Chocolate City, Epic, Yolabelle International, Kind Of Blue Music, Concord/Rounder Records
Musical artist
Kevin Roosevelt Moore (born October 3, 1951), known as Keb' Mo', is an American blues musician. He is a singer, guitarist and songwriter, living in Nashville, Tennessee. He has been described as "a living link to the seminal Delta blues that travelled up the Mississippi River and across the expanse of America."[2] His post-modern blues style is influenced by many eras and genres, including folk, rock, jazz, pop and country. The moniker "Keb Mo" was coined by his original drummer, Quentin Dennard, and picked up by his record label as a "street talk" abbreviation of his given name.
From early on, Keb' Mo's parents, who were from Louisiana and Texas, instilled in him a great appreciation for the blues and gospel music. By adolescence, he was an accomplished guitarist.[citation needed]
Career
Keb' Mo' started his musical career playing the steel drums in a calypso band. He moved on to play in a variety of blues and backup bands throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He first started recording in the early 1970s with Jefferson Airplane violinist Papa John Creach through an R&B group. Creach hired him when Moore was 21 years old and Moore appeared on four of Creach's albums: Filthy!, Playing My Fiddle for You, I'm the Fiddle Man and Rock Father. Keb' Mo's first gold record was received for a song, "Git Fiddler", which he co-wrote with Creach on Jefferson Starship's Red Octopus.[3]Red Octopus hit number one on the Billboard 200 in 1975.[4]
Keb' Mo' has appeared on stage (1990–1993) in several versions of the musical Spunk, by George C. Wolfe, an adaptation of three short stories by Zora Neale Hurston. His character, Guitar Man, learned while he was an understudy to "Chick Streetman", played all the actual music in the play while performing.[5] The character of Guitar Man is the foundation for his stage persona.
On June 10, 1997, Moore performed on the television program Sessions at West 54th. He joined musicians Laval Belle on drums, Reggie McBride playing bass and Joellen Friedkin on keyboards to perform 14 songs, some from each of his albums. Blues pianist Dr. John also made a guest appearance. This session (known as Sessions at West 54th: Recorded Live in New York) was shown on television but was not released as a DVD until late 2000.
In 1998, Moore was involved in the multi-artist project "Begegnungen (Encounters)" by German rock musician Peter Maffay. They performed together a new version of Mo's "Am I Wrong" on the album and some more songs in the 30 concerts at the arena tour later the same year, documented on the live album Begenungen Live, released in early 1999. A further guest of Maffay at the Begegnungen album and tour was Sonny Landreth and many more artists from around the world.
Slow Down, his next album, was released in 1998 and featured twelve songs. It earned him a second Grammy Award. The album begins with the song "Muddy Water", a tribute to Muddy Waters. It also features a song entitled "Rainmaker", which had been released previously on his first album, eighteen years prior.
His fourth album, The Door, was released in 2000. The same year, Keb' Mo' released Big Wide Grin, a children's album featuring many songs from Moore's own childhood, along with some newer children's songs and some by Moore himself. In 2001, he appeared on Sesame Street with Kermit the Frog, Grover, Elmo, and other muppets performing the song "Everybody Be Yo'self". The album includes an original arrangement of "America the Beautiful", which he performed years later on the 2006 series finale of The West Wing, "Tomorrow", in which he appears as himself to perform the song at the inauguration of President Matt Santos.
In 2003, Martin Scorsese collaborated with many blues musicians including Keb' Mo' to put together a series of films entitled The Blues. Following its release, several albums were released in accordance, some were compilations, some new collaborations and Keb' Mo' released an album in the series featuring a handful of existing recordings from Keb' Mo' to The Door.
Also in 2003, Moore and Lyle Lovett released a cover of the Bob Seger song "'Til it Shines".
On February 10, 2004, he released Keep It Simple which earned him a third Grammy Award, again in the contemporary blues genre. Later that year, he released his sixth studio album, Peace... Back by Popular Demand.
