After playing onstage with his band for about 15 years, Robert Earl Keen wasn't too hot on the idea of a solo acoustic act.

"I used to call it the 'yuk yuk, pluck pluck show,' " the Americana singing-songwriting pioneer said.

But his tune changed when he thought of fellow singer-songwriters such as Todd Snider, Richard Thompson, Nick Lowe and Iowa's Greg Brown. "All these people I think are fantastic are almost off the radar.

"I thought, 'Let's put together some really bad-ass songwriters and go through some of this stuff,' " Keen said in a telephone interview from Oklahoma.

And the Barstool Tour was born.

Keen, Snider and Texas singer-songwriter Bruce Robison (who penned the Dixie Chicks' "Travelin' Soldier" and Tim McGraw's "Angry All the Time") each will get about 15 to 20 minutes solo on stage. After an intermission, the three will be on together, exchanging songs, guitar licks and stories.

"When people get together to trade songs, I like all the banter as much as I like the songs," Keen said.

He has some newer material thanks to "The Rose Hotel," which was released in late September, his first album in four years.

"I'd almost got to the point where I thought there wasn't much point putting out a record," he said. "But I got over that, obviously."

The album has received good critical acclaim, as well as positive marks from his fellow musicians.

"Even old friends call up and say that's the best thing I've done in a long time," he said and then laughed. "It always makes you wanna go, 'What was wrong with the last five I put out?' "

Already a veteran of 14 albums, Keen said he would have been content to never put out a new CD.

"I really had kind of a crisis," he said. "Between not having a label I was locked into or trusted and the continuing discussion about the Internet and lagging CD sales and smaller space in the racks, I went, 'What's the purpose? Why do you make a compilation of songs if everybody's just going to download their favorite song?' "

Eventually, he said, "I thought, 'That's not my job, that's somebody else's job.' I can't figure it out. I've got an iPod like everybody else and a bunch of songs on my computer, but I don't know how to market it. The world of a compilation of songs is suspect at best."

(His own iPod is heavy on blues and bluegrass, he said, from the Louvin Brothers to B.B. King.)

Talking onstage is nothing new for the 53-year-old Texan, although being onstage by himself is.

"The stage is sort of my comfort zone," he said.

Patter between the songs "was out of fear and lack of preparation for me. I realized I didn't have enough song material to fill up the time, so I just started talking," he said with a laugh. "I found out I did it OK and I got away with it."

His storytelling is as much a part of his songs as the space between, he said. Keen adds that he enjoyed the process.

"You can get set and create a scene and create characters and never really know where you're going," he said. "It evolves as you go along. I'm always just so surprised at the things you can come up with and how you can work this story and make it as intriguing and provocative as possible. I really like writing those kinds of songs, but I like to write any kind of songs."

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