If you only know Robert Earl Keen from "Merry Christmas From the Family," funny and true-to-life as it is, that's still a shame. The dark, pointed humor that has made that song (originally released on his 1994 LP Gringo Honeymoon) one of the most beloved holiday tunes of the past 20 years is veined throughout Keen's 16-strong discography, from 1984 debut No Kinda Dancer through last year's Ready for Confetti.

Rewind:

Robert Earl Keen's "Christmas" Present That Keeps Right On Regifting

Likewise, if you think Keen, who grew up in Sharpstown, is strictly a local hero or a Texas phenomenon, think again. A sizable majority of his some 150 tour dates per year take place across the state line, and both Confetti and its predecessor, 2009's The Rose Hotel, reached No. 1 on the Americana Music Association's radio-airplay chart.

But it is Texas that loves him best, and in March of this year, Keen was inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside his onetime Texas A&M roommate Lyle Lovett and one of his heroes, the late Townes Van Zandt. Rocks Off spoke with the proud Aggie (especially this year) a few days before he set off on his "Merry Christmas From the Fam-O-Lee" tour that hits House of Blues tonight.

Rocks Off: Congratulations on this Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame induction.

Robert Earl Keen: Isn't that cool? I didn't know what that was about, but my friend Jody Williams at BMI called me about a year before almost and said "You should do this. This is really neat. I do some of these things and they do this all right." I said, "OK. I'm happy to do it."

All the time up to it until about three days before, I had it in my mind I was just going to drive my car up to the curb and park it and leave it running, and run in and grab my award. Then I realized, "Wow, this is legitimate. They filled up the Moody [Theatre] with people, and it was pretty exciting."

RO: Is that a more important award than some others you've won?

REK: I don't know. I'm not sure about all the awards things; I'm a little cynical about all that stuff. But I will say this: What made that special was the night itself, and the people who put it together. They were as earnest as a block of wood, just down to Earth and wanted us to have that. And also to be honored among Lyle and Townes was I think about as good a recognition as you can possibly get in the singer-songwriter business. I don't think there's two finer songwriters that are out there, so I felt pretty special.

But the rest of the thing about awards, I'm a big fan of movies and books and all kind of stuff, and you look through all these awards and you go, "This just seems totally made up," so I'm not really sure about those. But the one that I got, that was really solid.

RO: It seems like on your last few records, you've really got into this real nice little groove. Is that how it feels for you?

REK: Very much so. I look at different things. Speaking of movies, I look at certain directors who find a nice stable or team -- they have a great director of photography, and they have great editors and music people, and they use them over and over, and they have actors they use over and over. You can find it in music as well.

Not with bands, I'm talking about mostly like solo artists like myself. I've been playing with this band for 20 years, I've known Lloyd Maines for 20 years. We found a studio right outside of Austin that really works, and the people are super-nice to us, and I have zero supervision from any kind of record companies anymore. So it just falls in perfectly.

To me, I wish I had found this connection early on, but you have to understand -- early on when you're making a record, everybody wants to tell you what to do all the time. Even if you know what to do in your head. You try to listen and placate people about this and that, and it usually ends up watering it all down. So the bottom line on that one: I do it how I want to now.

RO: Can you believe Ready for Confetti was your 16th album?

REK: No, that's amazing. Really, truly, I couldn't order a pizza in college. I was too shy, too screwed-up in the head. Somebody would go "We need a pizza," and I'd go, "You have to do it, because I can't do it. I can barely walk and tie my shoes, man."

So to go through that process and make all those records, and play all the places I have, I'm pretty amazed. I've come a long way as a human being, I guess.