There are a lot of musicians out there that don't get the recognition they deserve; not from the media but from music-lovers. I can't believe how much great music I have not heard, artists I would love and yet somehow it just doesn't happen.

Until it does. A friend will suggest a band, or I overhear something, or I click on a YouTube video. I went for too many years not knowing Robert Earl Keen; I knew his biggest hit, "The Road Goes On Forever (and the Party Never Ends)" which has a horrendous story but, goddamn, it's such a great song. But that's just the beginning. Keen writes other songs about the low life, but some incredibly beautiful songs, too. Kind of like my #1 guy, Jimmy Buffett: the full range of human experience.

Sadly, not much good video of Keen on the YTs. Lots of crap homemade vids, but only a few decent ones. Amarillo Highway kicks off his album "A Bigger Piece of the Sky", a great intro to a great, and too-unknown, singer-songwriter.