Moore released Suitcase, on June 13, 2006. His touring band following the release included Reggie McBride on bass, Les Falconer III on drums, Jeff Paris on keyboards, and Clayton Gibb on guitar.
On October 20, 2009, Keb' Mo' released the live album, Live and Mo'.
Keb' Mo' performed at a White House event titled "In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues" on February 21, 2012.[9] On February 24, 2012, many of the same performers, including Keb' Mo, Gary Clark Jr., Buddy Guy, Warren Haynes, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, paid tribute to Hubert Sumlin at the "Howlin' For Hubert" memorial concert at the Apollo Theater in New York City.[10]
In early 2014, he was nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Americana Album (BLUESAmericana), Best American Roots Performance ("The Old Me Better") and Best Engineered Album Non-Classical (BLUESAmericana).[13] In May, he appeared alongside Metallica at MusicCare' 10th Annual MAP Fund Benefit Concert at Nokia honoring Ozzy Osbourne and Jeff Greenberg.[14] In October 2014 he honored The Everly Brothers, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 19th annual Music Masters Series, and in November he honored Mavis Staples alongside Bonnie Raitt, Gregg Allman, Taj Mahal and Grace Potter, at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre for celebration of Staples' life and career in honor of her 75th birthday.[15][16] Also in late 2014 he was featured on a Jackson Browne tribute album, Looking into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne.
Keb' Mo' released a live album, Keb' Mo' Live – That Hot Pink Blues Album on April 15, on Kind of Blue Music/RED Distribution.[20][21][22]
Keb' Mo' partnered up with Taj Mahal to release a joint album, TajMo, on May 5, 2017.[23] The album has guest appearances by Bonnie Raitt, Joe Walsh, Sheila E., and Lizz Wright, and has six original compositions and five covers, from artists and bands like John Mayer and The Who.[24] The album won the 2018 Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album.[25]
Keb' Mo' performs in 2020.
In June 2019, Keb' Mo' released a studio album, Oklahoma, with guest contributions from Rosanne Cash, Jaci Velasquez, Robert Randolph, and Taj Mahal, with a duet with Robbie Brooks Moore (his wife).
Keb' Mo' played the Glastonbury Festival in June 2019 followed by UK and European dates in July 2019.
Keb' Mo' won the Grammy Award for "Best Americana Album" in 2020 for Oklahoma.[26] He was one of the headliners at the 2020 Mahindra Blues Festival in Mumbai, India.[27]
Film projects
In 1998, he portrayed Robert Johnson in a documentary film, Can't You Hear the Wind Howl?[28]
In 1997, Keb' Mo' portrayed the character Isaac, the Angel of Music, in the episode "Inherit the Wind" and again in 1999 in "Then Sings My Soul" of the television series Touched by an Angel. He performed "Hand It Over" from his 1996 release Just Like You in the 1997 episode and again in the 2002 episode "Remembering Me: Part 2". He also appeared as J. D. Winslow in the 2001 episode "Shallow Water", where he performed his song "God Trying to Get Your Attention" from his album Slow Down.
The 2003 movie Holes features a re-recorded rendition of Just Like You with slightly altered lyrics.
Keb' Mo' uses several types of guitars, including electric guitars, acoustic guitars and resonator guitars. He has a preference for red guitars, as he says on his website: "I have a history with red guitars. My first electric was a red guitar." He mostly plays on a red custom Fender Stratocaster that features two single-coil pickups, and one humbucker and is much modified from a regular Stratocaster model. On stage, he prefers a red Hamer guitar with Gibson P-100 pickups. Two of his electric guitars were lost in the 2010 Nashville flood: an Epiphone Sheraton and a Danelectro Selectomatic.[33]
He owns a variety of acoustic and resonator guitars, including a Gibson artist model, a guitar made for him by James Goodall, a National Style N, a National Resorocket, and a Gibson ES-335-shaped resonator guitar with a P-90 pickup that he purchased in a Nashville club and had repaired.[34]
Sessions at West 54th – Recorded Live in New York (1997)
Exploring the Guitar with Keb' Mo' (2000)
The Blues Guitar of Keb' Mo'' (2002)
Keb' Mo' & Guests (2011)
Other contributions
In 1998, Moore appeared on the album Begegnungen (the German word for "Encounters") by Peter Maffay, one of the most successful rockstars in Germany and Mid-Europe (16 Number 1 albums in the German album charts). This record is a duet album with artists from every continent. Moore and Maffay make a new version of "Am I wrong".
