Robert Earl Keen Concerts Setlist

Robert Earl Keen is an American singer and songwriter. He was born on January 11, 1956 in Houston, Texas. Keen got into music in his college years at Texas A&M University. He learnt to play the guitar, and started covering classic country songs. He got his BA degree in English, then spent the next couple of years writing songs and playing for miscellaneous bluegrass and folk bands.

He moved to Austin, Texas where he began performing early Robert Earl Keen concert shows in local venues, such as the Cactus Cafe and Liberty Lunch. In 1983, he won the folk music competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival. He then put out his self-produced debut album, “No Kinda Dancer”, in October 1983. It failed to gain any significant commercial traction. Undeterred, Keen moved to the country music capital of the world, Nashville, Tennessee. There, he managed to sing a publishing deal, but nothing came of it, so he traveled back to Texas. In 1984, the small American label Sugar Hill Records re-released his self-produced debut album from the year before, then put out his second album, “West Textures”, in November 1989.

The first of Keen’s records to get on the Billboard 200 chart was his fifth one, “Picnic” from April 1997, which peaked at the #160 spot, while getting to #4 on the new artist-specific Heatseekers chart. The seventh addition to his discography, “Gravitational Forces” from April 2001 reached the #10 spot on Billboard’s country music chart. Overall, the American bluegrass-country singer has put out 12 records during his long career. The latest new Robert Earl Keen album came out in February 2015, with the title “Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions”.

Keen’s biggest hits to date are “The Road Goes on Forever” (1989), “Corpus Christi Bay” (1993), “Gringo Honeymoon” (1994), and “Feelin’ Good Again” (1998). He was known for his busy Robert Earl Keen concert tour schedule, usually performing around 50-60 shows per year around the world. However, in 2022, at age 66, he announced his retirement from touring.