Ingram talks new albums & Keen's influence ahead of Saturday concert

When Jack Ingram was first coming up as a songwriter, he looked to the works of Robert Earl Keen as inspiration.

He soon learned he needed to be doing the exact opposite.

"What I really learned about him was his style was not mine," Ingram said. "I was trying to make up cool Western songs like I was Louis L'Amour, and I finally said, 'My songs are (expletive) awful.'

"It was really hard to make things up (as Keen does), so I went the other way and didn't make things up ... and I found that is where I've got talent."

Now, Ingram will open for Keen when the duo return to Amarillo for a 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts. The show will raise funds for St. Andrew's Episcopal School.

Ingram's own writing made him break out on the Texas scene with the release of a pair of indie albums in 1995, then 1999's "Hey You" and 2002's "Electric." He signed with Big Machine Records (later the home of Taylor Swift) in 2005, releasing "Wherever You Are," his only Top 40 hit.

After some mild success with his follow-ups "This Is It" and "Big Dreams and High Hopes" in 2007 and 2009, he and Big Machine split in 2011.

He's finally getting ready to release new material - two new albums, in fact, planned for release in summer 2015.

Though both are thematically tied, Ingram doesn't consider the impending release a "traditional double album."

One album, "Checking In, Checking Out," is fairly traditional country, Ingram said - "great, well-produced, slick mainstream music."

And though he insisted he was "taking nothing away" from that album, Ingram sounded even more excited about the other album, "Midnight Motel."

The album was inspired by Ingram's longstanding love of Sam Cooke's "Night Beat," a 1963 album legendarily recorded in three late-night sessions.

"All the sessions (for Ingram's album) started at midnight," he said. "I think there's a different thing that goes on at night, when you really know you're the only one up doing music.

"It's probably the best experience musically I've ever had," he continued. "It's exactly what I hoped it would be. There's a vibe to it; there's just a thing going on."

The album also is a reaction to his time with Big Machine.

"If I'm telling a label I want to make great music, they want to make hits. ... Sometimes those things line up, but there's going to be a whole lot more of a rub because there's a lot more hits than there is great music," he said. "It takes just as much effort to sell 250,000 Jack Ingram records or 3 million Taylor Swift records. I mean, what would you do, man? I get it."

Despite his bid for mainstream success, Ingram said he wasn't interested in crafting hits instead of songs with "integrity."

"I wish I could be like Jason Aldean or (insert) name of artist here," he said. "(Expletive) yeah, it would be easier."

Ingram said he's more interested in the long run.

"I know I'm supposed to be making music well into my 70s with music that's going to matter to somebody," he said. "Labels aren't into that, by and large. ... I'm cool with that. I knew that from the start."

how to go

o What: Robert Earl Keen with Jack Ingram

o When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

o Where: Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S. Buchanan St.

o How much: $30 to $75, plus service charge

o Information: 806-378-3096 or www.panhandletickets.com