Every location in Robert Earl Keen ’78’s “Front Porch Song”

The famous “Front Porch” was only a few steps from the Dixie Chicken, as well as the Presbyterian church.

Just beyond Northgate, there are many more locations familiar to Aggies and Bryan-College Station residents in Robert Earl Keen ’78’s beloved "Front Porch Song."

As his final Aggieland concert approaches – the Aggie Park Kickoff Concert, presented by Southwest Airlines, on Sept. 2 – here's a look at every site mentioned in the version Keen recorded on 1988’s “The Live Album” (including his mid-song banter that’s become almost as famous as the lyrics; listen or read here.)

“This old porch” 

•       (formerly) 302 Church Ave., College Station

The house Keen and Bryan Duckworth ’78 rented during college is no longer standing, so the location of the legendary “Front Porch” is now underneath a city parking lot behind the Dixie Chicken. 

The Chicken opened in summer 1974, just before the musically-inclined friends started school at Texas A&M, which meant they were neighbors not only to the Presbyterian church but to what became College Station’s most famous bar.

Keen says, “We were the perfect ambassadors for both venerable institutions.” 

(“Front Porch Song” co-author Lyle Lovett ’79 lived nearby and was a frequent visitor to Keen's house.)

Agua Dulce

•       Town west of Corpus Christi 

The “big old red-and-white Hereford bull standing under a mesquite tree out in Agua Dulce” was a very specific, handsome specimen. Keen says, “My Uncle Spruce has a 160-acre ranchito near Agua Dulce. He owned five Hereford cows and one beautiful (classic ranch type) Hereford bull, named Sonny Boy.”

“The LaSalle Hotel in old downtown” 

•       120 S. Main St., Bryan

“The enchiladas were to die for” at the LaSalle, Keen says. When the song was written – “circa 1978,” Keen says – the historic 1928 structure had a first-floor restaurant that “was in business until at least 1980.” 

Then, the building closed for 20 years. Renovations began in 1997 and the LaSalle reopened in 2000 as a boutique hotel. A 1990 VH1 special that Lovett filmed using many of the sites in the song captures the period before downtown Bryan’s revitalization.

“Palace walk-in on the main street”

•       Palace Theater, 105 S. Main St., Bryan

The lyrics’ description of “a screen without a picture since ‘Giant’ came to town” (aka 1956) and the term “walk-in” (as opposed to “drive-in” movies, which flourished in the ’50s) evoke the era of “The Last Picture Show” – but the Palace’s history is unusual. 

When “The Front Porch Song” was written, the Palace was still an operational indoor movie/performance theater, as it had been since the 1920s. The roof collapsed in 1986 and the Palace lay in ruins (Lovett’s 1990 music video features its dilapidated stage) until the city saved the marquee sign, took down the front wall and converted it to an outdoor amphitheater in the 1990s. 

Sons of Hermann Hall

•       3414 Elm St., Dallas

Keen recorded “The Live Album” at this longtime music venue in the Deep Ellum district of Dallas on Jan. 14 and 15, 1988, according to the hall’s website. The album cover features a photo of the hall, built in 1911 by several lodges of the Sons of Hermann fraternal organization founded by German immigrants.

“The Presbyterian church”

•        (formerly) A&M Presbyterian Church, 301 N. Church Ave.

As Keen describes, A&M Presbyterian Church was indeed “right across from” his front porch. A neighbor to several other churches along the street, A&M Presbyterian was on Northgate from 1948 to 1999. In 2001, a private dormitory called The Tradition at Northgate was built on the site. 

There was a wholesome outcome to the “Front Porch Boys” Sunday-morning serenades: “We used to play bluegrass gospel music for the Sunday school kids from the Presbyterian church on Sunday mornings,” Keen says. In a 2013 interview, he described how he and his musical cohorts cleaned up for the occasion. 

Jack Boyett’s ranch

•       (formerly) Near Millican, Texas

Keen vividly describes the landlord for whom he did odd jobs like “digging skinny cows out of the mud.” Jack Boyett’s family has a long history in Brazos County; his grandfather opened a store next to Texas A&M’s train depot in 1887, and the family owned much of the property that became Northgate and the Boyett neighborhood (Boyett Street is the closest intersection to the “Front Porch” house location).

Of Jack Boyett’s ranch, Keen recalls, “It was between Millican and Navasota on the east side of the road.… I did save a cow in poor health who was stuck in the mud up to her jawline in the water. I used ropes and a come-along to do it.”

Jack “lived on the ranch with his wife, Lohnie. He was born on Jan. 23, 1910,” Keen remembers, “and his family donated Bevo II or III to UT sometime in the 1930s, according to Jack.” 

Keen’s memory is good: The birthdate is correct, making Boyett about 68 when the song was first written describing him as “a weathered, gray-haired 70 years of Texas,” and Boyett was head yell leader at the University of Texas in 1932 when his family donated Bevo II. He passed away in 1993, and Lohnie passed away in 2007.

Luby’s

• (formerly) 4401 S. Texas Ave., Bryan

Always a popular Sunday morning choice, Bryan’s outpost of the legendary cafeteria chain opened in 1977 and closed in 2014. From 2014 to 2020, the location housed Cafe Eccell after that longtime local restaurant left its Northgate site.

“The Brazos still runs muddy”

The Brazos is the longest river that lies entirely within Texas, and it has indeed historically been described as muddy – or, as a scientist might say, “The average annual suspended-sediment yield of the Brazos is the highest of all rivers in Texas.”

More reading

• “Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen recall the legendary 'Front Porch' at Texas A&M,” The Eagle, Feb. 14, 2013
• “The Secret History of Texas Music: ‘The Front Porch Song’/’This Old Porch,” Texas Monthly, July 2015

Aggie Park Kickoff Concert

To help formally open Aggie Park, Keen will headline a free concert Sept. 2 – the Aggie Park Kickoff Concert, presented by Southwest Airlines and coordinated by The Association of Former Students. 

Aggie Park’s development is transforming 20 acres at the heart of A&M’s campus into an "outdoor MSC" with enhanced spaces for study and relaxation, tailgating, entertainment and recreation for students and visitors: AggiePark.tamu.edu.