Keb’ Mo’ – Storyteller
By: Michael D. McClellan | The blues was born at the turn of the twentieth century, in the Mississippi Delta and other regions of the Deep South, a reminder of hard times brought on by the burdens of slavery, the Great Depression, and just being black. Those who played the blues did so from a place of pain and suffering, of 30-cent days spent working from sun up to sun down, of sharecropping for a plantation owner who deducted nearly every dime from pittance wages and paid the rest in barrels of flour, lard and molasses. People forget that now. They don’t know or seem to care that the music they listen to today – be it R&B, soul, jazz, rock and roll, or hip hop – can be traced back to those Saturday afternoons when the blacks would gather at the local commissary, dancing on the parched earth out front while Charley Patton thumped the paint off his old guitar, or while Sonny Boy Williamson sat on the porch, going to town on his trusty harmonica. The blues back then was an elixir, a tonic for the troubled and afflicted, its message springing up from the hellish, hardscrabble existences of the economically and socially oppressed. Where Bach and Beethoven composed concertos for kings, bluesmen like Willie Foster and Blind Blake Booker played for those who turned the plow in the unbearable Mississippi heat – slaves, ex-slaves, and the descendants of slaves who sang as they toiled their lives away in the sharecropper’s cotton and vegetable fields.
The blues has been compared to the sound of a sinner on revival day, its message visceral, cathartic, and starkly emotional. Those who do it best are those who plumb their own hurt and hard times, despite being generations removed from the plantation juke joints where so many of the early blues musicians entertained. The lineage has seen artists like Muddy Waters and B.B. King take blues music to new heights, their contributions raising the bar for the rest who have followed. Diversity has also played its part; Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, and others have broadened the audience in their own ways, drawing in new fans while nudging the blues closer to the mainstream, which is ironic given that blues music underpins nearly everything being played on the radio today. The grit behind Tupac’s thug life? The angst in Morrissey’s lyrics? The braggadocio that drives an Usher track? You can trace it all back to the early pioneers like Bo Carter and Isaac Watts, many of them poor, uneducated, and obscure artists who played their music to soothe the soul, not sell tickets.
Today, blues music has splintered and fractured into a broad spectrum of sub-genres, with everything from country blues to punk blues available for download. And while there are flavors for every taste, the ability to tap into raw emotions, both lyrically and musically, set the great storytellers apart from the rest of the crowd. As Otis Rush once said, “Them pains, when blues pains grab you, you’ll sing the blues right.”
Kevin Moore – better known to the music world as Keb’ Mo’ – has been singing the blues right since the early 70s, earning five Grammy Awards and universal acclaim, all while proving that the blues can be moved forward without being fueled by the one-two punch of unrelenting oppression and abject poverty. His is an impressive résumé certainly, but success didn’t just drop in Keb’ Mo’s lap – in fact, it came about as stubbornly as freedom comes to a man doing hard time in prison, with a decade spent scratching out a living as a backup musician, followed by a lost decade with little in the way of acclaim, twenty-plus years of wandering, virtually unnoticed, across a fickle musical landscape. How many artists break through after twenty years on the fringes? How many give up? Keb’ Mo’ has paid his dues – perhaps not in the same way as Robert Johnson, who burst on the scene only to die mysteriously at age 27, spurring the Faustian myth that he sold his soul at a crossroads to achieve success – and he’s carved out his own path while chopping down the large stalks of resistance standing in his way. After twenty years of struggle it’s okay to call him a bluesman. Just don’t try pigeonholing him in the genre where he’s had the most success.
“Getting tagged as a blues artist — that’s just a consequence of people not actually hearing me,” Keb’ Mo’ says, smiling. “They’ve just heard about me.”
He has a point. Growing up in Compton to parents with Southern roots, an impressionable Kevin Moore was exposed to gospel music at an earlier age. He also got a taste of R&B, which had a strong influence in shaping his future. This was pre-NWA Compton, decades before the Big Bang explosion of gangsta rap and the stars it would produce – Easy-E, Ice Cube, and Dr. Dre among them. He listened to everything back then, his musical interests stretching from the Beatles to Willie Nelson to Motown and back again. More than anything he was intrigued by the stories within the songs, the arrangement of the words, and the emotions and imagery they evoked.
