Robert Earl Keen

Among the large contingent of talented songwriters who emerged in Texas in the 1980s and ‘90s, Robert Earl Keen struck an unusual balance between sensitive story-portraits (”Corpus Christi Bay”) and raucous barroom fun (”That Buckin’ Song”). It’s this precarious creative dichotomy that can make Keen’s audiences seem like two very different branches of one weird family tree (definitely reminiscent of his hit-for-all-seasons “Christmas with the Family”). 2005’s “What I Really Mean” continues the songwriter’s musical bi-polarism with wacky comic songs like “The Great Hank,” which imagines meeting Hank Williams as he performs in drag, as well as touching observations about life and love that get even the toughest fans choked up. As all of his fans know—the rowdy ones and the rest—there’s nothing like the twisted imagination and talented musicianship of Robert Earl Keen.