Many musicians start out with aspirations of someday achieving fame or fortune. For Texas Americana legend Robert Earl Keen, there has never been such an end goal.
That’s because the journey alone – writing songs, playing live and recording music – is enough to keep his soul satiated.
“I love two things,” he said. “I love writing songs; it fills me up. I don’t do enough of it ... And the other thing I truly love is the stage.”
He has been unspooling a wry and poignant mix of folk balladry and Texas barroom country for more than three decades. The songwriter is celebrating two major milestones this year – the 30th anniversary of his first album, “No Kinda Dancer,” and the 25th anniversary of his signature hit, “The Road Goes on Forever.”
And much like that road, Keen continues on – writing music, diving into projects and touring.
He will return to Durango this week for back-to-back shows at the Animas City Theatre as part of his “The Road Still Goes on Forever Tour.” Durango songwriter Thom Chacon will open both nights.
Keen writes with a poet’s deftness and a troubadour’s imagination, penning songs about winding West Texas rivers, fugitive lovers on the run, wasted years and broken love.
Born to an oilman father and an attorney mother in Houston, he had a way with words from a young age.
“For almost as long as I could remember, I could make up a rhyme,” he said. “It impressed my mom from an early age.”
He also grew up loving literature – though he claims to be a lousy prose writer – and Houston’s folk scene, which he was exposed to as a teenager. And soon after he enrolled in Texas A&M’s English program, he began to combine his poetry flare with his love of music.
“I picked up a guitar really late, when I was 18, started strumming and thought, ‘Wow, I can put one of my little poems to song,’” he said.
College is also where he met contemporaries like Lyle Lovett, whom he began to write music with. Songwriting soon became a consuming passion. The process is intensely gratifying, Keen said.
“When it all comes together, it’s just an incredible feeling,” he said.
When he made his first record, in 1984, he said he was “truly inept at everything except making up songs and playing music a little bit.” Despite that, he scraped together the money in an old-fashioned crowd-funding effort – by sending letters to friends asking for $100 each. He raised $2,000.
“That was like, huge,” he said. “That was like an explosion in my life. That was really my point of disembarking. It was great.”
Five years later, Keen released “The Road Goes on Forever,” a raucous country ballad about a pair of small-town lovers on the run from the law. The popular song, a classic of contemporary outlaw country with shout-out-loud chorus, kicked his career into high gear.
During the next couple of years, Keen became a household name in Texas music with songs like “Gringo Honeymoon” and “The Front Porch Song” as well as albums like “No 2. Live Dinner.” He toured with the likes of Townes Van Zandt and Lovett and was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame.
He also toured, a lot. Keen has been playing with his band for 21 years, performing around 130 shows a year. The schedule can be grueling, he said, but they get along well and bottom line, they love to perform. And the crowds seem to love them back.
“One of the reasons we do this is because people love live music,” he said. “I think that’s mainly the reason we exist and continue because people love us as a live band. There’s never been the same set twice; we always change it up. It’s exciting.”
The longevity could also be attributed to him being open to new directions. Right now, he’s working on a still-untitled bluegrass album.
After mulling the project for a long time, Keen, long a fan of the genre, rounded up an impressive cast of musicians, including fiddler Sara Watkins, banjo player Danny Barnes, singer Peter Rowan and producer Lloyd Maines, to make it.
“I love bluegrass. I’m a lifelong fan,” Keen said. “I wanted to honor the form but also to put my new spin on it.”
The result is a collection of traditional bluegrass tunes he is proud of.
“I really am not big on bragging about myself, but I really think that it’s a fantastic project,” he said.
It should be out in early 2015. But if the mood is right Tuesday or Wednesday, Keen said, he and his band might just perform a couple of the tracks for Durango.
kklingsporn@durangoherald.com
If you go
Robert Earl Keen will play shows at 9 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Drive, with opening act Thom Chacon. Tickets are $34 and are available at www.durangoconcerts.com or by calling 247-7657.
