Early life

Keen grew up in southwest Houston. His father was a geologist and his mother an attorney. He has an older brother and a younger sister. He attended Sharpstown High School, graduating in 1974. As a teenager, Keen was an avid reader who excelled in writing and literature classes, and a fan of both the English rock band Cream and, thanks to the influence of his older brother, country music by artists like Willie Nelson. But it was his younger sister, Kathy, who introduced him to the Houston music scene in the early seventies. "My sister was a couple years younger than I was, and she was like the world-champion Foosball player of downtown Houston," Keen explained in a 2011 cover story for LoneStarMusic Magazine. Keen would accompany his sister to the bars where she played, many of which featured singer-songwriters playing both covers and original tunes. He started playing guitar himself shortly thereafter, teaching himself to play classic country covers out of a song book the summer before starting college at Texas A&M.

College

Keen attended Texas A&M University in College Station, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1978 and began writing songs and playing bluegrass and folk music with friends including his childhood running buddy (and a future longtime fiddle player in his band), Bryan Duckworth. It was during his college years that Keen also became friends with fellow Aggie student and neighbor Lyle Lovett. The two spent many an afternoon and evening jamming together on the front porch of the house at 302 Church Avenue that Keen rented from landlord Jack Boyett, which eventually inspired a song they wrote together entitled “The Front Porch Song.” Both artists would later record the song on their respective debut albums.

Career

In 1980, Keen graduated from Texas A&M and moved to Austin, Texas. Soon he was performing in Austin's nightclubs and live music venues like the Cactus Cafe and Gruene Hall in nearby New Braunfels, building a solid regional following. In 1983, Keen won the prestigious New Folk competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival. That same year, he began making his self-produced first album, No Kinda Dancer, with the help of his bandmates and the up-and-coming talents of Lovett and Nanci Griffith. He leased the album to Rounder Records, which released on its Philo Records imprint in 1984. Keen began touring outside of Texas and moved with his wife, Kathleen, to Nashville, Tennessee in 1986 — at the encouragement of Steve Earle. Keen returned to Texas 22 months later after failing to find mainstream success, though his time in Nashville did net him a publishing deal, a new independent label deal and a national booking agent (Keith Case). All three would pay tremendous dividends after the release of his second and third albums, 1988’s The Live Album and 1989’s West Textures (both produced by Jim Rooney and released on Sugar Hill Records) expanded his fan base both in Texas and in the rest of the country. Keen’s tour dates around that time included a triple-bill run with Texas songwriting legends Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. West Textures featured the first recording of what would soon become Keen’s signature anthem, “The Road Goes on Forever.” Fellow Texan Joe Ely recorded the song on his 1993 album Love and Danger, along with another Keen song, “Whenever Kindness Fails.” Keen’s own version of “Whenever Kindness Fails” appeared on his fourth album, 1993’s Garry Velletri-produced A Bigger Piece Of Sky, which, along with the following year’s Gringo Honeymoon (whose title track and light-hearted “Merry Christmas from the Family” also became fan favorites and live staples) and 1996’s No. 2 Live Dinner, cemented Keen’s reputation as one of the Americana scene’s most popular live draws. Building on the success of those albums, Keen has continued to write, record, and tour across the nation. His 1997 album, Picnic, marked the beginning of his on-again, off-again relationship with major labels (both that album and 1998’s Walking Distance were issued on Arista Records, and 2001’s Gravitational Forces, 2009’s The Rose Hotel and 2011’s Ready for Confetti were released on Lost Highway Records.) Keen’s other albums include 2003’s Farm Fresh Onions (Audium/Koch Records) and 2005’s What I Really Mean and 2006’s Live at the Ryman (both on E1 Music). The producers he’s worked on those albums have included John Keane, Gurf Morlix, Lloyd Maines, and his longtime lead guitarist, Rich Brotherton. Keen continues to tour throughout the United States.

Band

• Rich Brotherton - guitar
• Bill Whitbeck - bass
• Tom Van Schaik - drums
• Marty Muse - steel guitar

Discography

Studio albums

Title	Album details	Peak chart positions
		US Country	US	US Heat	US Indie	US Folk	US Grass
No Kinda Dancer	Release date: October 1, 1984 Label: Sugar Hill Records Formats: CD, cassette, LP record	—	—	—	—	—	—
West Textures	Release date: November 10, 1989 Label: Sugar Hill Records Formats: CD, cassette	—	—	—	—	—	—
A Bigger Piece of Sky	Release date: October 8, 1993 Label: Sugar Hill Records Formats: CD, cassette	—	—	—	—	—	—
Gringo Honeymoon	Release date: August 10, 1994 Label: Sugar Hill Records Formats: CD, cassette	—	—	—	—	—	—
Picnic	Release date: April 29, 1997 Label: Arista Records Formats: CD, cassette	—	160	4	—	—	—
Walking Distance	Release date: October 27, 1998 Label: Arista Records Formats: CD, cassette	—	149	3	—	—	—
Gravitational Forces	Release date: August 7, 2001 Label: Lost Highway Records Formats: CD	10	111	1	—	—	—
Farm Fresh Onions	Release date: October 7, 2003 Label: Audium/Koch Records Formats: CD	24	172	9	11	—	—
What I Really Mean	Release date: May 10, 2005 Label: E1 Music Formats: CD, music download	21	122	1	5	—	—
The Rose Hotel	Release date: September 29, 2009 Label: Lost Highway Records Formats: CD, music download	17	83	—	—	10	—
Ready for Confetti	Release date: August 30, 2011 Label: Lost Highway Records Formats: CD, music download	21	66	—	—	3	—
Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions	Release date: February 10, 2015 Label: Dualtone Records Formats: CD, music download	10	109	—	6	5	1
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

Live albums

Title	Album details	Peak positions
		US Country
The Live Album	Release date: November 15, 1988 Label: Sugar Hill Records Formats: CD, cassette	—
No. 2 Live Dinner	Release date: March 19, 1996 Label: Sugar Hill Records Formats: CD, cassette	—
The Party Never Ends	Release date: October 14, 2003 Label: Sugar Hill Records Formats: CD	68
Live from Austin TX	Release date: November 2, 2004 Label: New West Records Formats: CD, music download	—
Live at the Ryman	Release date: July 11, 2006 Label: E1 Music Formats: CD, music download	—
Marfa After Dark	Release date: 2008 Label: self-released Formats: Music download	—
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

Compilation albums

Title	Album details
Best	Release date: November 7, 2006 Label: E1 Music Formats: CD, music download

Singles

Year	Single	Album
1984	"No Kinda Dancer"	No Kinda Dancer
	"The Armadillo Jackal"
1997	"Over the Waterfall"	Picnic
	"Levelland"
	"Undone"
1998	"Down That Dusty Trail"	Walking Distance
1999	"That Buckin' Song"
2001	"Hello New Orleans"	Gravitational Forces
	"Not A Drop of Rain"
2002	"High Plains Jamboree"
2003	"Furnace"	Farm Fresh Onions
	"All I Have Is Today"
2005	"What I Really Mean"	What I Really Mean
	"The Great Hank"
2009	"The Rose Hotel"	The Rose Hotel
2010	"The Man Behind the Drums"
2011	"I Gotta Go"	Ready for Confetti

Music videos

Year	Video	Director
1997	"Over the Waterfall"	Steven T. Miller/R. Brad Murano
2004	"Merry Christmas from the Family"	David McClister
2005	"What I Really Mean"
2015	"Hot Corn, Cold Corn"	Curtis Millard
	"Footprints in the Snow"	Matt Bizer

[ Source: Wikipedia ]