In 2001, Moore performed "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" on the tribute album Timeless: Hank Williams Tribute. Moore is also credited as producer on the Best Country Album, Grammy Award winner for 2001.[41]
In 2006, Moore collaborated with New Orleans blues group The Subdudes, producing their most critically noteworthy album Behind the Levee, penning one cut, "Social Aid and Pleasure Club", and providing backing tracks for several other songs on the album.
In 2006, Moore appeared on the final episode of West Wing, performing "America the Beautiful" at the presidential inauguration.
Moore also provided vocals to Marcus Miller's 2007 album, Free on the track entitled "Milky Way" and again on Miller's 2008 album entitled, Marcus.
In 2008, he also appeared on Otis Taylor's album Recapturing the Banjo, contributing vocals and banjo on several songs.
Moore appeared on the June 7, 2008, broadcast of Garrison Keillor's radio program A Prairie Home Companion. He performed two songs with Bonnie Raitt: "No Getting Over You" and "There Ain't Nothin' in Ramblin'". The show was archived on the A Prairie Home Companion website.
In 2009, Moore co-wrote a song with Peach titled "It Meant Nothing". The song is yet to be released as an official audio recording, however, Peach does perform it and video recordings of live performances exist online.
Moore sings the opening theme ("I See Love", which he co-wrote with Josh Kelley) to the CBS sitcom Mike & Molly.
Moore appeared and played as a backing musician on an episode of Memphis Beat in 2011.
Moore produced and co-wrote the song "Diggin' in the Deep Blue Sea" on the 2011 David Bromberg album Use Me. He also plays electric guitar on the track.
In 2017, he appeared in “Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Higher Ground” (Hallmark Mystery Movie series) as the character Gabe, and performed several songs. His music was also in the following movies in the series, scheduled to appear again in Signed, Sealed, Delivered: To the Altar on July 15, 2018.
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. In 1971, Raitt released her self-titled debut album. Following this, she released a series of critically acclaimed roots-influenced albums that incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk, and country. She was also a frequent session player and collaborator with other artists, including Warren Zevon, Little Feat, Jackson Browne, the Pointer Sisters, John Prine, and Leon Russell.
Benjamin Charles Harper is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Harper plays an eclectic mix of blues, folk, soul, reggae, and rock music, and he is known for his guitar-playing skills, vocals, live performances, and activism. He has released twelve studio albums, mostly through Virgin Records, and has toured internationally.
David Kent Hidalgo is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his work with the band Los Lobos. Hidalgo frequently plays musical instruments such as accordion, violin, 6-string banjo, cello, requinto jarocho, percussion, drums and guitar as a session musician on other artists' releases.
Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr., better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician. He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments, often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific.
John Porter is an English musician and record producer.
The Crossroads Guitar Festival is a series of music festivals and benefit concerts founded by Eric Clapton. The festivals benefit the Crossroads Centre founded by Eric Clapton, a drug treatment center in Antigua. The concerts showcase a variety of guitarists, selected by Eric Clapton personally. To the 2007 audience, Clapton declared that each performer was one of the very best, and had earned his personal respect.
Colin Kendall Linden is a Canadian guitarist, songwriter and record producer. Linden plays acoustic and electric guitar, specializing in slide guitar, country blues, and ragtime fingerpicking, who frequently collaborates with country and folk performers.
