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After 41 years on the road, legendary Texas singer-songwriter Robert Earl Keen is making his final trek around the country on his “I’m Comin’ Home”tour. Indeed, he is coming home, full circle, to his alma mater as a graduate of Texas A&M University (Class of 1978), where he will perform for the opening of Aggie Park on Sept. 2. As a pioneer in the Americana roots genre, Robert Earl Keen is best known for storytelling and song, performing in countless shows throughout the Lone Star State and beyond for more than four decades.
So far, Keen has recorded 21albums and garnered many honors including inductions into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame. Additionally, he is one of only 318 former students awarded the Texas A&M University Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest honor awarded to a former student of the university.
We spoke with Robert Earl Keen to find out more about his upcoming performance at the Aggie Park Kickoff Concert, what drove his decision to end touring, and what's next for him.
IN: How’d you get into music?
REK: I bought my sister's old Alvarez classical guitar to school with me. I wasn't really part of any particular group or anything, so when I first started, I didn't have a lot of friends or anything. I got out that guitar and strung it up, and tuned it up and started playing — it was love at first strum ... It was like my friend, it was my transition from living with my parents and going to high school and all that craziness into being on my own and trying to figure out life on my own.
IN: Your “The Front Porch Song”is about your time at Texas A&M. What was it like for you then?
REK: We created our own cult there on Church Street. Even in bad weather, we were out there all the time, playing music and [making] those memories. I didn't know at the time, but I've never been able to substitute— I've played a lot of music with a lot of people, but just playing for fun and by learning new songs or having a couple of people show up at your place— it's one of the greatest things about music: it communicates itself. It has its own language.
IN: Your friend Lyle Lovett also wrote “This Old Porch” about that time. Weren’t you and Lyle roommates?
REK: That is a mistake right there that somehow got written up somewhere, and it carried through for years and years. I lived about a block-and-a-half away ... For at least a good three years, we hung out all the time. I took a lot of summer school and so did Lyle. All my other pals that hung around all the time during the regular school year were always gone. So during the summertime, there's [Lyle and I] just walking back and forth classes together and trying to compete on writing the best English papers!
IN: So why did you decide to stop touring?
REK: It's tough to do what we do, which is travel up and down the road, anywhere from 200 to 300 days a year, being in a different place every night. After a while, it takes its toll on you ... I want to go out the way I came in, which was with a lot of passion and a lot of enthusiasm.
IN: What have you learned from being on the road?
REK: It has made me really good at crisis management because there's always [something], be big or little. ... from making a show within one minute of the time that I was supposed to be there and had to catch five planes to do it, to getting buses unstuck out of the mud, or hotel rooms that never were booked and finding a place to stay at four o'clock in the morning...
IN: How are your fans responding, knowing that your touring days are almost over?
REK: I usually play a little under two hours, but my shows have been going over three lately. That's just because the people, these huge crowds in the thousands, they're sitting there and listening whileI'm telling these stories, or about how these songs were created, or just any kind of anecdote that I can think of ... It’s a really cool thing that people are so passionate about my songs or my poems. There's all these great people out in the world, and they just want to shake your hand, and they want an autograph or a picture. What an honor.
IN: Do you have any mixed feelings about your decision?
REK: I'm not necessarily a stubborn person, but I am a willful person. I've always pretty much done what I said I was going to do, and so I don't have any regrets. There are moments, ... like standing on a stage after the show’s all over with and everybody's gone — I'm talking about the loaders and the lighting people and the catering people — and you’re standing out there all by yourself, and there's a flood of memories and emotions that come to you. It’s at best bittersweet. My wife told me when we got married that she would never encourage me to quit, and she never has. Never once did she ever make— even hint — that this was too much or she couldn’t handle it ... I don't care what area of employment or career choices you make. If your partner is not with you, you can't make it.I'm really looking forward to another page in my life and another chapter in my life, and one in whichI can still do things.
IN: Like what? So what’s next?
REK: I'm not quitting music, and I'm not quitting my life in any way. The only thing that's not going to happen is I'm not going to ride up and down the road and be loaded into something new and playing some show. Other than that, I'll still be making records, I'll be streaming stuff, doing my podcasts. I'm not going to be invisible. I'm going to be out there.
IN: You have a very successful Apple podcast called “Americana Podcast: The 51st State” that goes back to 2019. What will you be talking about in upcoming episodes?
REK: I want to just expand the whole notion of the Americana period — to start talking about novelists and directors, moviemakers, even financiers, people that work in the world of this cultural umbrella called Americana. It would be more episodes, more a little bit more frequency in the episodes, and a broader scope on just the idea of what is Americana and how it shapes our world.
IN: What else will keep you busy?
REK: I'm going to be able to spend time with things that I have had to either string out for the longest time and put aside because, frankly, touring, took up 80% of my life for about 40 years, and the other 20% was relegated to as much time as I could ever spend with my family. I have three or four records coming out after my retirement that will take me all the way into 2024. I also want to try to create some kind of collective to help younger artists navigate the treacherous waters of the entertainment business.
IN: What advice would you give them?
REK: If you really want to do something to get your music heard, you're going to need to learn what [the industry is] about. The other thing is to dabble in any kind of art and music that you want to dabble in, but do try to commit to some sort of sound that feels comfortable to you — that's your own. Employ as many original ideas as you possibly can. You really need to cut your own path a little bit. However you want to do it, it can be presentation, it can be use of words, it can be the category that you choose.
IN: As you head back to your alma mater, what are you looking most forward to?
REK: I'm really excited for this! President [and CEO] of TheAssociation of Former Students and longtime friend Porter S. Garner III called and asked me if I would consider playing at the newly opened Aggie Park to have a kickoff and send off at the same time, so I said I would love to. Absolutely!
IN: How has the Aggie Network supported you throughout your career?
REK: You run into Aggies all over the place, and there's always this camaraderie. They're not kidding when they say the Aggie Network—it's serious and it's big and it's global. You can go somewhere and get in a bind on whatever issue and find an Aggie nearby.
IN: Your last show is at Floore’s Country Store in Helotes, only two days after your Aggie Park performance...
REK: I can’t think of a better way to end my touring career, especially in College Station, and then passing the torch [to current student band The Barn Dogs] — very much of the Aggie tradition.
Read Comin' Home in Spanish here.
