The Wellmont Theatre upcoming shows
WFUV Presents
Robert Earl Keen & Todd Snider
Bruce Robison
- Venue:
-
The Wellmont Theatre
- Date:
- Sat 10/31
- Notes:
- all ages
- Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 8:00 PM
- $35.00
- Robert Earl Keen
- “I would love to have been one of the great singers in the world -- like Vince Gill or someone like that -- even if it was just for one hour,” says Robert Earl Keen. “But I really feel like my gift is writing songs. That’s just there and it’s always been there. I don’t know why, but I always have stories -- they don’t all have to be true, just good. If I could put a subtitle on my best songs, it would be ‘based on a good story.’”
With his latest Lost Highway album, The Rose Hotel, Keen re-confirms his place among the Lone Star State’s great storytellers, capable of painting rich, poignant landscapes worthy of Cormac McCarthy and spinning satirical yarns that’d do Kinky Friedman proud. The disc’s rough-hewn tone -- it’s one of the more immediate, organic efforts in Keen’s varied catalog -- emphasizes both ends of that emotional spectrum, with Band-styled organ washes dappling the evocative title track and a hoedown-worthy breakdown propelling the wry “Wireless in Heaven” to its conclusion.
"I've done rustic records, polished records and live records," says Keen. " And this time, I wanted to do one that sounded rich and robust. I wanted it to sound big. I wanted it to have a lot of voices. I think it sounds great. The feedback from everybody has been outstanding."
Keen and producer Lloyd Maines (known for his work with his daughter’s little combo, The Dixie Chicks, and many many others) got a lot of voices onto The Rose Hotel in both figurative and literal senses. The album is loaded with tunes designed to get toes to tap and hips to swivel, and peppered with guest appearances sure to pique interest -- from the unmistakable deadpan tones that Billy Bob Thornton adds to the shaggy-dog saga “10,000 Chinese Walk Into a Bar” to the rough-and-ready baritone of Greg Brown, who swaps verses with Keen on his own “Laughing River.”
“I’ve always been a huge fan of Greg’s and I knew that he was in town when we were recording, so I called up the club where he was playing and asked him if he’d be on the album,” recalls Keen. “I promised him I’d make it easy as possible. My whole family came down for the session.”
A familial vibe extends throughout The Rose Hotel, as is usually the case when Robert Earl Keen enters the studio with his band, a tight-knit group that’s navigated the globe together for the better part of a decade-and-a-half. Keen prides himself on the fact that the albums he and his compatriots turn out are almost completely self-contained and 100 percent free from artificial colors and flavors.
“These songs are real,” he says. “They’re hand-made. When people come to see us live, they’re seeing the people who created them play them and that’s not all that common these days. It’s the kind of magic that doesn’t happen all the time.”
Well, Keen and his band have been making that kind of magic happen for quite a spell, ever since the singer started putting his writing -- a pastime that had been part of his life since before he started elementary school -- to music while a student at Texas A & M University. Keen dipped deep into the waters of his native state’s musical tradition early on, digging out nuggets from such touchstones as Bob Wills and Lightnin' Hopkins.
By the time he recorded his first full-length studio album, 1989’s West Textures, Keen had already established himself as one of the most engaging live performers on the roadhouse circuit, capable of coaxing a two-step out of the most reticent audience member and planting a tear in the beer of the toughest customer. That persuasive style -- captured on four different live albums over the course of his two decades on the road -- also helped him win friends and influence contemporaries like Jack Ingram, Pat Green and Todd Snider, all of whom have sung his praises.
Keen has had no trouble translating that appeal in the studio over the years, from 1994’s highly acclaimed Gringo Honeymoon to the top 10 breakthrough disc Gravitational Forces -- the latter of which showcased the sheer breadth of his stylistic reach. He and his band always find a way to connect with the pleasure center of the listener, and -- as the genial, good-natured tone of the songs on The Rose Hotel prove -- they manage to have a mighty good time of their own in the process.
“I wrote most of the songs at the Scriptorium, this little shack about 10 miles from where I live,” says Keen. “I usually just end up hanging out there -- I’m a world-class hanger-outer -- but the songs really started coming to me. I had no intentions. But I ended up with these songs and found that I had enough for a record.”
Those songs address everything from, well, his ability to simply hang out (the gently rollicking “Something That I Do”) to his years of soaking up the atmosphere in clubs of all shapes and sizes (the woozy waltz “Goodnight Cleveland”). They flow from the grooves the way they flow from Keen’s own spirit -- naturally, affably and with a lack of fanfare that’s remarkably refreshing in this age of glitz.
“I was in flux before this project, I wasn’t sure there was a purpose in compiling these songs in this old-fashioned way. But then I realized, well, it doesn’t matter if there’s a point -- this is my life, this is what I do and I’m proud of it.”
- Todd Snider
- official website
- myspace
- Texas songwriter" is one of those job descriptions - like "French chef" or "Kenyan runner" - that packs a lot of implied historical weight. Any occupational title that invites immediate comparison to Guy Clark, Kris Kristofferson, Lyle Lovett, and Willie Nelson is not for the faint of heart. Real songwriters know that it’s not about how many units you move so much as whether people sing your songs to themselves when they’re alone. By either standard, Bruce Robison is among the first rank of Texas songwriters.
