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Robert Earl Keen has been playing guitar and writing songs for decades now. TPR spoke to him recently, and got both a look forward, and a look back.
Keen didn’t even start playing guitar until the cusp between high school and college.
“I was a senior in high school, and I really started playing when I was a freshman at A&M,” Keen said.
His first guitar was a cheap, beaten-up thing, but it was a guitar. And it was something he could spend hours playing, trying to learn its secrets and get better.
“I learned a D chord, and I bet you I sat there and I played for four hours straight, just listening to the sound of a D chord. I just played it over and over and over, and I don't think I ever stopped thinking from that moment on that I was going to do anything but play music,” he said.
And that’s what he did. But as any musician would tell you, you’ve got to pay your dues. And that comes with practice and playing with others.
“I had a little bluegrass band called the Front Porch Boys, and we played, you know, like the Methodist Church spaghetti suppers on Wednesday night, and then some kind of VFW gig, and then like a couple of really like low down crummy rodeos,” Keen said.
His first move was to go to Nashville where he spent long nights trying and trying to write a hit song. He’s not kind to himself when describing his songwriting.
“They just sounded corny and stupid, so when I when I left Nashville, kind of with my tail between my legs and feeling kind of bad that I had not zero success, I had minus zero success,” he said.
But with hard work and a strong creative streak, success began to find him. He continued creating albums and developing an audience that wasn’t huge, but it was devoted.
In 2022, he announced he was retiring from touring, though he’s just announced a seven-city tour, coming to a conclusion on a three-night stand at Floore's Country Store on September 5-7. And he won’t be alone on stage.
“Suzy Bogguss is on that, and then Hayes Carll's on it,” he said. “Ray Benson is on it. Ray Benson has been kind of our professor emeritus, you know, with Asleep at the Wheel from the very beginning.”
Earlier this year the Texas Legislative Conference named him Texan of the Year. Initially, he wondered if he was Texan enough to warrant the distinction, then he embraced it.
“Absolutely. You know, I would say, you know, at first, I felt a little embarrassed by it because I know so many great Texans myself,” he said. “Some of them are some of my best friends.”
And so, the guy who can’t quite quit touring and performing songs that are real as Texas itself, will continue, if sparingly.
