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Wednesday, November 25
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Keb' Mo'
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Moore Theater - Seattle, WA
Ticket Price: $47.50 - $33.00 adv / $47.50 - $33.00 dos
Doors at 7:00 PM, Show at 8:00 PM
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Keb' Mo'
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The fall months will prove a busy time for three-time Grammy Award winning bluesy singer/songwriter Keb' Mo', who will embark on a 31-date coast-to-coast American tour while releasing his first indie album, Live & Mo', on October 20. A custom blend of songs handpicked by Keb' Mo' for the premiere release on his own label, Yolabelle International, the CD features six live performances harvested from pinnacle moments on the road and four new studio recordings, including the anthemic "A Brand New America," an inspirational band version of "Victims of Comfort," the deep funky groove of "Government Cheese" and the back-porch blues of "Hole in the Bucket." Live & Mo' will be available through Keb' Mo's recently redesigned web site www.kebmo.com, and via The Orchard for digital distribution through 600+ digital stores worldwide.
Keb' Mo's music is a contemporary link to the seminal Delta blues tradition 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 tradition of bluesmen before him, from Muddy Waters, also known as 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, Live & Mo' represents another musical experience to be savored.
Mo's music is also an 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 the singer-songwriter movement, encompassing his longtime friends and collaborators Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne, as to the spirit of blues godfather Rober t Johnson. 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.
Keb' Mo' "There's a revolution," Keb' Mo' sings, "a revelation going on in my soul." The song is "Stand Up (And Be Strong)" off the new album The Door and its music is a revelation indeed. The voice transforms from urgency to tenderness, while the groove is blues-based and burnished with a contemporary edge. Successor to two Grammy-winners, 1998's critically acclaimed Slow Down and 1996's Just Like You, and the artist's pathfinding self-titled 1994 debut, The Door again reveals Keb' Mo' as a writer and singer who communicates with absolute authenticity, heart to heart.
"With every song," the Los Angeles-based musician says, "I think there has to be something real -- a kind of an arm reaching out to reality." A painstaking writer Keb' Mo' lets his compositional ideas gestate. "Making a song," he laughs, "is like hatching an egg, you just sit on it." He takes his time. When music and lyrics coalesce, he's ready. "You have to have something to write about," he says, "that's the key." At last in the studio, he simply sings, careful always to maintain what he calls "creative integrity" and concentrating "on the message of the song."
Produced by veteran Russ Titelman (Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, James Taylor), The Door conveys a rich range of messages. Full of the ache of desire, "Come On Back" offers forgiveness after betrayal. "The Beginning" is a soul journey through life and beyond. Graced with harmonica flourishes and a rocksteady beat, the title cut meditates on guilt ("And I found fault/In everyone but me") and spiritual release ("And I found out that The Door was always open"). Featuring one of his most assured melodies, "Anyway" finds Keb' Mo' testifying to the mystery and power of love ("You and I are destined/To share a lifetime or two"). And an assertive version of Elmore James--"It Hurts Me Too" insists on the timelessness of the blues: it's a classic rendered in the vernacular of today. Underscoring all the music, in fact, is the wellspring Keb' Mo' draws from. "The blues," he says, "is my history, my culture. It's always been around me. I always wanted primarily not just to be a blues guy, but a songwriter. But the blues gave me depth."
Supported by the brilliant musicianship of players like keyboardist Greg Phillinganes, drummers Steve Jordan and Jim Keltner, violinist Scarlet Rivera and bassist Reggie McBride, Keb' Mo's riveting guitar work -- particularly on slide guitar -- stands in bold relief. As does the unadorned honesty of his singing. Yet such skill never overwhelms the bedrock directness of the songs themselves. Whether writing with Bobby McFerrin, Melissa Manchester or Leon Ware, or crafting his compositions on his own, Keb' Mo' expresses human emotion with the integrity that made him a triple winner in 1999's W.C. Handy Blues Awards. As he modestly puts it, "I'm just lucky to have found a niche that's just me. Its nothing I have to contrive. This is just what I do."
Just as McKinley Morganfield became Muddy Waters and Henry Saint Clair Fredericks became Taj Mahal, the singer became Keb' Mo' once he got deep into the blues. Born Kevin Moore, he grew up in Compton, South Central Los Angeles. At age 12, he began playing a guitar he'd received from his Uncle Herman. As a teenager, he also blew trumpet and French horn. In his first band, a calypso outfit, he also played upright bass and steel drums.
After gigging with a Top 40 group, Moore hooked up in 1973 with Papa John Creach, violinist with Jefferson Starship; his guitar is featured on three of Creach's albums. Then concentrating on songwriting, Moore joined A&M records as a staff writer. There, he also honed his skills arranging demos for Almo-Irving Music.
By 1980, the singer-guitarist had released his first solo album, Rainmaker, on Chocolate City, a division of Casablanca Records. Three years later, after a stint with the vocal group The Rose Brothers, he began performing at the L.A. nightspot Marla's Memory Lane with The Whodunit Band, an ensemble of ace blues players. Monk Higgins, producer for Bobby "Blue" Bland, led the group, and its lead guitarist became one of Moore's early mentors. "Charlie Tuna," Moore recalls, "he was the guy who really inspired me to play blues guitar. And in that band I was exposed to great songwriters, too, like Lermon Howard."
Apprenticing with the Whodunit Band, in fact, was an epiphany for Moore. "I'd written plenty of songs, but my catalogue just seemed shallow to me. There were two, ‘Anybody Seen My Girl' and ‘Rainmaker' that I wrote in the late Seventies -- and that was the direction I wanted to go in. I recorded them on more recent albums, but back then, they were the only songs that had depth. The blues gave me something deep. So I took a hiatus for a while and just got into the blues." Jamming with Albert Collins and Big Joe Turner, Pee Wee Crayton and Jimmy Witherspoon, he began developing his own style as a blues guitarist.
Enthralled by the grit and bite of the country blues, he concentrated on solo acoustic work. He went down to Mississippi to hang out with veteran Delta bluesman Eugene Powell. Playing a Delta bluesman himself in the early 90's Los Angeles Theater production Rabbit Foot and later in Spunk, an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's writings, he expanded his stage experience. All the while, he continued gigging club dates around L.A. and he became Keb' Mo' a streettalk version of his own name, the moniker signaled his allegiance to the music that helped form his own.
Fittingly, it was the newly revived Okeh label, with its fine lineage of artists (Mississippi John Hurt, Duke Ellington, Screamin' Jay Hawkins) that released 1994's Keb' Mo', an album that prompted immediate critical praise. Just two years later came Just Like You, Grammy Award winner for Best Contemporary Blues Album. "Winning the Grammy," Keb' Mo' remembers, "was nothing compared to the fun of getting there. But it's great to win. You think about all the sacrifices you made, the apartments you got kicked out of, the girlfriends who dumped you because you were going nowhere." In 1998, Slow Down, his second Grammy-winner, confirmed his arrival as a fresh voice inspired by a classic idiom.
The Door builds on that legacy. From "Change" and its revelation of the wisdom of a homeless man to the heartbreak and yearning of "Mommy Can I Come Home" to the sly wit of "Loola Loo" and "Gimme What You Got," this is soul music, passionate music, human music. As such it has the power to touch any listener. As Keb' Mo' sums up: "With my songs I hope to create a sense of community. This music is made so that people who come around it all kind of have something in common."
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