Americana Podcast: The 51st State is a platform dedicated to sharing and expanding on the Americana genre's roots, reach, and definition. Each episode is told from the point of view of the musicians that have dedicated their lives to it.

Robert Earl Keen, Americana pioneer and host, interviews musicians, exploring their unique histories, creative processes, successes, failures, and everything in between.

Robert Earl Keen, equipped with his 19 albums and 30 years in the music industry, knows a thing or two about Americana. Keen’s music was seemingly genre-bending making him a veritable singer/songwriter without definition until 1997 when radio trade magazine, Gavin recognized Americana music and its musicians. With REK on the cover, Gavin, published the first known comprehensive list of Americana artists, placing him in the top 10. With a long-running, vested interest in the Americana music scene, Keen intends for this project to be a method in which musicians, music lovers, and artists come together over storytelling. Americana Podcast is not sponsored as we prefer to keep the vision of this project pure and without distraction or bias.