ROBERT EARL KEEN BIOGRAPHY
Rather appropriately, mystery pervades the career of Robert Earl Keen, the most
successful artist that many Americans have never heard. He's had his songs recorded
by George Strait, Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, the Dixie Chicks and the Highwaymen
(Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash & Kris Kristofferson); appeared in such
prestigious publications as Playboy and Men's Journal; performed on Late Night With
Conan O'Brien and The Today Show; had Garth Brooks mention his music in one of his
own songs, and played concert venues steadily for more than 20 years. By his own
admission, he's never had a song hit the Top 10 of a major chart, and yet he consistently
plays sold-out shows for audiences that number sometimes as many as 25,000.
Keen's career—hugely successful while dodging the music industry's most obvious
channel of exposure, mainstream radio—remains a bit of a mystery even to him.
"As time goes by, it becomes a greater and greater curiosity," he confesses. "I literally
can play a 90-minute show and almost everybody in the room will be singing every song.
To me, that's what it's all about. If people are recording your songs and singing your
songs, then you're successful. If you play these songs and nobody cares, then you're
not successful. My thing is like I'm extremely successful because so many people know
so many of my songs. They don't know one song—they know them all!"
This high-energy fan participation can be, not only heard, but experienced on Keen's
latest release, recorded live at Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium (the longtime home
of the Grand Ole Opry before it moved to the permanent Grand Ole Opry House). Keen
delights a packed house with first class renditions of some of his biggest hits and best
loved songs including "What I Really Mean," "Broken End of Love," and "Amarillo
Highway." Live at the Ryman captures the high energy experience that has made Keen
a favorite of audiences all over the country.
"Sometimes I say this jokingly, but I think this is pretty much the key," Keen observes. "I
don't think I intimidate anybody with my voice. My vocal range is so limited that anybody
that's even had a tracheotomy can follow what's going on. Everybody can sing a Robert
Earl Keen song. You're not gonna be thrown a big curveball by some huge falsetto piece
in the middle of it. They work, and they sound good, the words fit together well, and
they're easy to sing. I think people like that."
And surely they do, as Keen's albums continue to receive critical acclaim and success.
Keen's latest studio album, What I Really Mean, topped #1 on the AAA charts and
charted as the number two American album for all of 2005. The Washington Post called
it "another terrific disc…a fine choice for those searching for country music with
character and authenticity."
The simple and honest storyteller is certainly the kind of artist that attracted Keen in his
formative years. Born in Houston to a Texas oilman and an attorney who turned him on
to authors and poets, he began writing his own poems around the age of five. He didn't
begin to consider his rhymes as song lyrics until he started playing guitar at age 18,
while majoring in English at Texas A&M.
In the meantime, he became enamored of roots music performers—the Western tales of
Marty Robbins, the mournful laments of Hank Williams, the passionate rhythms of Bob
Wills & His Texas Playboys.
As a teenager, Keen scoured the discount bins for authentic music, and it's likely there
that he and fiddler Brian Duckworth found an eight-track of Jimmie Rodgers, widely
regarded as the Father of Country Music. Rodgers' hard-edged performances are not
too far removed stylistically from the blues of Robert Johnson, who recorded during the
same era, and Keen was immediately taken by the honesty in the Singing Brakeman's
music.
"It made all the sense in the world to me," Keen recalls. "I don't know if I liked it before,
but since then, I've always liked that one-guy-with-guitar-with-the-story-kinda-song thing,
whether it's folk or country or whatever."
Though Keen completed his college work, he found his true passion in the clubs,
bringing his oddball characters to sonic life and gaining a sense of community with the
audience through music he necessarily writes in painful solitude. National Public Radio
and the occasional alternative-country program provided exposure for such Keen
classics as the anthemic "The Road Goes On Forever" and the twisted "Merry Christmas
From The Family," attracting new fans to his energetic shows, which grew in larger
numbers through word of mouth.
Keen's efforts had a distinct effect on Texas' music. Lone Star club-goers were notorious
for their insistence that bands play two-step music—if an artist couldn't make them
dance, they usually were not invited back. Keen broke that barrier, establishing a new
interest in thoughtful and unusual singer-songwriters. As a result, he paved the way for
such artistic Texans as Jack Ingram, Pat Green, and Charlie Robison.
Keen's set lists are ever-changing, the songs often undergo metamorphoses with
continued playing, and his band—whose "newest" member has been with Keen for five
years—revels in versatility. As a result, the concerts are often as unpredictable as the
people he sings about.
