Keen’s a quintessential Texan and the archetypal Austin singer-songwriter. For more than three decades, he’s mixed wry, knowing humor, epic story songs and world-weary compassion with languid twang and a bristling rock backbeat, setting the example for the legions that would follow. He’s at his best live, where the stage patter’s effortless and amusing and backed by 11 albums of material, the best of which — like outlaw love story “The Road Goes On Forever,” Foxworthy-esque satire “Merry Christmas From the Family” and the drunken dissipation of “Corpus Christi Bay” — lords above his peers. Over the years, his drawling delivery’s grown sharper, and his albums (particularly the last few) have gotten rockier. But his gift for comic absurdity (“The Great Hank” features a still-living, VW Bug-driving Hank Sr. in drag, commenting, “Country music’s full of freaks”) and canny homespun wisdom (“All I Have Is Today”) remains as sharp as ever.
Sat., April 3, 8 p.m., 2010
Sat., April 3, 8 p.m., 2010
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