On the surface, a transcendentalist and a Sufi mystic do not seem likely sources to draw from when writing and creating acoustically-inclined music. But upon deeper reflection - which is what roots revelers The Kennedys take pleasure in - Henry David Thoreau's timeless words of wisdom and Rumi's mystic poetry are natural touchstones for the sweet-sounding harmonies and deep-rooted lyrics this duo deliver.

Lucky for Pete and Maura Kennedy, this mutual appreciation of music, philosophers and poets turned into a lasting love affair and a musical marriage, which is still going strong more than 14 years since a fateful meeting in Texas in 1992.

The story goes that Pete was playing a solo show at Austin's Continental Club, during a break from touring as a guitarist for Nanci Griffith, when he met Maura Boudreau, who was taking a hiatus of her own from performing with her country-rock band The Delta Rays. The two met, a conversation carried on into the wee hours of the night, and in less than 24 hours, they had co-written their first song.

Shortly after this musical meeting of the minds and late-night songwriting session, Griffith needed a harmony singer to replace Iris Dement, and Maura signed on. After touring with Griffith for a while, the pair decided to go their own way and amicably left Griffith's Blue Moon Orchestra band, married in 1994 and subsequently formed the roots music duo The Kennedys.

The duo's debut "River of Fallen Stars" (1995) earned them an "Indie" award as Best Adult Contemporary CD by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors, while last year's "Half a Million Miles," celebrated their life on the highway.

The Kennedys, who had just returned from celebrating their 12th anniversary with the tradition of commemorating these nuptials in Woodstock, N.Y. - a milieu with a storied and rich musical history - describe their new disc, "Songs of the Open Road" (Appleseed), as a road record, showing their diverse influences.

"We've always tried to acknowledge our influences on our records," Pete says. "On the first record, we did a Richard Thompson song, and we usually do one or two covers per album to deliberately show what our strongest influences are, but those were really just part of an overall huge list of favorite songs that we listen to when we are on the road."

"We are big music fans and DJs also, so listening to other peoples' music is a big part of what we do. It's impossible to narrow down to 14 favorite songs, but we did the best we could and made it thematic about being on the road because we are on the road so much and thought maybe it would turn out to be other peoples' road play list."

"Whenever we go on the road, and we've done this since we started, we have always made mixed CDs and some of the same songs kept turning up from CD to CD," adds Maura. "These are those ones we couldn't go on the road without...Not all of them are ones we have played out, although there are those as well. 'Eight Miles High' and 'Sin City' we've been playing live for years, but the other ones were mostly ones we had brought on the road as our own soundtrack."

On "Songs for the Open Road," covers range from an original version of The Byrds' classic genre-bending "Eight Miles High" to a spirited take on the Graham Parsons/Chris Hillman classic "Sin City."

With several other California penned compositions, including Stephen Stills' "Pretty Girl Why" (from the final Buffalo Springfield record) and Gene Clark's "Gypsy Rider" making the record, one wonders if this leaning on the California country-rock vibe was on purpose.

"We didn't aim to do that," says Maura. "But, if you think about it, the whole California Steinbeck thing, Woody Guthrie, etc. and part of the California experience is being on the road. When we go on those long tours out to the West Coast, that's when we spend a lot of time in the car. So, while it's incidental, it's inherent in a road trip tape for us to include California stuff."

The pair is particularly proud of how "Eight Miles High" turned out. "It is a really pivotal song for us," Pete explains. "It's the kind of song you don't really want to tackle unless you feel like it has become one of your own songs. What The Byrds did with it was incorporate such a broad range of music into one four-minute song. They had rock, folk, jazz, Indian music, Spanish, classical, modal mountain folk sounds all in one song.

"We have talked to (Roger) McGuinn about that song, and we have been playing it live for years," he continues. "We knew we would record it eventually, but it had to feel really comfortable. It's like if you inherited someone else's coat, and you would have to wear it for a few years before you felt like it was your coat, especially if it belonged to someone like Abraham Lincoln. That's the way we felt about 'Eight Miles High.' It was an iconic song, so that was a big step for us to record that."

