Years before he recorded a note of music, Texas singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett bought two copies of "How to Make and Sell Your Own Recording." He gave one to a friend, another writer with good songs but little direction.

"He gave me that book, and I pretty much went, 'Chapter 1, check,' " says Robert Earl Keen, whose friendship with Lovett dates to their days at Texas A&M in the late '70s. "I treated the whole thing like a checklist. And then there was a record at the end of it."

That record, "No Kind of Dancer," a set of authentic story songs rich in characters and details, turns 30 in October. Lovett's self-titled debut is 28.

Since their first albums, the two have crafted deep, varied song books - Keen 11 albums' worth, Lovett 10 - too full of personality, narrative voice and wit to ever fit any mainstream definition of country music. With virtually no support from radio, traditionally the springboard for country music, Lovett and Keen have been able to, as the book instructed, "build their careers without selling their souls."

By forging their own paths, the two have made strong impressions on generations of Texas singer-songwriters. Lovett's acolytes tip more toward the swinging, jazzy side, while Keen's steer toward rousing story songs. The two musicians are like two roots of the same tree - uniquely shaped and twisting together, and then back apart into the common Texas soil.

More Information Lyle Lovett and His Large Band and Robert Earl Keen When: 7 p.m. Thursday Where: Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins, The Woodlands Tickets: $39.50-$79.50; 281-364-3024, woodlandscenter.org

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After a series of intimate performances in which the two shared a stage and swapped songs, they've been playing larger-scale events together. This week, they'll bring their full bands to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion for two sets that will likely boast some intermingling.

"We've never really done a show like this together in Houston in this kind of place," Lovett says. "I'm counting on Robert to sell a bunch of tickets."

Keen: "Yep. I'll be out front holding tickets up. 'Get your tickets here!' "

At some point, they will likely begin to wrap up the evening with one song that has two titles. Keen included "The Front Porch Song" on his first album, Lovett put "This Old Porch" on his. Like the two men, their versions are like two shades of the same color, with subtle variations in tempo, enunciation and the use of metaphor versus simile. Though it was written years ago, Lovett says the song's resonance lingers and speaks to who each songwriter is today.

It started where they met, the Church Street house in College Station, where Keen and his buddies would play bluegrass on the front porch; Lovett was a passer-by. Today, they remain close friends with an easy rapport.

"A lot of the professional caution that one might exercise working with someone who's merely a colleague we're able to disregard because we're friends," Lovett says.

A pause. "That was really well said," Keen replies. "You're like a (expletive) diplomat. I'm going to write that down. Did you write that down? You want to email me that?"

Longtime friends

Lovett and Keen came from different corners of this area: Lovett is from Klein, north of Houston and Keen is from Sharpstown, in the southwest. They converse warmly, though they carry themselves differently.

Lovett's professional attire is more formal, though in a casual setting he, like Keen, comes across as a do-it-yourself type capable of tending to livestock or making his own auto repairs.

Keen could take an inventory sheet from virtually any business and turn the list of products into a song. Yet he acknowledges he's not great with dates: "I moved to Austin, but I don't remember when. You're better at these dates than I am, Lyle."

"You moved to Austin in 1980, Robert," Lovett replies.

Keen: "See?"

The superficial differences in Keen's and Lovett's first albums are obvious, starting with the cover images. Keen is dressed comfortably in well-worn denim, uneasy with the camera on him. Lovett is framed tightly in a suit, a nice shirt buttoned to the top, his famous hair piled high, his head turned away with cool detachment.

Their early approach to music also differed. Keen and his buddies played on the porch. Lovett was in charge of booking music at the Basement Coffee House at A&M. He admired Keen's way with song and hired him.

"That was a big step up for us," Keen says. "We thought, 'Wow, a real gig!' You know, instead of playing in front of liquor stores or my favorite, which was the Methodist Wednesday night spaghetti supper where everybody was older than we are now. Lyle gave us a chance to connect to the university in a way that was more legit."

After school - and after reading "How to Make and Sell Your Own Recording" - they took different paths into the music business, occasionally meeting along the way. Keen released "No Kind of Dancer" on the independent bluegrass and roots label Rounder. (Lovett is on the cover, in the background, and he sang on "Rolling By.") Lovett made a polished demo that got him signed to a major label, MCA, a contract that until recently spanned his entire career. (His last album was cheekily titled "Release Me.")

Neither had what you'd call a big hit, but every couple of years each would produce a new album.

Their live shows grew into different creatures, both with growing audiences. Lovett's was flashier, with his Large Band, a spirited ensemble with brass, vocalists, cello and other instrumentation common to country music. Keen's shows took on the feel of shared experience, with his uptempo songs turning into drunken sing-alongs for fans who either admired or ignored the craft that went into his work.

The two have each put their spin on the songwriting tradition that preceded them, with obvious mentors like Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. But they've long since evolved from students to teachers. Keen is 58, Lovett nearly 57. Neither hints that an album of new original songs is forthcoming, though Keen has a bluegrass record due early next year.

That leaves the past - 30 years of songs - to talk about.

Lovett touches on Keen's sense of the visual. "His images are beautiful and articulate. Robert's words make you see pictures."

Keen says, "What I flat out steal from Lyle is that conversational nature, how words fit together. They fit in a way without necessarily rhyming. They flow together like a great sentence. I just think, 'I'm going to do this, and Lyle will recognize it, and no one else will, so what the hell ... "

Each talks about narrative voice and perspective. Which draws them back to the porch.

Notes from the porch

Lovett talks about "The Front Porch Song" - I'll give Keen's title preference because of its vintage - as a series of snapshots from Keen's life.

"This old porch is a big ol' red and white Hereford bull," it opens, "standin' under a mesquite tree in Agua Dulce, Texas. He keeps on playin' hide and seek with that hot August sun. Sweatin' and a pantin' cause his work is never done. Oh no, with those cows and a red top cane."

Keen had the first three verses completed when Lovett first heard it. The song was full of vivid images, like an enchilada plate at the LaSalle Hotel in Bryan.

"He had painted these wonderful pictures of where we were, and he talked about our lives through these pictures," Lovett says. "But he'd left himself out of the song."

Lovett started working on a final verse about time, failure, luck and determination. He thought about Jack Boyett, Keen's landlord in College Station, who makes an appearance in the fourth verse. Boyett, Lovett says, was regarded as a nuisance by most of his tenants, but Keen befriended the older man and even worked on the family farm. "I always admired that about Robert," he says. Keen was similarly friendly to passers-by. Lovett went from a passer-by to a person on the porch, where together they would greet others who walked by the house.

"If they glanced our way, we'd always engage them," Lovett says. "Lots of folks would listen and some of them got to be friends the same way Robert and I got to be friends. And some were folks who didn't want anything to do with us. They'd race by with their heads down. And that's where that last part came from."

That last verse speaks for more than 30 years.

"It all comes together in the last verse," Keen says. "By virtue of the fact that we're standing up and singing it to people says that time was a stepping stone to something bigger. The underdog triumphs. Maybe I'm pushing that too far, but that's the feeling I get when I'm standing on stage."

Lovett adds, "It was a time when the outside world may not have acknowledged what we were doing but we believed in it enough to want to continue. That's what it's about. Determination and self-respect, really. The same people that walked up to Robert's yard and listened are the same people supporting us now."

"The others," Keen adds, "those are the people working in the damn music business."