Album:
The Rose HotelRecord Label:
Lost HighwayAfter a long break, Robert Earl Keen returns to the studio for The Rose Hotel, a Lloyd Maines-produced set that sticks closer to the songwriter’s wheelhouse than some recent outings without threatening the classic status of his early albums. Backed mostly by the players who’ve been with him for years, Keen makes room for the occasional guest (Greg Brown supplies a ragged-but-right duet vocal on his “Laughing River”; Billy Bob Thornton chimes in on the disposable “10,000 Chinese Walk Into a Bar”) and takes a page from Lyle Lovett by adding organ and gospel-leaning backup singers to the sing-along “Throwing Rocks.” Two highlights, a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Flying Shoes” and the Levon Helm tribute “The Man Behind the Drums,” may draw strength from folk heroes, but the vintage Keen of the title track and “Village Inn” (an odd hybrid that turns bittersweet scene-setting into an advertising jingle) remind us he’s his own man. The now obligatory groan-worthy humor does appear, on tracks like “Wireless in Heaven,” but isn’t so obtrusive it spoils the mood for more road-weary tales like “Goodbye Cleveland,” a set-ending, sweep-the-bar-up number if ever there was one.
