Koch Records
2006
Best
About This Album
Robert Earl Keen is an archetypical Texas singer/songwriter, someone who can mine both laughter and tragedy from life along the dusty margins of life in the Lone Star State, and seeing that he's been recording good-to-great albums of his material since 1984, a comprehensive and well-programmed compilation offering a fully rounded introduction to his music would be more than welcome. However, 2007's Best isn't quite that album. While Keen had recorded a dozen albums by the time this was released, Best draws its 17 tunes from only six discs, two of which are live albums and three of which (Farm Fresh Onions, What I Really Mean and Live at the Ryman) are relatively recent efforts that presumably dominate the second half of this collection because they were easy to license rather than because they represent Keen's finest work. Quite frankly, a number of Keen's best songs are missing, such as "Dreadful Selfish Crime," "The Front Porch Song" and "I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight," while fan favorites like "The Five Pound Bass," "The Buckin' Song," "Barbecue" and "The Bluegrass Widow" don't make the cut, either.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,4,5,6,12 and 15)

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