Customer Reviews

Gringo Honeymoon

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Robert Earl Keen exemplifies the best aspects of country music- fantastic songwriting, great storytelling and musical talent. Gringo Honeymoon is perhaps his best album. Songs such as Tom Ames' Prayer and Raven and The Coyote transport the listener to a time when America was wild and untamed. Other efforts, such as Gringo Honeymoon and Merry Christmas From The Family , speak about the lives of Americans who live below the radar screens of the media and popular culture. It is surprising that Keen does not have more exposure outside of his native Texas. Still, Gringo Honeymoon is a rare gem- an album that is good from beginning to end. Considering the pre-fab nature of the majority of today's country music, it is refreshing to listen to an album that is as good and as honest as this one.

I've listened to Keen for a long time now; this is by far my favorite album. Not well-known because he's not "radio-friendly", he has a tendency to write music that's in that nebulous area somewhere between country, folk, blues, rock, etc. Layered melodies, lyrics that express complex emotions -- things that don't necessarily fit popular country music -- are all mainstays of his work.

"Gringo Honeymoon" contains a number of tracks that reflect a desire to hang on to fleeting moments and eloquently express complex emotions. "Lonely Feelin'" manages to perfectly convey that lonely feeling you get on a rainy afternoon witout becoming syrupy or sentimental. The title track is a relaxing tune that well fits the feeling of a young couple finally escaping the madness and enjoying one of the happier times in their lives. "The Raven and the Coyote" and "Lynnville Train" deal with complicated emotions and themes rarely dealt with in recent American music (the despair of a defeated soldier, etc.) Again, he makes all these things quite accessible without becoming condescending or overly sentimental.

If you're not familiar with modern Texas country music or "Americana", this is one of the best introductory albums I can imagine. If you are, then you should already know that this is an essential part of your collection.

I first saw REK on a Austin city limits re-run sometime in 1994. I enjoyed every song he performed, and his storytelling was great. I then went, and bought my first REK Cd Gringo Honeymoon. I have listened to that Cd Mucho times since then. I now have all of REK's Cd's. I believe Gringo Honeymoon is REK's best. No. 2 live is also great so you can experience a little of his humerous storytelling, but you have got to experience him in concert to appreciate his talent. REK, and his band are the best live musicians I have ever heard. He use to be the lone star state's best kept secret, but he has since attracted a huge following.

I love this music. I think that the Raven and Coyote and Lynvale train are some of the most beautiful songs that I have ever heard. Merry Christmas from the Family is a great dysfunctional Christmas song. Get the album. It is woth the cost.

Another reviewer mentioned that Gringo Honeymoon is a great way to start a REK collection, and that's just what I did several years ago (actually my wife did--asking the local CD store owner what someone would like who also listens to John Prine and Lyle Lovett). I've bought and received several other REK albums over the years, but Gringo Honeymoon remains my favorite for the title track (a great love song--wouldn't you love to live that day?); for Think It Over One Time (we heard REK play an incendiary version at a live show in Baton Rouge); for Merry Christmas From the Family (a great singalong if you can keep straight what to buy from the Kwik Pack at each visit, along with the names of all the cousins); for Dreadful Selfish Crime; for I'm Coming Home (a country version of Jimmy Buffett's wonderful Come Monday--sort of Jet Plane in reverse); really for all but Barbecue, which seriously lacks the wit and punch of REK's other redneck anthems (Five Pound Bass and Copenhagen come to mind). Only the live album "No. 2 Live Dinner" comes close, probably because it contains most of Gringo Honeymoon.

"Gringo Honeymoon" is a worthy follow up to "West Textures", and in some ways surpasses that effort as possibly his finest Outlaw record (it's at the very least his purest). Not only does he cover Steve Earle's immortal "Tom Ames' Prayer" (which ends with an abortive prayer during a standoff, finishing with the line "so he cocked both his pistols, and he spit in the dirt, and he walked out into that street"), but with "Gringo Honeymoon" he throws his own hat into the ring. "Think It Over One Time" is the kind of mid-tempo ballad REK does best: brisk instrumentation coupled with plaintive, breezy singing (this description would also fit most 70s AM radio pop, and to the extent that that music ever became transcendant - ie. rarely - the description is apt).

Probably the one song that results in the most sales for this album is "Merry Christmas from the Family" -- it's irreverent enough that it appeals to the Dr. Demento crowd, but for those that prefer Keen's more insightful lyrics, he doesn't skimp here: "Merry Christmas..." is a bittersweet homage to the average dysfunctional Southern family, raw and wistful at the same time. But whatever it's merits, it's typical of the schism that divides many of Keen's listeners. Depending on what type of crowd you see Keen live with, you may experience a respectful gathering of fans who prefer his more introspective work, these listening quietly in appreciation and withholding applause for the gap between songs, or you may get the drunken, rowdy redneck crowd, who will suffice for hearing "Five Pound Bass", "Copenhagen", "Road Goes On Forever" and the like (even bearing the inclusion perhaps of a "Gringo Honeymoon" on the basis of it's outlaw lyrics), but have little patience for the likes of a "Jennifer Johnson & Me" or "Snowing on Raton". The latter is often restricted to the younger crowds, and to be sure this galvanization is not an omnipresent ordeal, but in some parts of Texas where the coyotes howl the loudest, anything goes, my friends...

Robert Earl Keen was recommended to me by a friend who had previously introduced me to music of Iris DeMent ... he hit the nail on the head then, and has done it again! (2 for 2 ... pretty good shooting so far!)
This album is pure pleasure, if like me, you define "pure pleasure" as an evening spent in the company of some long-lost friend where the conversation gets better as the hour grows later. There's not a sour note to be found anywhere, and every song sounds like I'm listening to that long-lost friend catch me up on the things that have happened in his life. In some ways, Robert Earl Keen might be said to be "the Flying Burrito Brothers Meet Tom Waits". This album is THAT good.

On Gringo Honeymoon, REK gets the big budget treatment for the first time and makes the most of it. The production far outshines his previous efforts, and the density of the musical arrangements is breathtaking at times. And the songs! - the songs are glorious. Only two things keep this album from being a true classic - the inclusion of the "novelty" songs Merry Christmas from the Family and Barbecue. Yes, I know Family has become a cult classic by now, but on an album of this emotional and lyrical depth, it is just out of place. In this reviewer's humble opinion, Robert Earl should put out an album of his cutesy songs and get that out of his system forever. The man is just too much of an artist to waste his efforts on such marginal filler. Enough griping, though - highlights include the lovely title track, the gritty "Tom Ames' Prayer", and the rollicking "Think It Over One Time." If you haven't been exposed to Mr. Keen yet, this great album is as good a place to start as any.

i listen to this cd regularly still and i've had it since the day it came out. i think all the other reviews just about do it justice. i just want to encourage you to see his live show. being in s.a. i see him about three or four times every year - and this has been going on for the last five or six years, no it does not get old. its hard to really discribe his concerts except to say its kinda like partying with family - family that your not sure how your related to. if you dont have any of his cd's, buy this one, and you WILL end up buying all of them.

Robert Earl Keen has said in interviews that he isn't really a folksinger. If one has to put a label on his music, file it simply under "G" for Great. "Gringo Honeymoon" is no exception. His band is so good it crackles, and the words of REK's songs are steeped in the life down near the border. Call me crazy, but Robert Earl Keen is a cowboy poet...a Will Rodgers with an amp.