Robert Earl Keen is an iconoclast, even in the world of music. He never fit into the country establishment in Nashville, instead building a career based out of his home state in Texas. Mixing the flavors of country, folk, and even some rock ‘n’ roll, he’s become a major figure in what’s become known as Americana, as well as the Red Dirt regional music scene in Oklahoma and Texas.
Keen brought an authentic slice of Texas music and charm to his recent appearance at The Birchmere, with excellent songs and great stories that showed off his delightful sense of humor.
After a stream-of-consciousness chat that ended with REK telling the audiences “it’s all smoke and mirrors,” REK started his set with one of his best songs (and one of my favorites), “Corpus Christi Bay,” a character study of an oil rig worker that explores family and substance abuse. It’s the sort of country song I love, and that Nashville doesn’t make any more, about the tough, real circumstances of working-class life. REK pulls off a neat trick here: The sugar of the upbeat melody helps the medicine of the lyrics go down more easily.
The nature of Keen’s asides, which have a somewhat rambling quality but manage to make sense if you’re there, can make them a bit hard to capture: Between songs on August 20, he did a bit that concluded with his musing how “a lot of people who get kicked out of California land up in Arizona.” (For whatever reason, this made me think of the title track on the late comedian Bill Hicks’s Arizona Bay, about the Golden State falling into the sea.) I’m not sure Robert even knows where these stories are going when he starts them, but it’s always worth the ride, as were the next two songs, “Shades of Grey” and “Love’s a Word I Never Throw Around.”
Texas through-and-through, REK’s roots in the state go back several generations. Introducing “Rolling By,” he spoke of how his grandmother spent her entire life in a small town called Menard. I’m sure why he was talking about, but I was fascinated by his discussion of the would-be Irish rubber baron Fitzcarraldo’s doomed mission to bring a steamship across the Andes, of the extremely troubled film about it made by the great German director Werner Herzog. I once heard someone dismissively refer to Keen as “frat music,” and, while his shows can have something of a party atmosphere, with fans often singing along, that’s not fair to the man, who’s much deeper than that.
Stream “Rolling By” by Robert Earl Keen on YouTube:
From his monologue about Fitzcarraldo, Keen somehow segued into talking about his project with Randy Rogers, The Stryker Brothers. He said it was supposed to be a big secret who was on the album, but the moment you hear them singing, it’s instantly clear it’s Robert. He played “Sinner Man,” followed by “The Little Things,” with its refrain of “It’s the little things that piss me off.” I can relate to that: While I’m strongly opposed to the death penalty, I believe it should be perfectly legal to push people to their death if they’re standing on the left side of the Metro escalator, blocking you. (*sarcasm alert*)
The set continued with “Ride,” and then perhaps his most iconic song, “The Road Goes On Forever and the Party Never Ends.” It’s a fine song in the outlaw tradition, about a couple of small-town kids who go on the run on a crime spree, and how it ends for both of them. I see this song as a sort of cousin to his fellow Texan Rodney Crowell’s “Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This.”
Up next was “Feelin’ Good Again.” I’ve alluded to Keen’s bad times in Nashville, where he spent less than three months before heading home. “And Then Came Lo Mein” tells the story of last night there. We got songs about chewing tobacco — “Copenhagen” — as well as “Barbecue.” I thought he might be wrapping things up when he played “I Gotta Go,” but he kept going. He introduced “I Would Change My Life” as a song that was recorded by Nanci Griffith. Keen described her as a complicated figure, but also she said she was very good to him, taking him to open on tour for her in Ireland for a month, where the crowds weren’t particularly interested in his stuff.
The set proper concluded with another of his signature songs, “Merry Christmas From the Fam-O-Lee,” a good-natured ode to the dysfunction that sometimes seem more common than not. When he came back out for his encore, the screen behind him showed details of, and he spoke about, the benefit concert he’s hosting on Thursday, August 28th, “Applause for the Cause,” to raise funds for those affected by the disastrous floods in Central Texas. In addition to Keen, a bevy of stars will appear, including Tyler Childers, Miranda Lambert, and a rare reunion by Cross Canadian Ragweed. The concert will be livestreaming on Keen’s YouTube channel, Amazon Prime, and other platforms.
For his encore, REK performed “Mariano” and “The Front Porch Song,” which he wrote his friend and college roommate at Texas A&M, Lyle Lovett. Between listening to that song and my girlfriend mentioning them, I couldn’t resist ordering myself “a big old greasy plate of enchiladas” earlier this week.
Watch Robert Earl Keen perform “The Front Porch Song” live for Southern Living on YouTube:
Nashville-based singer-songwriter Henry Conlon opened the show. He started his set with “American Wild.” The next tune, “Bluebird,” was written about the time he was in a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend, who is Canadian, after they met at a wedding in Tennessee. I can only assume “The Sun Also Rises” is inspired by Hemingway, because it would be a hell of a coincidence if he came up with the same exact language independently. “Just Say When” delves into his youthful indiscretions, in particular the time he asked his interviewer out on a date at the end of a job interview, and how the dissolution of that relationship ended up killing the company. “Hotel Bed,” he shared, was written in the Canadian Rockies. He concluded his set with “Sometimes the Weather” and “Flowers for Josephine.”
A few years ago, we thought we might’ve seen the last on REK in these parts. He announced his retirement, and was facing various health problems, including Bell’s Palsy. Fortunately, he’s come back on the road, and we’re lucky he always comes to The Birchmere, which he cites as one of his favorite places to play.
Here are some photos of Robert Earl Keen performing live at The Birchmere on August 20, 2025. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Steve Satzberg.
Here are some photos of Henry Conlon opening Robert Earl Keen at The Birchmere on August 20, 2025. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Steve Satzberg.
