Robert Earl Keen, who performs at Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points on Jan. 27, is closely associated with the music of his native Texas. He grew up in Houston, attended Texas A & M and began his career in earnest in Austin. The Texas Hill Country and the American Southwest provide the settings for many of his songs. Keen describes himself is a visual songwriter, he writes about what he sees. He says if he lived in Georgia there would be more trees in his songs.
Keen first started playing music in college where he studied literature. Among his favorite poets are Shakespeare, Coleridge, Eliot and Ginsberg. He says “some of the great poems are very short,” and adds reading poetry helped him understand “you can put a lot of information in a small space.”
Known both as a recording/performing artist and a songwriter, Keen is one of those singer/songwriters who defy genre. He says different record companies have marketed him in different ways from folk to country to pop. His latest record, Happy Prisoner, is an album of bluegrass music. Keen’s songs have been covered by a variety of artists. Joe Ely covered his song “Whenever Kindness Fails” in a way that never occurred to Keen (as a serious ballad) when he wrote it as a whimsical tune. His longtime friend Lyle Lovett has covered his tune “The Front Porch Song.” George Strait has covered Keen’s “Maria.” Nanci Griffith has covered two of Keen’s songs, “Sing One for Sister” and “I Would Change My Life.” Keen was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012 along with Lovett and the late Townes Van Zandt.
Keen relies on solitude to write his songs. He says he will strum his guitar and “let my mind run down that rabbit hole.” An image will come to him and he will expand on that image whether it is “an old car” or “a duck on a pond.” He says he has to work to find the meaning in the image and that the story of the song will come through its meaning. Keen says, “Eighty percent of my songs are written outside.”
Keen says he has toured at least 120 days a year for the past 20 years. Part of what makes life on the road joyful for him is the band he tours with, guitarist Rich Brotherton, bass player Bill Whitbeck, drummer Tom Van Shaik and Marty Muse on steel guitar. The band has been together recording and touring all this time. Joining them at the Variety Playhouse this Wednesday are mandolin player Kym Warner of The Greencards and fiddle player Danny Barnes of The Bad Livers.
Happy Prisoner was No. 2 on the Bluegrass charts in 2015 with the single “Footprints in the Snow” hitting No. 5. Keen grew up listening to bluegrass and believes it is one of American music’s core languages, “I’ve spent countless hours banging out fiddle tunes and murder ballads with rank strangers. We never missed a beat because we spoke only in bluegrass.” He says when he listens to bluegrass it “washes over him like a wave,” not only can he hear it, he can feel it. His show on Wednesday will feature songs from his new album as well as old favorites. Variety Playhouse is one Keen’s favorite venues to play where he and his longtime band can “ride with the crowd.”
For tickets and information, visit variety-playhouse.com.
Franklin Abbott is an Atlanta psychotherapist and consultant, writer and poet.
