Robert Earl Keen, ‘Happy Prisoner’ of Bluegrass at the Birchmere Tonight

Robert Earl Keen, the premier Americana music singer-songwriter and “Americana” star from Texas has a natural way of talking—and, we guess, writing. It’s like the beginning of natural-born memories, conversational, and without too much heavy lifting.  Sort of like the way he sings,  his voice is direct in delivery, you remember the way it sounds, not necessarily how long a note is held or the timbre.  As he’s said before about his voice, “You get used to it.”

The 59-year-old Keen has been around a while to amass a reputation, lots of tunes and albums (18 to date), beginning with “No Kinda Dancer,” and now his latest—just out this month —“Happy Prisoner,” a bluegrass-themed trip back to his listening and playing roots, which includes a cover of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe’s “Footprints in the Snow.”

He’s come to bluegrass territory, playing music from the album, at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., Tuesday night, a place which bills itself as “America’s Legendary  Music Hall,” in an area and state which happens to be a hotbed of “Americana” music and bluegrass.

“It’s a great place,” Keen says of the Birchmere. “Been there before. I loved it.  The album, the music, bluegrass, that’s like going back.”  He’s also said before, “I can’t think of a better thing on a Saturday morning than to tune into a bluegrass station, and get it going with that music and you listen, and you say ‘well, okay, let’s get started.’ ”

Keen is more or less a musician’s musician, singing, playing, writing in the “Americana” field in the sense that he works hard, travels all the time, tours and loves being in front of a live audience,  in clubs, parks, stadiums and venues all over the country. “There’s nothing better than singing in front of people,” he says.

“This is our roots,” Keens says of Bluegrass music. “It’s where all the other stuff comes from—folk, country,  cowboy music, all the sounds and rhythm are in there.  And Monroe, he’s the greatest, if you had to do that and Flat and Scruggs and others.”

Keen is from Texas, through and through and through, growing up in and around Houston, picking up English rock and Willie Nelson, and after getting a degree in English in 1980, starting writing songs and playing,  initially, you guessed it, “bluegrass.”  “It’s my roots, too, it’s what I started out doing.”

In the mid-1980s, he also started out doing albums—his first was in 1984 “No Kinda Dancer.” His album titles, like his song titles, are resonant of what you might call people’s music,  country and folk flavors, with a little bit of Texas spice. “No Kinda Dancer” was followed by “West Textures,” “A Bigger Piece of the Sky,” “Gringo Honeymoon,” “Picnic,” “Farm Fresh Onions,” “Ready for Confetti” and others.

“I think there were a lot of people doing so-called “Americana” music before it even became a genre or category,” Keen said.  “My buddy Lyle Lovett was doing it, and all of a sudden, it’s a Grammy category. But I think it’s several strands of music or offshoots of the strands, like country, from all over the country, from Nashville to Willie (Nelson), to folk, traditional music, regional,  bluegrass and so on.  I guess I fit in the category—so does Roseanne Cash, Lyle, Emmy Lou Harris.  It’s a pretty rich, diverse and broad category.  A lot of  it is acoustic.  It’s based in exceptional instrumental playing as well as in the emotional power of lyrics and stories.”

“I believe it’s an art form, sure,”  he said.  For Keen, the words mean a lot—he was an English major, after all.  “Yeah, they do,”  he said. “I like to write, I like to write songs that could stand alone and be read for themselves.” We talk a little bit about John Stewart, the former Kingston Trio member who was probably an “Americana” pioneer, and top-notch songwriter (“Daydream Believer”).  “He was a terrific guy,” he said. I knew him. Really good writer. Really good songs.”

Keen is proud of being a Texan—he’s lived there in different parts all of his life. “It’s got this mystique—the music, too, but there’s a lot of jokes about it, too.”

“We’re doing this by way of all acoustic,” he said.  “It’s embracing the music.   I didn’t write any of the songs. Me and the band put it together.  Lyle sings on it.”

The song list will give you the flavor: “Hot Corn, Cold Corn,” “99 Years for One Dark Day,” “East Virginia Blues,” “T for Texas,” “Old Home Place,” “Wayfaring Stranger,” “Steam Powered Aeroplane and others, including: “Footprints in the Snow,” the Bill Monroe classic, which is a story, a song, which starts out with “Now, some folks like the summertime, when they can walk about . . . ” and builds to an end. 

For Keen himself, yes, the road does go on forever, as he likes to say. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Robert Earl Keen, “Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Tour” with Bonnie Bishop, 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 17, the Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria, Va.