Robert Earl Keen
Bio
Post-retirement life looks a little different for every person lucky enough to reach the sunset of their careers with some time and energy to spare. For singer-songwriter (and poet, podcast host, amateur historian, good-time curator, guitar collector) Robert Earl Keen, it took under a year of retirement to say “screw it,” and kick off a return to work unrivaled since Michael Jordan hit the court in a Wizards jersey. After 21 albums full of songs like “Gringo Honeymoon,” “Feelin’ Good Again,” and “Corpus Christi Bay,” thousands of shows, songs cut by artists including George Strait and The Highwaymen, and many well-deserved accolades like the BMI Troubadour Award, the Texas Heritage Songwriter Hall of Fame, and the Texas A&M Distinguished Alumni Award—of which only 300 or so have been awarded from more than half-a-million graduates—it would be hard to find anybody in the same shoes who would willingly give it all up for a quiet life at home. As Keen projects from the stage every night, along with the help of every set of lungs in the room, “The road goes on forever, and the party never ends!”
Those words have never seemed more true for the Americana pioneer, and in Keen’s late-career renaissance, his party doesn’t just “never end,” it keeps growing. Just this year, Keen made an iconic, late-career debut on the Grand Ole Opry, was invited to join Tyler Childers for a sold out show at the world-famous Hollywood Bowl, and helped his old friends Turnpike Troubadours rattle Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater, all while continuing to headline his own shows in iconic venues, host his Americana Podcast: The 51st State, putting together a new book, and recording yet another new album.
But like any good Texan renaissance man, Keen keeps a lot of skillets on a lot of fires; not just looking towards the future, but keeping an eye on the present and what (and who) got him here today. This year, Keen has expanded his Annual Homecoming Weekend, a friends and family shindig for the ages, which culminates in the free Robert Earl Keen Fan Appreciation Day concert at John T. Floore’s Country Store. And Keen and his band are tighter than ever. Having just recorded and released a collaborative multi-media project and album, Western Chill, the roving quintet has settled into a sustainable, enjoyable program of touring and recording. If retirement means living every day on your own terms, Keen’s un-retirement reads less like another chapter and more like a whole new book.