One of Maura's highlights on the new record is the Glen Campbell anti-war song "Galveston," which the Kennedys reinvent sans strings.

"I have always loved that song just for the melody and the sound of it," she says. "In more recent years, I have noticed all the lyrical subtleties of that song. It's an anti-war song, but to me the most poignant part of that song is that because the kid misses his hometown even more than his girlfriend, you realize he is just a kid, and that's the real tragedy of war. I thought it was important to do that song again, but to record it and not hear the strings you hear in the Glen Campbell original version. You hear all those strings, and it is distracting. I think that is why for me the real deep meaning of that song took so long to come out because I was always distracted by that string section. It's more of a country folk rock tune the way we did it."

Since joining forces, these white-line country-folk followers have played more than 1,000 gigs. From one coast to the other and back again, the Kennedys have logged half a million miles. One wonders how these musicians balance life as a touring act with life as a married couple.

"Most musicians have a really strong drive to get to the next gig," comments Pete. "How lucky is it to find someone else who is just like that as your life partner. Neither of us mind getting up and checking out of the hotel every day and driving a couple hundred miles to the next gig because it is those two hours when you are on stage that make the whole thing worth it. We are lucky that we both feel the same way about that."

"Plus, most musicians aren't lucky enough to bring their whole family on the road with them," adds Maura. "We are our whole family. We work together and make music together so we don't have to compromise our personal life to accommodate the musical life."

In their limited leisure time, the Kennedys host a radio show called Dharma CafŽ on SIRIUS Satellite radio. The show airs Saturdays and Sundays on the free-form channel called Disorder, run by New York City radio legend and free-form DJ pioneer Meg Griffin; she approached the Kennedys two and a half years ago with this opportunity.

"We weren't looking to be DJs, but it was right around the time we moved to New York, and she said 'I know you guys are on the road, and you have seen a lot of places, and you have met a lot of musicians, and you would bring a fresh perspective to radio, which is what they were trying to do at SIRIUS," says Maura. "They knew our tastes were as eclectic as the station was and being a free-form station they really wanted DJs that had an interest in all different types of music. It was a six-month trial basis, and two and a half years later, we are still doing it."

The radio station is aptly titled since the Kennedys are deep-thinking songsmiths who like to weave various Eastern philosophies into their music and into their radio show. Pete tells the story of a recent guest on the Dharma CafŽ - country songwriter Jim Lauderdale - and how the duo felt an instant connection to this composition companion.

"He had one of those fancy Nudie suits on, only it had Chinese yin-yang symbols all over it," Pete recalls. "We said, 'this is a guy we know we will get along with' because he was doing a combination of roots music with all kinds of wisdom philosophy. It really makes a good mixture. We do that on the radio show and also in our music. We play stuff that will come from sources in country music and folk music and even a little jazz and classical, but lyrically we don't try to ape those genres...lyrically we try to reflect what is on our bookshelf at home, which is going to be a little bit different." "There are bits of Eastern mysticism in there and things to just try and open out the overall culture a little bit. America has been on a very conservative bent for a while, but not everybody in America is like that...in fact the majority of people aren't...it is more the government. I think it is important to counter-balance that strict conservative orthodoxy. We have put that in our music too, so it is a little subversive that way."

From thirteenth century Sufi poet Rumi to the twentieth century cosmic cowboy Gram Parsons, the Kennedys influences span more than genres and generations. And, while "Songs for the Open Road" appears to honor only their more modern influences, Maura is quick to point out that the teachings of ancient poets and philosophers still come through, even in these cover songs.

"On the surface, the Dave Carter song 'Gypsy Road' sounds like a Victorian love song," concludes Maura. "But, on a deeper level it seems similar to Rumi in that he uses this vehicle of a love song as a metaphor for the notion of suppressing the creative part of yourself, which you can not deny."