{"id":2455008,"date":"2020-02-25T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=321473"},"modified":"2020-02-25T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T23:00:00","slug":"robert-earl-keen-discusses-his-americana-podcast-and-return-to-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/robert-earl-keen-discusses-his-americana-podcast-and-return-to-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Earl Keen discusses his Americana podcast and return to Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Robert Earl Keen will headline the Wheeler Opera House on Wednesday.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

If Robert Earl Keen had to put a genre stamp on his music, it\u2019d be Americana. But if you asked him to define Americana, the Texas singer-songwriter\u2019s response wouldn\u2019t be all that simple.<\/p>\n

So last year Keen did what you do these days when you have more questions than answers and a passion. He started a podcast.<\/p>\n

On his \u201cAmericana Podcast: The 51st State,\u201d Keen has talked about the form with the likes of Jamestown Revival, Lucero, Bruce Robison and the White Buffalo. Last week he launched its second season with guest Drew Holcomb.<\/p>\n

Nobody has really defined what \u201cAmericana\u201d music is, he argued, so he sees it as the musicians\u2019 job to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a unified discussion taking place with the genre from the artist\u2019s perspective,\u201d Keen said last week via email on break from a tour that will bring him to the Wheeler Opera House on Wednesday. \u201cA lot of people have seen me over the years and go, \u2018I don\u2019t know what you are, but I like it.\u2019 I think a lot of people out there really just aren\u2019t hip to (Americana) at all, they don\u2019t know what it is. The more we talk about, define and expand it, the more people will get onboard with it, the stronger it becomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The podcast project is also a way for Keen to stay connected to fellow artists, he said, as the cycle of touring and writing can be isolating.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can get out in your own solar system, spin out into the universe and never return. I\u2019m always trying to rope myself back in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sparked relationships with younger musicians than Keen, 64, and given him a chance to have long and substantive conversations he might not have otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many other avenues in the music business to explore in a creative way,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought this would really, really be good as one of those trying-to-give-back kinda things. The fresh viewpoints are great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keen\u2019s witty and literate songs have earned the Houston native a crossover appeal beyond country fans and far outside the confines of Texas country. He\u2019s never paused his continuing education in music appreciation. A case in point that preceded the podcast: his 2015 bluegrass project, \u201cHappy Prisoner,\u201d for which he surveyed the form going back to the 1910s and made an album of covers with collaborators including Lyle Lovett, Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek, and mandolin player Kym Warner of the Greencards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went in with a great deal of apprehension from always loving bluegrass but never being a true bluegrass player,\u201d Keen recalled. \u201cMy desire, my passion sort of overrode my fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he started by writing down 100 bluegrass songs that he knew and wanted to cover, eventually whittling it down to the 15 on the album (plus five more on the digital version).<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all songs that I\u2019ve known and loved for a long time,\u201d Keen said. \u201cThat album was me exploring something I have always loved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keen hasn\u2019t released a proper album since \u201cHappy Prisoner\u201d five years ago. But, as always, Keen is working on new music and testing out songs on the road. Recent additions to the catalog include a mournful ballad with the working title \u201cSilver Spurs and Gold Tequila\u201d<\/a> and a heartrending cover of John Prine\u2019s \u201cHello in There,\u201d which he covered at the ceremony where Prine received the BMI Troubadour Award in 2018 (Keen won it the previous year). A video of Keen performing the cover<\/a>, released on YouTube last year, with Kym Warner playing a delicate mandolin alongside Keen, is a marvel.<\/p>\n

Wednesday night\u2019s show brings Keen back to the Wheeler, where he has been a regular for decades. He is known to wait to write his set list until the day of a show, when he can walk the empty venue, feel out the place and decide whether he might play old fan favorites like \u201cFeelin\u2019 Good Again\u201d and folky offerings like \u201cGringo Honeymoon,\u201d choose from his favorite covers and his anthem \u201cThe Road Goes on Forever,\u201d which, for an artist who has been on tour more or less constantly since the mid-1980s, is also a simple truth.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Earl Keen will headline the Wheeler Opera House on Wednesday.Courtesy photo If Robert Earl Keen had to put a genre stamp on his music, it\u2019d be Americana. But if you asked him to define Americana, the Texas singer-songwriter\u2019s response wouldn\u2019t be all that simple. So last year Keen did what you do these days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 13:44:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}