Moore’s first exposure to playing music came when he was ten years old. He was recruited into his school’s band, playing trumpet and instantly feeling a connection to the notes. From there he went on to try steel drums and whatever else he could get his hands on. It was only when he picked up the guitar that Moore found himself hooked, setting in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead not only to stardom, but to Gibson releasing a Keb’ Mo’ Bluesmaster acoustic guitar, starting price $2,000. Not that he could have envisioned an honor like that as a preteen. Back then he simply wanted to play.
“It didn’t really matter at that point, I would have played the triangle or an oboe if they let me.”
Moore practiced tirelessly and paid his dues. He played in a number of cover bands after high school, performing Top 40 hits and oldies, adding layers to the artistic strata that would ultimately shape him as a musician. In 1973, he joined a blues-rock group headed by Papa John Creach, the former vocalist for Jefferson Starship and Hot Tuna. Three years and three albums later, Moore had the role of backup musician down pat. He’d toured. He’d spent time in studio. It helped lay the foundation. By the end of the ’70s he’d opened for jazz and rock artists such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jefferson Starship, and Loggins & Messina.
Propelled by these apprenticeships, Moore ventured out to explore his place in the musical universe. In 1980 he signed a deal with Casablanca and cut an R&B-based solo album, Rainmaker, which garnered little notice. Casablanca promptly folded, and Moore slipped into the abyss. Survival became the order of the day. Moore played wherever he could find a job, and in 1983 he joined the house band at a Los Angeles nightclub, Marla’s Memory Lane. There he met blues saxophonist Monk Higgins, the bandleader who he later credited as “probably the most important element in developing my understanding of the blues.” He also met guitarist Charles Charlie “Tuna” Dennis, who played rhythm six-string behind B.B. King. The legacies left behind by legendary blues artists Robert Johnson and “Big” Bill Broonzy also provided an influence, and over the next decade Moore incorporated elements of each to lay the foundation of his own unique style.
As Moore’s struggles continued, there was little hint that a transformative decade loomed on the horizon. By 1990 he’d resigned himself to grinding out a career as a lower tier musician, toiling away in obscurity, taking gigs wherever he could find work. He was 39, and he had nothing of substance to show for nearly twenty years in the business. It wore on him. Moore’s luck changed when the casting director for Rabbit Foot, a theater production in Los Angeles, needed an actor who could play a Delta blues musician. Moore took the plunge. He found a freedom he hadn’t expected, a chance to let go, an opportunity to cleanse his pallet and reinvent himself as an artist. So successful was his performance that Moore was cast a bluesman in the stage production of Spunk. Then he played Robert Johnson in a docudrama entitled Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl? Ironically, the recognition that came from playing blues musicians on stage brought him a popularity that had been lacking in his twenty-plus years as an actual blues performer.
“The response was incredible,” he says. “I didn’t envision it broadening my audience the way that it did, but it turned out to be much more than a detour from my main gig. In a lot of respects, it was definitely a turning point.”
The roles also presented Moore with a long-awaited shot at redemption; fifteen years after watching his first album flop, Epic Records reached out with a record deal. To signify this transformative new chapter in his life, Moore embraced a new name – Keb’ Mo’ – an African-American version of his given name, which he felt would better reflect his emerging blues persona. The new name was first coined by a friend, drummer Quentin Dennard, who had started using the name during sessions at Los Angeles nightclubs when Moore would sit in with house musicians. It proved to be the capstone of his musical transformation.
The self-titled record brought with it a deluge of positive reviews, as The New York Times hailed Keb’ Mo’ as “an important new voice with both authentic blues roots and a contemporary sound.” After more than two decades on the fringes, the 39 year-old Keb’ Mo’ was suddenly an overnight success. He soon found himself opening for stars such as Jeff Beck, Carlos Santana, Buddy Guy, Joe Cocker, and George Clinton. Then, Mo’ released his third album, Just Like You (1996), stretching himself by working with a full band and tackling several rock-based songs. Just Like You won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album, a feat he duplicated in 1998 with his next release, Slow Down.