Michael Kelly Finnigan was an American keyboard player and vocalist, his specialty being the B3 Hammond organ. Working primarily as a freelance studio musician and touring player, he played with a wide variety of musicians in pop, rock, blues and jazz.
Just Like You is the third studio album by Delta blues artist Keb' Mo', released in 1996. It features guest artists Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt, both on the title track "Just Like You". Unlike the first album, Just Like You features a more blues-pop to blues-rock feel and more of its tracks feature a full band. In 1997, Just Like You won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
Suitcase is the ninth studio album by Delta blues artist Keb' Mo' released in June 2006. Suitcase sees Moore re-unite with producer John Porter who helped Moore put together his first few commercial releases up to Slow Down, where the two started working on projects with others. In this lieu, Moore worked with a variety of producers gaining a varied production experience, along with producing himself. In this time, Porter moved into new areas of production and produced artists such as Taj Mahal, Bob Dylan and others. The critical and consumer response to this album is higher than the previous few albums by Moore and this can be traced to the reunion of the two, among other factors.
Billy Branch is an American blues harmonica player and singer of Chicago blues. Branch is a three-time Grammy nominee, a retired two-term governor of the Chicago Grammy Chapter, an Emmy Award winner, and a winner of the Addy Award. In addition, he has received numerous humanitarian and music awards.
Jon Cleary is a British-born, American funk and R&B musician, based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Cleary is an accomplished pianist as well as being a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter.
Darrell Leonard is an American, Los Angeles–based, trumpet player, composer and arranger.
Carl Carlton is a German rock guitarist, composer and producer. His collaboration with Robert Palmer culminated in the Grammy-nominated album Drive, released in 2003. In 2005, Carlton joined Eric Burdon and the Animals. The collaboration resulted in the Grammy-nominated album Soul of a Man, released in 2006. Carlton has released five albums with his own band, Carl Carlton and the Songdogs and two solo albums.
James "Hutch" Hutchinson is an American session bassist best known for his work with Bonnie Raitt. Though his work takes him nearly everywhere he primarily resides in Studio City, Los Angeles, California, and Haiku-Pauwela, Hawaii.
Larkin Poe is an American roots rock band led by sisters Rebecca Lovell and Megan Lovell. The band originated in north Georgia and is currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. Known for their strong southern harmonies, heavy electric guitar riffs, steel guitar, Larkin Poe often draws comparisons to the style of the Allman Brothers. The Lovell sisters have gained recognition for their energetic performances and musical prowess.
Tony Braunagel is an American drummer, producer, and songwriter from Houston, Texas, United States, who is based in Los Angeles, California. Braunagel has played on many film scores and television shows as well as numerous albums as a musician, composer and producer. He is best known as a session drummer and/or percussionist of over 200 albums including those of Otis Rush, Eric Burdon, Johnny Nash, Coco Montoya, Lucky Peterson, as well as Grammy winning albums of Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy (percussion) and for performing live with dozens of music icons including Bonnie Raitt, Rickie Lee Jones, BB King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Robert Cray, Bette Midler, Lyle Lovett, and Taj Mahal to name just a few.
TajMo is a joint album by the American blues musicians Taj Mahal and Keb' Mo'. It was released May 5, 2017, and won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. TajMo is the twenty-sixth studio album by Taj Mahal and the thirteenth by Keb' Mo'.
Oklahoma is the fourteenth studio album by American musician Keb' Mo' and was released on June 14, 2019 by Concord Records label. The album featured guest contributions from Rosanne Cash, Jaci Velasquez, Robert Randolph, Taj Mahal and a duet with Robbie Brooks Moore. The album also produced two singles: "Put a Woman in Charge" released on September 28, 2018, and "Don't Throw it Away" released on June 12, 2019. The album was produced by Colin Linden and co-produced by Keb’ Mo’.
Jontavious Willis is an American country blues singer, guitarist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Willis has released three albums to date, with his sophomore effort, Spectacular Class, debuting at number 12 in the Billboard Blues Albums Chart in May 2019.
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