Bruce is also a prolific recording artist. He has recently finished recording his ninth album produced by him and Rodney Crowell. These songs reflect the love and respect that he has for the traditions of country music. In his clear-eyed, deeply felt songs, Bruce does what great songwriters have always done: he takes the reality that surrounds us every day and makes it new again. Faded, careworn lives turn out to be rich with meaning when looked at from a slightly different angle, if you’ll just take the time . . . and Robison takes the time. The results are heartbreaking, hilarious, sweet, and stirring, as his songs confirm after even one listen.
His songs have been covered by numerous artists. Three of them have achieved #1 status. “Wrapped” by George Strait, “Travelin’ Soldier” by the Dixie Chicks and “Angry All the Time” by Tim McGraw. Bruce Robison doesn’t require introductions anymore. His music has reached into the hearts of country music fans at home and around the world.
Bruce continues to tour performing over 100 shows a year to a wide range of music fans that appreciate his brand of honest-to-god Texas country music. Bruce has just self-released a single, Born to Roll, to the Texas county radio market. An album will follow in 2010.
- Bruce Robison
- official website
- myspace
- “Texas songwriter” is one of those job descriptions -- like “French chef” or “Kenyan runner” -- that packs a lot of implied historical weight. Any occupational title that invites immediate comparison to Guy Clark, Kris
Kristofferson, Lyle Lovett, and Willie Nelson is not for the faint of heart.
But Bruce Robison is more than up to the task, and his latest set of stellar songs, The New World (Robison’s sixth album release), merely confirms what everybody knew already: this cat is a tunesmith to be reckoned with. A longtime hometown favorite in Austin, in the last couple of years his songs, No. 1 hits like "Angry All the Time" (Faith Hill & Tim McGraw), "Travelin' Soldier" (Dixie Chicks) and "Wrapped" (George Strait) and another Top 5 hit with Strait’s version of "Desperately," have worked their way indelibly into the American consciousness. Real songwriters know that it’s not about how many units you move so much as whether people sing your songs to themselves when they’re alone. By either standard, Bruce Robison is among the first rank of Texas -- and, by extension, American -- songwriters.
Like the good small-town boy he is (Bandera, Texas, in case you’re wondering), Robison is always quick to give props to his family. But it’s pretty easy to be inspired by the folks around the dinner table when your wife is a much-admired alt-country thrush (Kelly Willis), your brother is a red-hot singer-songwriter in his own right (Charlie Robison), and your sister-in-law plays banjo and sings in a locally popular group known as the Dixie Chicks (Emily Robison). Never mind the rest of Texas; just being the best songwriter at a Robison family outing would be a hell of a distinction.
Of course, The New World is America, not just Texas, and Robison brings the full wild range of American music to bear on his songcraft here. Just for starters: the sunny C&W backbeat of "The New One," the world-weary soul balladry of "Bad Girl Blues," the stripped-down rockabilly drive of "Twistin'," and the relentless stomp of "The Hammer," recalling The Band in its heyday. It's a musical spectrum that might get away from a less confident artist, but here it just underscores the wide-open embrace of Robison's voice and viewpoint: everybody's welcome, even -- especially -- life's losers. The New World is a windows-down road trip across the country with a buddy who's stopped looking for trouble but can't keep himself from taking a detour by its last known address.
And in the plainspoken poetry of its lyrics, The New World is also something simpler and deeper: the same old world, seen with new eyes. Robison's characters have often lived large if not well, and some of the album's best songs examine how people deal -- or fail to deal -- with their pasts. In "California '85," the bitterness of lost love is softened by the fact that misery loves company, and by the third irresistible sing-along chorus ("It goes well with her lies"), you may have forgotten how sad you're supposed to be. Contrast that with "Larosse," in which a broken man sells his one remaining companion -- a horse he's raised from infancy -- with a lifetime's worth of regret and recrimination: "I'm tired of the look on his face."
If The New World's unsparing but compassionate look at lost souls feels real, so does its overall hopefulness, as in the playful talking blues of "Only," wherein a serial seducer cheerfully admits that he's finally fallen hard. "I'm bettin' on the new one," goes another song, with an optimism that feels both truthful and earned: the fact that things don't always work out means it's that much sweeter when they do.
In his clear-eyed, deeply felt songs, Bruce Robison does what great songwriters have always done: he takes the reality that surrounds us every day and makes it new again. Faded, careworn lives turn out to be rich with meaning when looked at from a slightly different angle, if you’ll just take the time . . . and Robison takes the time. The results are heartbreaking, hilarious, sweet, and stirring, as these songs confirm after even one listen.
Bruce Robison doesn’t require introductions anymore. He’s made himself heard in the hearts of people across the country, and his place in our national musical history is secure. But you still have to envy those lucky pilgrims who are about to discover The New World.
OTHER UPCOMING SHOWS FROM THE BOWERY PRESENTS
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