Rolling Stone<\/em> on Monday. They shared memories of Camp Mystic, the ties that bind music and Kerrville, and offered advice for fans and artists seeking ways to help.<\/p>\n\n\tWhat did Camp Mystic mean to your family, as a community and as a place?<\/strong>
Robert Earl Keen:<\/strong> It was very Christian-based, but they embraced everybody. Dick and Tweety Eastland were always, for lack of a better word, cheerleaders for the whole bunch. On the days when they were all checking in, there would be these huge masses of maybe 30 or 40 girls there to welcome the new ones, and clap and embrace them. It was heartfelt and real. They were very committed to what they do. I never thought about it being any kind of moneymaking operation to them. It was just them doing what they did, which was giving as much as they could to the kids.<\/p>\n\n\tI just found out that my youngest daughter, Chloe \u2026 a cabin that washed away was the cabin that she stayed in when she was first there, and she has a definite visceral connection to this tragedy. My older daughter went there for eight years, and she just loved it. And, for me, the connection was that you didn\u2019t get to have phone calls with your kids, so you just wrote letters. That was a different kind of a connection. Anybody that had kids going to Mystic did the same. There was letter writing and sharing pictures. Those ties are as strong as tungsten, you know?<\/p>\n\n\n
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\n\tClara Keen:<\/strong> Mystic had a very strict no-tech policy. If we wanted to communicate with the outside world, you had to write letters, and we all did that. I still get a lot of joy out of writing and receiving letters, because the act of opening an envelope still transports me back to hot afternoons in June, sitting on my bunk bed during rest hours just poring over letters from my parents and friends in the world beyond Mystic. My dad would write letters called \u201cThe Farm Report\u201d where he would write about the ranch and how all the animals were doing. My friends at camp loved those and would always ask to read them.<\/p>\n\n\tIt was a fun camp and it was a place to bond with other girls of all ages, which I think my parents always kind of worried about. I was definitely a weird kid and too much of a know-it-all to make friends easily in \u201creal life,\u201d but at camp, that didn\u2019t matter. Making and keeping friends was not only easy but a sincere joy.<\/p>\n
\n\tMystic allowed me to grow into myself, on my terms but with the help of good-natured guidance that was structurally integrated into the camp. That was an extension of how my parents were already raising my sister and me. Looking back, I realize Mystic shaped innumerable aspects of my character, to the point where Berton Brayley\u2019s \u201cPrayer of a Sportsman\u201d is the only poem I know by heart, as it was recited after every team game at camp.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat was the relationship between the camp and the river?<\/strong>
Clara:<\/strong> The river was an intertwined part of camp life. As a camper, you quickly learned it was in your best interest to have some sort of water activity on your schedule to beat the heat. But you didn\u2019t want it to be too early because the water would be too cold. The river was this constant, not only during the term but over the years. As I grew older, the river remained the same. It shaped everything from swim lessons to camp-wide activities like canoe races. It\u2019s reshaped everything now.<\/p>\n\n\tWhat are the ties that bind music and Kerrville?<\/strong>
Keen:<\/strong> I believe you can trace it back to before then, but in 1972, they held the first Kerrville Folk Festival. It was in a community building, and there\u2019s still pictures of it, and you can actually see on the very front row was LBJ listening to somebody singing. One of the things that they do better than anybody else, as far as a festival, is that they really don\u2019t spend a lot of money. They go and get a lot of new artists. You can hear artists you\u2019ve maybe never heard of from all over the world. They\u2019ve embraced people from other countries. They bring them in, and you can see and hear this great music. Around that, the arts scene \u2014 visual arts, painting, community theater \u2014\u00a0is a lot stronger than a lot of places, especially in a town that size. I would say it\u2019s part and parcel of the whole culture of Kerrville. Were it not for the festival, maybe some of those things wouldn\u2019t have come together.<\/p>\n\n\tMy connection started in 1981 when I won the \u201cnew folk songwriter\u201d award at the Kerrville Folk Festival. I lived in Austin at the time, but I knew how to get to Kerrville. So, I would drive people like John Gorka and Peter Rowan out there. I got into the funniest conversation ever between Junior Brown and Peter Rowan, which are the opposite ends of the spectrum \u2014 just talking about smoking too much weed and going on stage. It was hilarious.<\/p>\n
\n\tClara:<\/strong> Kerrville has a long history as a supportive music town. It may not be Newport, but the Kerrville Folk Festival has been a longstanding musical pit stop for anyone in the folk and Americana scenes, and is something which is braided into the community. Its growth and embrace of those genres, year after year, is nothing but a testament to not only the resilience of the music but the strength of the people that love and work to support it. We also see this in organizations like the Hill Country Youth Orchestra \u2014 which teaches kids K-12 to play classical music. As someone who grew up in Kerrville, one of the things that has been so exciting in recent years is the development of spaces like the Arcadia Live Theatre, which specializes in contemporary performance, and just community restaurants like Pint & Plow, which provide local musicians with house-concert level support and spaces to play.<\/p>\n\n\tIt\u2019s not a place like Austin or Houston, which host a number of venues, but it\u2019s still a substantial ecosystem that thrives on a loving and supportive community. And I\u2019d trade a stadium show for that every time.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow have you approached flood relief efforts from the road this week?<\/strong>
Keen:<\/strong> That\u2019s my strongest connection to all this. We had something like 12 years in Kerrville doing Robert Earl Keen\u2019s Fourth on the River. Then, I quote-unquote retired, and stepped away from it. They had a really rocky year last year, and they asked me to come back, so I did. And now, with it being washed out, I kind of feel like I was somewhat of a spearhead or a flashpoint, as far as the other artists who are now part of the whole tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\tSo, immediately, we decided to give a hundred percent of our merch to relief. We haven\u2019t confirmed it yet, but we\u2019re going to be putting on a show. We\u2019re making sure it\u2019s going to be a real solid musical event, and we\u2019re going to be announcing it all in the next day or two. And, my wife is at home, and she has been running around, ferrying people and first responders to places. We had a little place that we were trying to rent, and she just handed that over to some first responders. She\u2019s been picking up trash for them and doing her thing. It\u2019s an entire family effort. You can\u2019t take away what happened. You can only go forward, and do as much as you can, for as long as you can.<\/p>\n