Robert Earl Keen Records Album Sequel 20 Years in the Making

Coming up through the Texas music circuit, pioneering Americana artist Robert Earl Keen dreamt of playing John T. Floore Country Store in Helotes, Texas. He finally made it to the stage of the quintessential Texas honky-tonk in 1990 and in 1996 released No. 2 Live Dinner, the best selling album of the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Famer’s career. Recorded live at Floore’s, the album was renowned for such Keen signature songs as “Gringo Honeymoon” and “Amarillo Highway.”

To commemorate the album’s 20th anniversary, during his annual visit to Floore’s last year Keen recorded Live Dinner Reunion, out November 18th on Dualtone Records. This time he brought a few famous friends including Lyle Lovett, Joe Ely, Bruce Robison, Cory Morrow and Cody Canada.

The two-disc set revisits a number of the songs originally on No. 2 Live Dinner, as well as three songs from Keen’s latest studio album, Happy Prisoner: The Bluegrass Sessions, which was Billboard’s Number Two top-selling bluegrass album of 2015.

Recorded before an audience of 5,000, the evening was ”a really great night,” Keen recalls. “It’s a good cross section of my songs and my friends singing my songs. For instance, Lyle and I sang ‘This Old Porch,’ Bruce Robison sang ‘No Kinda Dancer,’ and Cory Morrow sang ‘I’ll Go On Downtown.’” Fittingly, the set closes with Ely and Keen singing Keen’s classic “The Road Goes on Forever.”

Keen starts a new tour September 29th in Troy, Michigan. The three-month stint includes a December 28th stop at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.

Live Dinner Reunion Track Listing:

1. “Tell It Like It Is” (With Cody Canada)

2. “Feelin’ Good Again”

3. “Gringo Honeymoon”

4. “State of Thanks Address”

5. “I Gotta Go”

6. “Lucky Weather”

7. Intro Lyle Lovett and “This Old Porch”

8. “T for Texas” (with Lyle Lovett)

9. “Write a Drinking Song”

10. “Hot Corn, Cold Corn”

11. “Cory’s Story”

12. “I’ll Go on Downtown” (with Cory Morrow)

13. “Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas” (with Mark Patterson & Bryan Duckworth)

14. “On the Money” (with Bruce Robison)

15. “No Kinda Dancer” (with Bruce Robison)

16. “Boys in the Band”

17. “Shade of Gray”

18. “Deliverance Dry Cleaning”

19. “Ninety-Nine Years for One Dark Day”

20. “Amarillo Highway”

21. “Wild Wind” (with Cody Braun)

22. “Merry Christmas From the Fam-O-Lee”

23. “Corpus Christi Bay”

24. “Lonely Feelin'” (with Cody Canada)

25. “Grateful Cred”

26. “The Road Goes on Forever” (with Joe Ely)