There’s a stretch in the middle of Robert Earl Keen’s catalog that sometimes gets overshadowed by the mythology. The rowdy glory of No. 2 Live Dinner. The songwriting masterclass of A Bigger Piece of Sky. The singalong permanence of songs like “Feelin’ Good Again” and “The Road Goes On Forever.” And then there’s Gravitational Forces. Released in August 2001, the album arrived during a transitional period for Keen (and a month later the entire world). He was no longer just the cult Texas...

For the better part of the last year, I've spent a lot of early mornings, late nights and stolen moments working on something I never really set out to do. I wrote a book. Even now, that feels strange to type. People have been telling me to do it for years and years. I finally listened. I've spent most of my life writing in one form or another. School assignments. Newspaper stories. Magazine features. Blog posts. Social media captions. Thousands and thousands of words scattered across...

In the late ‘90s, the Texas Music scene felt less like an industry and more like a rolling tailgate party with amplifiers. The stages were smaller, the crowds were rowdier, and every college town from San Marcos to Lubbock had somebody swearing they’d just seen the next big thing at a dancehall on a Thursday night. Into that world walked Roger Creager with 1998’s Having Fun All Wrong. Another Lloyd Maines production that treaded similar ground to Pat and Cory sonically while allowing Roger to...