Mo’ caught fire in 1998, his music played on TV’s Touched By an Angel and The Promised Land, and featured on film soundtracks such as One Fine Day, Tin Cup, and Down in the Delta. Onstage, Mo’ shared star billing with such performers as Bonnie Raitt and Celine Dion. In the studio, he collaborated with talents such as Amy Grant to Solomon Burke. In-between, he performed the theme song for the smash sit-com Mike & Molly, while everyone from Joe Cocker (Has Anybody Seen My Girl) to the immortal B. B. King (Dangerous Mood) covered his songs.
Mo’ released two new albums on 2000, both garnering Grammy nominations: The Door and Big Wide Grin, the latter a children’s album featuring many songs from his childhood. In support of Big Wide Grin, Mo’ appeared on Sesame Street alongside Kermit the Frog and a host of other muppets, performing the song Everybody Be Yo’self. Keep It Simple (2004) delivered a third Grammy, again for Best Contemporary Blues Album, and featured an eclectic array of guests that included bluegrass mandolinist Sam Bush and the husband/wife duo of Vince Gill and Amy Grant. This period also offered Mo’ the chance to flex his political muscle, as he plunged headlong into the Vote for Change campaign aimed at defeating President George W. Bush. In addition to fulfilling the need for political activism ,the project allowed Mo’ to share the with some of the top names in the music business, including Bonnie Raitt and Bruce Springsteen.
When not producing albums, Mo’ continued to take unconventional risks. He recorded a cover of the Hank Williams hit I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, for a tribute album honoring the great country-western star. He followed this by straying even farther from his blues roots, offering his rendition in song of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 35 for a Royal Academy of Dramatic Art benefit recording,When Love Speaks: Sonnets of Shakespeare. Released in 2002, the recording includes performances by such disparate artists as Joseph Fiennes, Sir John Gielgud, Alan Rickman, Kenneth Branagh, Fiona Shaw, Des’ree, Annie Lennox, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
2017 Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album
Three more Grammy nominations would follow: Suitcase (2006), The Reflection (2011), and BLUESAmericana (2014). Then, in 2017, Mo’ struck Grammy gold with TajMo (2017), a collaboration album with the legendary Taj Mahal. A fifth Grammy, this time for the spellbinding Oklahoma (2019), served notice that Keb’ Mo’ is as hungry as ever, and reminding us all that his slow rise to stardom was well worth the wait.
You got your start in music at ten years old. How easily did it come to you?
When I picked up a guitar the first time, that was it. Within a couple of weeks I knew four, five chords. I could strum. I had to learn, but I enjoyed it so it wasn’t something that I considered work. Trust me, I was ready to rock.
I understand that your mother instilled a love of music in you at an early age.
My father wasn’t all that into music when I was growing up, but my mother was a singer. She sang in church and loved jazz records. We didn’t have much money growing up, so we didn’t own a lot of records. Albums were kind of a luxury. When we got a record it was kind of a big deal, because they were expensive, about four or five dollars. I would listen to her albums and I remember especially Jimmy Smith’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolf and The Incredible Jimmy Smith. My mother also had the greatest hits of Johnny Mathis. She adored a singer called Gloria Lynne, and was always playing her 1963 album Gloria Lynne At The Las Vegas Thunderbird (With The Herman Foster Trio).
You seem like a storyteller at heart.
My roots are in songwriting. That’s where I got my start, and I still spend a lot of time crafting songs. I came up in Los Angeles, and I listened to a lot of country songs during the 1970s. It’s just crazy how well-written those songs were. I learned a lot from the songwriters of that era. Those were important years for me as a songwriter. By the mid-70s I was writing in Papa John Creach’s band and I was hooked on the songwriting. I understood the importance of storytelling, and I knew I that I would be writing songs for as long as I was going to play music.
Who were some of your early influences?
There were many influences early on. Television, Top 40 radio, and the music being played in the 1960s…those were all an important part of my adolescence. James Taylor left an imprint. These were all positive influences, but they weren’t necessarily the means to an end. I was still figuring myself out, still trying to find the authenticity that I lacked at that point in my career. It wasn’t a linear journey to discovery. There were many detours and offshoots along the way. Charlie Dennis taught me that there are all kinds of blues: Delta blues, Texas blues, Chicago blues, soul-blues. So many flavors. It had a profound effect on my thinking. It shaped me. I started opening my mind and learning how deep the blues was.
