Best by Robert Earl Keen

I have found a new artist that goes to the Top 10. Of course my Top 10 has many more than ten artists in it. I have heard references to Robert Earl Keen in live recordings by that other Texas troubadour James McMurtry and around Christmas each year we hear a few plays of " Merry Christmas From the Family."

With Spotify I put his name in and about twenty choices come up, one thing becomes quickly apparent is that Mr. Keen likes live albums as he has recorded several. It never ceases to amaze that so many artists are just below the surface, never quite breaking out into wide ranging commercial success but do carve out a niche for themselves. The work is finding these artists. Once found one feels like he has found a nugget of gold in sea of sand. Robert Earl Keen is that gold.

If not exposed to his music the album Best is a natural place to start. No Kinda Dancer perhaps his oldest hit, first recorded in 1984, is soon followed by Paint the Town Beige. The latter tells of a middle aged man who still wants to be wild but allowing for age and changing circumstances changes the result of his efforts from red to beige. An analogy we of middle age can all understand. Whenever Kindness Fails offers that violence will be brought if one does not accept kindness. Corpus Christi Bay is a story song that works fully. The aforementioned Merry Christmas From the Family is a funloving expression of a lowbrow Christmas recorded live with the crowd joining in on several lines. Gringo Honeymoon continues the success as another great song.

The triumverate for Keen fans however is begun with The Road Goes on Forever told in this case with an intro about free love days, a concert, a girl and meeting Willie Nelson. Feeling Good Again continues the mood and the album ends with the always must be performed in concert I'm Coming Home.

I have not found a bad song in his entire catalogue though there are several what might be called novelty songs such as " That Bucking Song." A gem not on the best album is Drunken Selfish Crime.

I suspect that the fanbase of Robert Earl Keen is an all or nothing thing, not a lot of middle ground. I confess I am not in the middle, this fellow is great. I will listen to it all.