Robert Earl Keen revisits his Lost Highway years with two anniversary reissues

Robert Earl Keen is going back to his Lost Highway years.

The Kerrville singer-songwriter will reissue two of the three albums he made for the Nashville label in the 2000s and early 2010s, starting with a 25th-anniversary edition of “Gravitational Forces” on July 10 and followed by a 15th-anniversary edition of “Ready for Confetti” on Aug. 21. Both come out on the recently revived Lost Highway Records, which announced the plans Friday. The “Ready for Confetti” reissue will be pressed on a special-edition confetti vinyl.

Keen recorded three albums for Lost Highway — “Gravitational Forces” in 2001, “The Rose Hotel” in 2009 and “Ready for Confetti” in 2011 — during a stretch that bridged his major-label years and the independent footing he has kept since. The reissues mark his second time working with the relaunched label this year.

“Ready for Confetti” closes with two covers that have outlasted the record’s original run. One is “Where the Soul of Man Never Dies,” a hymn recorded over the years by Johnny Cash, Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, Hank Williams and Willie Nelson. The other, “Play a Train Song,” was written by Todd Snider, a friend and a frequent presence in Keen’s live sets. Snider, who first cut the song for his 2004 album “East Nashville Skyline,” died in November at 59.

For Kerr County, the announcement lands close to home. Keen keeps Rosetta Ranch, a roughly 500-acre spread about 20 miles outside Kerrville, and runs his business, Keen Productions, from town. His career arguably started up the road: he won the New Folk competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1983, before he had recorded his first album.

The timing is pointed in another way. The reissue news arrives the same week Kerr County marks one year since the July 4 flood — a disaster that reached Keen directly. He was scheduled to headline Kerrville’s Fourth on the River festival on July 4, 2025, when floodwaters overran the grounds and wrecked the stage. His daughters, Clara and Chloe, had spent childhood summers at Camp Mystic, where the flood killed campers, counselors and longtime director Dick Eastland. In interviews with Rolling Stone and Billboard last summer, Keen said he had been directing merchandise sales from his tour toward flood relief.

This year, Keen returns to a Hill Country stage on the Fourth, opening his summer run July 4 at Luckenbach. He has also added a three-night “Homecoming Weekend” Sept. 5-7 at Floore’s Country Store in Helotes — the same hall where he played his 2022 “farewell” shows before a retirement that didn’t take.

Pre-orders for both reissues are available through Lost Highway Records, and tour dates and ticket information are posted at robertearlkeen.com/tour. [Pre-order links TK — the release left them as placeholders.]

Robert Earl Keen tour dates

• July 4 — Fredericksburg — Luckenbach Texas
• July 31 — Minneapolis — Dakota
• Aug. 1 — Minneapolis — Dakota
• Aug. 2 — Minneapolis — Dakota
• Aug. 4 — Evanston, Ill. — SPACE
• Aug. 14 — Lexington, Va. — Lime Kiln Theater
• Aug. 15 — Lexington, Va. — Lime Kiln Theater
• Aug. 16 — Wilmington, N.C. — Greenfield Lake Amphitheater
• Aug. 18 — Winston-Salem, N.C. — The Ramkat
• Aug. 20 — Richmond, Va. — The National
• Aug. 21 — Alexandria, Va. — The Birchmere
• Aug. 22 — Alexandria, Va. — The Birchmere
• Aug. 23 — Alexandria, Va. — The Birchmere
• Sept. 5 — Helotes — Floore’s Country Store
• Sept. 6 — Helotes — Floore’s Country Store
• Sept. 7 — Helotes — Floore’s Country Store
• Oct. 10 — Saint Jo — Red River Station
• Dec. 11 — Denver — Grizzly Rose