Let’s talk about the blues. How has the blue music changed since its beginnings?
Blues music is a part of the legacy of the plantations in the South, along with the Underground Railroad, gospel music, and jazz. That’s really the beginning of African-American culture in America, because we came to this continent with no culture – our culture was stolen from us. Today, it’s a crazy new world. Now the blues is much more diversified. Color doesn’t matter. I know a lot of white guys that can sing the shit out of some blues. It still connects. The old, hard, black audience – which we don’t have anymore – wouldn’t get hung up on what color you were. To them, the blues was the blues. That was the only color that mattered.
What does it take to write a good blues song?
Blues storytelling comes out of the soil, from the hearts of hardworking men and women, you know. It’s real, organic. There isn’t a shiny veneer involved, even if the finished product is more slickly produced today than the blues albums from years past. I’m proud of the songs that I’ve written, I’m proud of the realness in them, and that they don’t feel as if they belong in a Hollywood production or a Broadway play. Blues comes from the people, so I stay true to that. I want it to be for the people.
Most people associate you with blues music, but that hasn’t always been the case.
I never set out to be a “blues guy.” Why would I put limits on myself? I didn’t gravitate to the blues until I was in my 30s. I was playing popular music, stuff that I thought was cool. Later on, I realized I was empty inside. I didn’t have anything to say. And then I started listening to the blues and I discovered it a message. It’s deep and powerful. I saw a realism I hadn’t found in anything else. It fit. It gave my music the identity that I’d been searching for from the very beginning. Blues is very powerful and fuels what I do. It’s a big part of who I am.
As a musician, what effect did the blues have on your career?
The blues added the realness that had been missing. It added a truth, and extra dimension. Until then, I was just trying to mix music and make something that sounded good. The results felt like hollow knockoffs of real music, but when I really paid attention to blues, I was like, “Wait a minute. This is what’s been missing out of my experience. It’s been right under my nose my whole life.” It was right there, you know, a true epiphany waiting to happen. I just didn’t really think about it until then. It changed everything.
You have your own unique style of playing the blues.
I trust my instincts and go with them. I understand the importance of respecting the great blues players who have come before me, and I try to do my best to uphold the tradition and culture, but I think it’s just as important for me to do my own thing.
For the longest time you struggled to make your mark. Did you ever doubt yourself?
There were a lot of times when I was convinced my career was over. It got so bad that I felt that I’d be luck to play blues gigs for $40 or $50 a night…if I was lucky. I was living out my own personal version of the blues, even if I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think that was an important part of my growth.
Rabbit Foot turned out to be seriously good luck. How did you land your role?
I lied. I said I could play the part [laughs]. Then a funny thing happened…I really got drawn into the role. It was hard work. I’ve done other acting since then, and while I enjoy it, I understand how incredibly difficult it is to play a character and do so with authenticity. In some respects it mirrors music in that same way; those who do it best are those who are true to themselves. Vince Gill, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan…they trust who they are, and they follow their own internal compass.
Ironically, success seemed to find you the moment you stopped looking for it.
I didn’t really care anymore. I just wanted to play music. I honestly didn’t care if I was successful or not. I didn’t care if I was living out of a box downtown. I didn’t concern myself with how others perceived my career. I just wanted to perform. When all had failed, when I felt that I had had every chance to make it and hadn’t made it, I decided to just do what I wanted to do. It was liberating. And when I finally did achieve a certain level of fame and success, I think it really helped me take the newfound attention and put it in the proper perspective. I just reminded myself that I’d always been a good storyteller. I didn’t become one just because I was suddenly getting all of this attention.
You’ve written and performed on 5 Grammy-winning albums. What’s your secret?
For me, writing it’s always been about the journey – making music and telling truths. A record is like a stop along the way in that journey, you know? How I’m looking at that particular moment. What’s going on with the relationships in my world. My thoughts on politics and anything else I’m experiencing on the journey of life. The fact that I’ve been nominated on seven other occasions is pretty special, too. I’m as proud of the nominations as I am when I win a Grammy. I think nominations tend to get swept under the rug and forgotten about, even more so in today’s culture. Just having your work recognized in that way puts it up there with the best. To me, that’s a reason to celebrate.
You’re an artist that isn’t afraid to take risks. Big Wide Grin is a great example.
