I Admit It: I Didn't Know Who Keb' Mo' Was Until Now!
he released his first album in 1994 and I thought I knew everything
Keb Mo was released in 1994. Good to Be in 2022. One of the frustrating parts of being me is that people who know me (guitarist and Twisted Sister founder) and my history in the music business (and my age—71) think that I must have heard and have an opinion on just about everything (music wise) that was ever released since the 1950’’s! It is even more frustrating when an artist, who seems to have had a long career, especially in a genre that I thought I really knew, is really unknown to me.
Looking at many of music’s genres, sub genres coupled with the geographic locations that I do know: ie. Liverpool, Motown, San Francisco, LA (pick a decade), Brill Building, Northern Soul, Nashville (pick a decade), STAX/Volt, Greenwich Village (circa 1960’s), Max’s Kansas City, Warhol era Lower East Side, Punk (early 70’s), New Wave, Alternative, 'Corporate Rock' , Glam, Classic Rock, Heavy Metal, Pop Metal, Hair Metal. Black Metal, Death Metal, Speed Metal, Fusion, Goth, Rock, Folk Rock, Blues Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Punk Rock, Jazz Rock, Disco, House, Trans, House, Deep House, Rock, Funk, Blues, Prog…(You get it)—how can I know all of this stuff and when I do spend years in one area (say blues) and when I miss something I wonder how the hell did I miss that?
All of this is leading to my latest 'discovery'! The artist, Keb' Mo' (Kevin Moore, nickname Keb' Mo') has just recently pierced my musical radar. He has won 5 grammys but never entered my musical orbit. It's not like I never heard of him. I've known his A&R man, Michael Caplan for 25 years. Michael even signed one of my artists to Sony in 2005 but never mentioned, except maybe in passing, Keb Mo' (or, for that matter, Matisyahu or G Love & Special Sauce who he also discovered).
Michael signed Keb Mo in 1994 to the Okeh-Epic label within 20 minutes of hearing him via A&R man Jack Porter. And released the astonishing debut simply called Keb' Mo'.
That self titled debut album became a staple within some hifi circles as one of those demo albums that just brought out the best in many audio systems. Small ensembles, simply mic’d records, especially blues artists (think Muddy Waters Folk Singer, Lightnin’ Hopkins Lightnin’, Sonny Boy Williamson Keep it to Ourselves) can do this. Trust me, I know this and when you listen to this album on a good system it will make the system sound great. On a great system it will sound glorious.
In 2022, I just decided to get into Keb' Mo' so I simultaneously bought 2 Keb' Mo' albums. Unbeknownst to me, one was his 1996 debut album Keb' Mo' and the other was Good To Be, which was his latest, released in 2022.
This then is an overview of the bookends of the artistic journey of Keb' Mo'.
I have since bought several more of his albums including a curious ‘covers’ album titled Back by Popular Demand, which I found out about through another conversation with original signer Michael Caplan. That album was produced due to pressure from the label to sell more records.
As simply an artist to enjoy, all of the albums provide a great listen. All are extremely well-recorded and Keb'Mo’s voice is rich with depth and expressiveness.
The material is not the standard 12 bar blues although some of the tracks certainly stem from that standard blues format,
His debut album, simply titled Keb' Mo’ (my copy given the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs treatment) opens with "Every Morning"—a simply recorded acoustic blues track featuring just an acoustic slide guitar and vocal. It's a pure analog recording with the MoFi version predating the digital mastering step controversy and uses the proprietary MoFi Gain 2 Ultra Analog System.
I don't have an alternate LP version and since Tracking Angle is an online resource that covers both music and sound quality let me say that as the album progresses, the instrumentation becomes more involved but in no case does it sound out of place in what is a basic blues album. It just showcases the stretch of the material and track by track the recorded sound remains timeless as if it could have been recorded yesterday.
This album gets 5 stars on both the sound and the music from me. That's in my rating system. In Tracking Angle's that would be:
Music: 11
Sound: 11
Now, 25 years and probably many tours later, comes the latest release Good to Be. I expected another contemporary blues album but what I got was an ear opener, and, as an artist myself, an unexpected pleasure discovering where another artist needed to go in order to expand his creative base while staying within the bounds of his chosen genre.
Keb' Mo’ has grown from a blues artist into one with a strong Adult Contemporary/ R&B groove. The genre evolution by a 70+ year old singer/guitar player is truly impressive. Good to Be truly defies easy categorization. Is it Blues? Country?, Contemporary Soul? R&B or straight pop?
In truth, it's all of those things (sometimes within a single track) and that's what makes it so special and easy to listen to. I have no idea how his label has tried to market this but I can tell you that I listen daily to at least one track. That is how good the music makes me feel. It’s that simple.
The album is so life-affirming that it feels as if it should have been recorded and released post Obama's first election victory—an album for the hyped ‘post racial America’ world that sadly never really came to pass.
Vince Gill, Darius Rucker, Kristin Chenoweth and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram are just a few of the world class musicians and singers who participated. The one cover—of Bill Withers hit “Lean On Me’—fits seamlessly into the track listing rather than feeling like a calculated addition intended to draw attention to itself.
Picking standout tracks is impossible. It's the first album I've heard in a long time that makes me want to play it straight through every time, aided by the sound, which is as technically fine as any digitally recorded state of the art release in my experience can sound.
I have the vinyl, the CD and via Qobuz, the hi res stream. You do get a little closer to the 'feel' of the music on vinyl, but that's mostly when paying attention to the ‘color’ on some solos of the Fender Telecaster guitar compared to the streaming version.
I give Good To Be 5 stars both for music and sound. In Tracking Angle currency that's:
Music: 11
Sound: 11
