Robert Earl Keen on Way to Finding His Own Voice

Robert Earl Keen is best known for the song “The Road Goes on Forever,” which has been recorded by Joe Ely and the Highwaymen, but that scrappy epic offers only a hint of his range.

At Jacks Sugar Shack on Wednesday, the singer-songwriter from Texas frequently remained in the shadows of his role models: “Corpus Christi Bay” catches some of the downbeat bottle fever of Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” and Keen’s slightest song, “Barbeque,” echoes Lyle Lovett’s deadpan delivery.

There are also distinct threads of Ely, Willie Nelson, Dylan and Springsteen in Keen’s fabric, but he’s well on his way to asserting his own identifiable voice as a writer.

Most striking in the 90-minute set were the songs of violence and paranoia that were concentrated on his 1992 album “A Bigger Piece of Sky.” In the malevolently waltzing “Blow You Away,” everyone from the cops to the hotel clerk would like to do just that. The narrator uses his gun “Whenever Kindness Fails,” and in the austere “Here in Arkansas,” he’s a cursed soul singing from his open grave.

Less immediate but ultimately more resonant and rewarding are his studies of love and loss. Keen--who also was to play Thursday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano--has one of those non-singer’s voices, a little more supple than but firmly in the tradition of Kristofferson and Leonard Cohen. But his finely detailed writing, full of vivid images and propulsive narrative force, was carried by his four-piece band’s flavorful, driving support, in styles ranging from folk-tinged country to heartland rock.