Singer-songwriter and guitarist Keb' Mo's music is a living link to the seminal Delta blues that traveled up the Mississippi River and across the expanse of America--informing all of its musical roots-before evolving into a universally celebrated art form. Born Kevin Moore in South Los Angeles to parents originally from the deep South, he adopted his better known stage name when he was a young player who became inspired by the force of this essential African-American legacy. In the storied tradition of bluesmen before him including Muddy Waters-formerly McKinley Morganfield-and Taj Mahal, who began his days as Henry St. Clair Fredericks, Moore became known as Keb' Mo'. His acclaimed self-titled 1994 debut album introduced that now famous appellation to the world, and his latest album, 2006's Suitcase, brings it to new heights.
Mo's music is also a purely post-modern expression of the artistic and cultural journey that has transformed the blues, and his own point of view, over time. His distinctive sound embraces multiple eras and genres, including pop, rock folk and jazz, in which he is well-versed. In total, it owes as much to contemporary music's singer-songwriter movement, encompassing his longtime friends and collaborators Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne, as to the spirit of blues godfather Robert Johnson that dwells in his work. For Keb' Mo', the common bond between these influences is the underlying storytelling ethic, the power of song to convey human experience and emotional weight.
That truth is at the heart of Suitcase , Keb' Mo's eighth album for One Haven/Red Ink/Epic. The disc follows up his 2004 double play of Peace: Back By Popular Demand, featuring Mo's covers of classic '60s-'70s-era peace and protest songs, and his revelatory solo-production debut Keep It Simple, the artist's third GRAMMY winner for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Handsomely spare and richly resonant, Suitcase is a diverse collection of songs that the artist feels are his most personal to date, and his range and innate eloquence have never been better served. Keb' Mo's unvarnished vocals are bell-like in clarity through frank delivery and emotional constancy, and his acoustic and slide guitar mastery ring just as true. With laconic storytellin' and gritty country blues tunes, from broadside ballads to lilting odes to love, through mellow folk rags and fiery laments, Mo's seamless synthesis of roots idioms, pop ardor and lyrical dexterity is soulful and authentic.
Suitcase was produced by Keb' Mo' and John Porter, whose ties date back to Mo's debut disc. Since then, Porter's already lengthy resume grew on projects with B.B. King, Santana, Los Lonely Boys, Taj Mahal, Elvis Costello and more, and Mo' evolved through self-producing and other collaborations. The album's 12 songs were tracked with a team of ace players at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, a secluded and almost mythic room where Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Johnny Cash and other legends have recorded, and where The Band rehearsed for The Last Waltz. The confidence and grace exuded throughout Suitcase is both a measure of and a sum greater than these factors, and Mo' has said, "The creative process involved with the making of this record has been a deeply rewarding experience. Everything from the songwriting sessions to re-connecting with John Porter has been a wonderful journey. The music represents life happening in all of its shades and shapes. I hope that spirit is conveyed to the listener."
Indeed, Suitcase's songs, simply expressed in the poetry of everyday words, communicate volumes about universal experiences, including the title track's sage ruminations on the baggage we carry, and how it burdens the ties that bind. Conversely , "I'm A Hero" is driven with hopeful conviction about love's power to elevate the common man above the ills of society, and "Eileen" is an inspired tale of two soul mates' first meeting. Another paean to redemption is the delicate "Life Is Beautiful," which is almost psalm-like as Mo' sings, "I want to spend my days and nights walking through this crazy world with you." The raunchier side of the dance between the sexes is sent up with the gritty, horn-punched "Whole 'Nutha Thang," and the jazzy soul and free-wheeling Lieber & Stoller-esque vibe of "Rita" considers romance gone awry.
Other highlights include the gripping "Remain Silent," a wry reshaping of the dialogue of passion into the language of the law, sung over a reggae flavored backbeat, and "The Itch," an urgent, Latin-tinged plea to heaven above for release from "the fever." On the beautifully stripped-down "I'll Be Your Water," featuring Mo' solo voice on acoustic guitar, the artist offers with pure lucidity-and echoes of early Lyle Lovett-".there's a solution to everything/if you ever need someone to talk to/if you ever need a helping hand/I'll be your ship out on the ocean/I'll be your water on the desert sand." It's a sentiment that seems to apply both to the song's promise and to the spirit in which Keb' Mo' envisions making music, as something to share in hopes of building meaning, companionship and community as part of a larger whole.
Kevin Moore was raised in Compton in a home filled with gospel music and the hit records of the '50s and '60s. He cut his own musical teeth on a guitar his uncle gave him as a child, and as a teenager, he also blew trumpet and French horn. After stints with local R&B and pop cover groups, legendary roots violinist Papa John Creach, of Hot Tuna and Jefferson Starship fame, heard Kevin and his band jamming at a rehearsal space. He hired them on the spot to play back-up for him, and on the first of three Creach albums on which Kevin played, he was exposed to stellar guest artists Big Joe Turner and Harmonica Fats, indoctrinating him into the blues in a big way.
A staff position at A&M writing songs and contracting demo sessions followed, and in 1980, Moore released his own solo LP, Rainmaker (now a collector's item), through Casablanca Records. He also began gigging with the Whodunit Band, a Monk Higgins-led ensemble of top jazz and blues players who were the house cats at the now fabled L.A. nightspot Marla's Memory Lane. The experience led to a role as a Robert Johnson-like Delta bluesman in LATC's production of Rabbit Foot (another LATC role in Spunk , based Zora Neale Hurston's writings, followed). The newly minted Mo's 1994 blues-heavy debut disc, Keb' Mo', flowed naturally out of this evolution. The second album out on Epic Records' just revived Okeh label-founded in 1916 and home to what's considered the first commercial blues recording, Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues"- Keb' Mo' won immediate acclaim.
Subsequent albums have demonstrated the depth and breadth of Keb' Mo's artistry and three, Just Like You ('96), Slow Down ('98) and Keep It Simple ('04), have been honored with GRAMMYs for Best Contemporary Blues Album. In 2006, Mo' was GRAMMY-nominated for Country Song of the Year for "I Hope," a co-write with the Dixie Chicks which appears on their new album . Also in '06, Keb' Mo' produced Behind The Levee, the new album from New Orleans-based funk-rock jam band the subdudes and had music featured on the soundtrack for Sony Pictures' RV . Throughout the year, "The Blues," Public Radio International's award-winning, thirteen-hour Keb' Mo'-hosted series (originally created for 'The Year of the Blues' in '03), will air on XM Satellite Radio's Bluesville channel. Previously, Mo' was interviewed and musically spotlighted in the "Feel Like Going Home" installment of Martin Scorsese's celebrated 2003 film series The Blues.
Over the years, Keb' Mo' has also continued to be featured as an actor, including his portrayal of Robert Johnson in Can't You Hear The Wind Howl, a docu-drama of the blues legend narrated by Danny Glover and featuring commentary from Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Robert Lockwood, Jr. and other Johnson-influenced music icons. In 2006, Mo' is featured on-camera in the motion picture event All The Kings Men, and, playing himself, sings "America The Beautiful" during the inauguration scene of the moving series finale of the award-winning show The West Wing. For an artist who so genuinely embodies the confluence of multiple strains of profoundly American music, it is a transcendent moment and, like the treasure-packed Suitcase, another milestone in Keb' Mo's extraordinary journey.
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Thank you very much for add n love your music
K.E.N.
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