I like having definition but not being defined. That was the case with the material that ended up on Big Wide Grin. The creative energy just kind of took over and I just went with the flow. I stopped everything to work on that record, which wasn’t my original plan going in. I thought I’d show up in the studio, and then get back to my real work, and then I got hooked, you know? It was a way to celebrate the many different forms that families take, from the intact nuclear unit to extended and blended families. It was also a vehicle to expand awareness about adults’ responsibility to younger generations. It was an important work from that standpoint; we’re wielding this great power of thought and mind and deed, and sometimes we use it carelessly.
Let’s talk political activism. In 2004, you were part of the Vote for Change tour.
There was more to what we were doing than simply trying to replace a president. The concert series was about rethinking our place in the global landscape; you know, the United States as the ultimate policeman…as judge, jury and executioner…those things just didn’t fit anymore. So, it was more about trying to defeat outdated policies and philosophies. Closed-minded, heavy-handed politics just don’t work today. We no longer need to play the role of the world’s big, bad wolf. I think we’ve come a long way since then, so the effort wasn’t in vain.
You’ve been a frequent performer Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival.
Crossroads is a hell of a lot of fun. There are so many talented guitar players that you almost have to pinch yourself. I enjoy it. It’s not really a competition. Of course, people in the audience have their favorite performers, and that’s fine. For me, it’s about showing up and contributing whatever I can to help make it a success.
In 2017, TajMo won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album. How did you end up collaborating with one of your idols, Taj Mahal?
It was in about 2014 in Atlanta, Georgia when Taj suggested that we do something together. He probably meant get together to write a song, but I took it all the way [laughs]. I went crazy and we made a whole album. You can’t blame him for that … I’m probably to blame for that. He was probably just wanting to get together and jam or something like that. I said, ‘OK.’ And then we made a record.
You first saw Taj Mahal at a high school concert.
I really didn’t know just how important Taj would be to me when I first heard him. I was 17 when I first heard Taj Mahal at my high school. Then, like a year-and-a-half later, a friend of mine gave me a copy of his 1968 album, The Natch’l Blues, which was a quintessential record, with great musicians such as Jesse Ed Davis on guitar and piano, and Chris Blackwell on drums. I wore that one out. I listened to that steady for about two years, riding around in my car. And then, I went along my way making music and Giant Steps came out (in 1969) and we all started listening to that thing, me and all my friends did. Any chance to see his shows I would go and check him out. He was mentoring me without knowing it. I got to know Taj Mahal in the early 90s. It took a while to really become friends, because he was doing his thing, but we’d chat at festivals in the States and Europe when I ran into him.
Oklahoma is a masterpiece, and earned you your fifth Grammy. What was it like recording with Rosanne Cash, who was a guest vocalist on Put a Woman In Charge?
Rosanne was incredible. Her presence on my album is so perfect, but it came about by chance. I had written the song and wanted a female voice on it. I phoned a friend of mine, an attorney in New York who is a kind of music aficionado, and asked his advice. He called me back and said, “I can ask Rosanne Cash.” I thought, ‘Oh, that would be some statement.’ She agreed, and is just so amazing.
Bonnie Raitt is another strong female who has had a tremendous impact on you.
Bonnie Raitt has been a really huge person to me. She supported me so much in the beginning. She let me open for her shows. She was really, really helpful. She did more for me than anyone. She sang on my records and did a cameo appearance on “Just Like You.” She is just the most gracious woman – ever. She is always about the cause, justice and social activism. She treats everyone with total respect. When I grow up I want to be like her.
Final Question: Do you think that there’s a place for the blues in today’s musical landscape?
The blues is something that always comes back. For the big music to survive, they have to sell a lot of records to teenagers. You need pop stars like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry to sell a lot of records and to keep the music industry financially sound. Blues was never mainstream in that sense. I don’t think it was ever meant to be mainstream. It was somewhat popular in the ’50s and ’60s, but it’s true significance lies in it being a part of all other popular music. It’s foundational. Turn on the radio and listen to anything Top 40. The blues is in there, just below the surface. The blues is that powerful. It nurtures us in a way that new stuff can’t. It’s always going to have a seat at the table.
FifteenMinutesWith.Com 09.06.2015
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