 64-year-old Keen has never been in it for the riches or glory. The former self-described oil field roughneck is making a good living doing what he loves, and the acclaim received from his peers—including being among the new class of inductees to the Texas Institute of Literature—is enough to satisfy his soul and keep the creative fires burning.

“It’s an honor to be included in a fraternity of great writers like Dan Jenkins, Richard Linklater, Billy Porterfield, and Cormac McCarthy,” said Keen, a 1978 graduate of Texas A&M with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. “This recognition is high up there.”

In March 2015, Keen also distinguished himself as the first recipient of BMI's official Troubadour Award, which celebrates songwriters who have made a lasting impact and honors writers who craft for the sake of the song while setting the pace for songwriters to follow. To protect songwriters, Keen was a member of the delegation that lobbied our U.S. Congress to support musicians' rights, specifically the "Fair Pay for Fair Play Act," which expanded into the Music Modernization Act that became law in October 2018.

Since the 1984 release of Keen’s debut album, “No Kinda Dancer,” the singer-songwriter-guitarist has blended alt-country, roots-rock and Americana to create vivid narratives in songs that capture the essence of mood, time and place, often drawing his listeners into lives of desperate characters who somehow never lose hope and their longing for love and salvation.

Written more than 30 years ago but still timely today, “Mariano” is one of Keen’s most poignant songs, a tale both personal and political about an illegal immigrant gardener who sends his earnings back home while under the constant threat of deportation back to Guanajuato, Mexico.

For the Houston-born Keen, the creative process begins with something churning inside of him.

“Because I’m not a genius musically, I really like to latch on to some kind of music that stirs me or something that piques my interest,” said Keen during a recent interview. “So, I do kind of just strum guitars. My God, when I really get set up to writing, I set about five, six, or seven guitars around me. I’ll strum on one for a while, and maybe I’ll feel like it’s kind of dead. So, I’ll pick up another one until I sort of get a vibe. What happens with me is that the music will bring out some sort of image. Then I’ll take that image and try to describe it. Maybe it’s a car in a parking lot under a street lamp, or maybe it’s a girl in a doorway – any kind of an image. That’s where the beginning starts to blossom a little bit. Then once I describe it to my satisfaction, next I’ll try to create a puzzle and then, I’ll try to solve the puzzle.”

“I’m very visual in my thinking when I write a song so I start with some sort of setting like that,” he continued. “Something I remember or had some impact. I feel like the way to construct a song with some sort of narrative value begins with the setting.”

Keen and his stellar 6-piece band are currently on the road with an upcoming tour stop Sunday at the Cornerstone in Berkeley. (March 11, 2020 Update: This concert has been postponed due to COVID-19 concerns. Tickets will be honored for a new date to be announced.)

Supporting Keen for years, the band—including lead guitarist Rich Brotherton, bassist Bill Whitbeck, drummer Tom Van Schaik, steel guitarist Marty Muse, mandolin player Kym Warner, and fiddler-guitarist Brian Been–plays a pivotal role in making older, frequently-played songs fresh-sounding and alive. How do they pull it off?

“Touring is easy if you have a good audience,” offered Keen, whose nasally-sounding voice perfectly suits his dusty but rich songs. “The key is the audience and we have fantastic audiences. A friend of mine put me on the phone with a woman just last night who had never heard of us, and she was mad at her husband for dragging her to the show; but then she told me it was the best show she’d ever seen. She was happy to talk about her discovery. Delightful discovery is better than free whiskey.”

Keen is also inviting music lovers to discover Americana artists who he feels deserve greater exposure through his Americana Podcast: The 51st State. Now in its second season, the podcast is dedicated to championing roots-based Americana music’s enriching legacy. Each episode is told from the point of view of the musicians that have dedicated their lives to it. Keen, Americana pioneer and host, interviews the guest musicians, exploring their unique histories, creative processes, successes, failures, and everything in between. Keen has interviewed such wide-ranging acts as I’m With Her, Lucero, Tamara Saviano, and Shinyribs (a.k.a. Kevin Russell), among numerous others. (Check it out at https://www.americanapodcast.com/)

His feelings of detachment, oddly enough, is what inspired Keen to begin hosting a podcast.

“I’ve been rolling around in a bus all the time and you’re pretty isolated,” he said. “Sometimes you think, ‘I know everything.’ Then you step out and it’s 2019 and you think, I’ve been here since 2009. You get really out of touch. This has gotten me back in and I love doing the podcast.”

“It has been a great experience and lesson to find all of the music and get involved in a different way than playing,” added Keen. “There is a lot more to (doing) podcasts than I think I realized. One of the more surprising things was all the support I immediately got. Kind of like when I wanted to start a music career and people gave me that (raised eyebrow) look. You can tell, they are like, ‘Oh brother’. But when I told people I was going to start a podcast, they would send those congratulatory, confetti texts back saying it’s a great idea and then ask me what it’s going to be about?”

Keen has not released a studio album since 2015’s Lloyd Maines-produced “Happy Prisoner: the Bluegrass Sessions,” a heartfelt tribute to bluegrass musicians and standards, including his arrangements of Bill Monroe’s “Footprints in the Snow,” Flatt and Scruggs’ “Hot Corn, Cold Corn,” the Stanley Brothers’ “White Dove” -- and disc-ending, solid rendition of the classic, “Wayfaring Stranger.”

Keen at first was a bit intimidated by leaving his comfort zone. But that soon changed once the recording sessions unfolded.

“I’ve been listening to bluegrass forever and I love it,” Keen declared, “and I feel somewhat locked into it as a happy prisoner of bluegrass because I’ve never been a true bluegrass player. But my desire, my passion sort of overrode my fear. I wrote down 100 songs that I knew and then decided we were going to record 38 of them. Then it became 28. Finally, there are 15 on the CD and 20 on the digital version. They’re all songs that I’ve known and loved for a long time.”

Keen is planting the seeds for a new album that began with what he described as a vague concept.

“The vague concept for my next record is all about simplicity, ensemble instrumentation, and thud percussion—like one might feel in the bottom of one’s feet when a tank rolls by,” he explained. “Sounds like a lot of B.S., right? Only it’s not. That’s what I have in mind. Lyrically, I want to be as strong and clear as Hank Williams or a bible verse.”

Could there finally be a hit song ready to break out from the upcoming album? Honestly, probably not. But that’s okay.

“I’m at the best level of celebrity in the world,” said Keen. “I can go anywhere I want and nobody ever really recognizes me unless I start talking. It’s what my wife calls, ‘playing the Earl card.” I go, ‘Hi, I’m Robert Keen,’ and people go, ‘Oh, okay, nice to meet you.’ Then I say, ‘Robert Earl Keen,’ and they go, ‘Oh!’”

*Robert Earl Keen performs Sunday at the Cornerstone Craft Beer and Live Music, 2110 Durant Avenue, Berkeley; (510) 214-8600. Willy Tea Taylor opens at 8:30 p.m. $34-$44. All ages. (Postponed, new date to be announced) (https://www.cornerstoneberkeley.com/music-venue