Robert Earl Keen Jr. preview
Joe’s, Chicago
Friday, February 12, 2010
Years ago, all the CMA hubbub about Taylor Swift probably wouldn’t cost Texan Robert Earl Keen much sleep. The country singer/songwriter didn’t get angry — he just killed.
“I have a few dead bodies around,” he told IE last year. “I’m a lot softer now – the body count has dropped to almost zero.” If he does seek retribution though, “I can look at ’em and think, ‘I’m putting your fuckin’ ass in a song. I’m gonna fix you.'” Since the early ’80s, Keen has been a charter member of the Texas musician corps, along side such luminaries as Guy Clark and Joe Ely, and, to a degree, Lyle Lovett and Steve Earle. His influence carries through in Hayes Carll and Todd Snider, though it’s not so much a musical one as proof that a good story and “purple sunset” recordings done right can equal longevity.
He’s a raconteur’s songwriter, weaving real life (“Corpus Christi Bay”) through Southern humor (“Copenhagen”) and borderville fables (“Sonora’s Death Row”). His current album, The Rose Hotel, is his first for Lost Highway and a departure overall sonically — call it a ’50s Ray Price fan making peace with the ’70s — but at its heart lies Keen, flapping his gums and telling stories you wish you had.
— Steve Forstneger
Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly
