With five
GRAMMYs, 14 Blues Foundation Awards, and a groundbreaking career spanning
nearly 50 years under his belt, Keb’ Mo’s got nothing left to prove. Just don’t
tell
him that.
Born and
raised in Compton, Keb’ began his remarkable journey at the age of 21, when he
landed his first major gig playing with Jefferson Airplane violinist Papa John
Creach. For the next 20 years, Keb’ would work primarily behind the scenes,
establishing himself as a respected guitarist, songwriter, and arranger with a
unique gift for linking the past and present in his evocative playing and
singing. Though he recorded a one-off album in 1980 under his birth name, Kevin
Moore, it wasn’t until 1994 that he would introduce the world to Keb’ Mo’ with
the release of his widely acclaimed self-titled debut. Critics were quick to
take note of Keb’s modern, genre-bending take on old school sounds, and two
years later, he garnered his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues
Album with
Just Like You. In the decades
to come, Keb’ would take home four more GRAMMY Awards; top the
Billboard Blues Chart seven times; perform
everywhere from Carnegie Hall to The White House; collaborate with many
including Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, and Lyle Lovett;
have compositions recorded and sampled by artists as diverse as B.B. King, Zac
Brown, and BTS; release signature guitars with both Gibson and Martin; compose
music for television series like
Mike and Molly,
Memphis Beat, B Positive, Martha Stewart
Living
and Leanne; and earn the
Americana Music Association’s 2021 award for Lifetime Achievement in
Performance.
In addition
to his extraordinary musical output, Keb’ also established himself as a
captivating onscreen presence over the years, appearing as himself in Martin
Scorcese’s
The Blues, Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, and even the iconic children’s
series
Sesame Street. He flexed his
acting chops in a wide variety of projects, as well, portraying Robert Johnson
in the 1998 documentary
Can’t You Hear The Wind
Howl,
Howlin’ Wolf on CMT’s Sun Records, and the ghostly bluesman Possum
in John Sayles’ 2007 film
Honeydripper.
A fixture on late night TV and award show stages, Keb’ has also performed on
Letterman, Leno, Conan, Colbert, and Austin City Limits in addition to
appearing on nationally televised broadcasts from The Kennedy Center, The Ryman
Auditorium, and Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival.
A passionate
philanthropist and outspoken activist, Keb’ has devoted countless hours and
helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of social,
environmental, and racial justice throughout his career. As a celebrity mentor
with The Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts Program, which began under the
guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama and the President’s Committee for the
Arts and Humanities, Keb’ “adopted” The Johnson School for Excellence in
Chicago, where he teamed up with teachers, students, and parents to help
develop a thriving arts education program, and as a longtime ambassador for the
Playing For Change Foundation, he’s supported the non-profit from its early
days in its quest to provide free music education and basic needs like food,
water, medicine, clothing, books, and school supplies to children around the
world.
On his latest album, The Breakdown, five-time Grammy-winner Keb’ Mo’ strips his
songwriting back to its most raw and revealing, offering up an intimate series
of solo acoustic performances that grapple with the passage of time and the
inevitability of change while still holding on firmly to the hope, faith, and
love that have always guided him. Recorded at Keb’s home studio outside
Nashville, TN, the collection is stark and deeply honest, reflecting on loss,
mortality, and gratitude in the wake of life-saving open heart surgery and the
end of a nearly twenty-year marriage.
“It felt like everything in my life was breaking
down,” Keb’ reflects. “My health, my relationship, my whole world. The only way
I knew how to respond was to break the music down, too.”
The result is a poignant mediation on the power
of positivity to carry us through our darkest days, a masterful blend of folk,
blues, roots, jazz, and soul music that sifts through the wreckage of a
personal breakdown and transforms it into a work of profound growth and beauty.