Robert Earl Keen
There’s an irony in the title to Robert Earl Keen’s 11th album, What I Really Mean. In his intriguingly elusive manner, Keen managed to compile 11 songs with varying degrees of mystery -- songs that lead the listener to specific storylines and specific emotions without revealing too much. 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; 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.
Born in Houston to a Texas oilman and an attorney who turned him on to authors and poets, Keen 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.
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, establishing a new interest in thoughtful and unusual singer-songwriters. As a result, he paved the way for such artistic Texans as Lyle Lovett, Pat Green, Jack Ingram and Charlie Robison.