The Range, Breadth and Development of Keb’ Mo’

News, From the Magazine, Keb’ Mo’, Taj Mahal, Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’

By Bob Doerschuk I Nov. 4, 2019

Blues guitarist Keb’ Mo’ said he initially planned to get a job with the Roland company, instead of pursuing performance as a career.
(Photo: Jeremy Cowart)

As work picked up, Moore decided that rural blues might be his commercially and spiritually correct path after all—as he puts it, his “yellow brick road.” The further he followed it, the more it felt right. When he was hired in 1990 for the role of a Mississippi Delta blues player in a theatrical production titled Rabbit Foot, he headed over to McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica to take slide guitar lessons. From there the road pointed him toward his self-titled debut album in 1994. His follow-up two years later, Just Like You, won him his first Grammy. It also sent a message to his stylistic compadre Taj Mahal.

“In ’93, when I was working on my album Dancing The Blues, all these people kept coming up to me and saying, in stage whispers, ‘Have you heard Keb’ Mo’?’” Mahal says. “The first thing I thought was, ‘He must be black.’ And the second thing was, because he reminded them of me, maybe he was doing some of my material. Chic Street Man asked me the same question. I said, ‘No, but I’ve been hearing about him from a lot of people.’ He said, ‘Look, he’s a friend of mine. Whenever you come back in town, give me a call and we’ll get together.’”

Not long after that, Mahal was in the studio when Chic Street Man (born Charles Streetman) showed up with Moore and a tape of his music. They popped it into a cassette player during a lunch break. That’s all it took to spark the ongoing friendship between the two artists. “I’d been out there on my own for 25 years or more and really never saw anybody coming along, except for maybe Guy Davis,” Mahal says. “So, I was glad to finally have some company out here in this desert.”

Their association eventually led to a Grammy-winning project, the 2017 duo album, TajMo (Concord). This year, it extended further with Oklahoma, though almost by accident. Mahal happened to drop in as Moore was recording “Don’t Throw It Away.” Producer Colin Linden was on piccolo guitar. Moore was playing mandolin; he would also add a guitar track. And they invited Mahal, on the spot, to play the bass part. Together, they laid down the song’s rockin’ medium-tempo groove and added Mahal’s responses to Moore’s lead vocal.

Linden, another longtime Keb’ Mo’ associate, plays a vital role throughout Oklahoma. Though they frequently have worked together, often with Moore as producer, for this most recent effort they decided that Linden should take over production for the first time in their history. “Colin is my friend,” Moore says. “He’s fun to hang out with. He’s got great ears. He’s a great guitar player. Also, he brings good energy. When you’re recording, my feeling is that everything gets recorded. The mood in the room gets recorded.”

It took about a week-and-a-half for them to settle into this new working relationship. “Colin wanted to direct me, even though I’m kind of undirectable. I could tell he was getting frustrated because he’d hear my ideas and go [Moore strokes his chin, suggesting a polite skepticism]. At the same time, the ideas he put forward made a huge difference.”

For instance, most of “Beautiful Music” had been finished by the time Linden got to it, with the strings and the rhythm section already in place. After listening to the track, which features Moore and his wife in a vocal duet, Linden came up with the edit that brought it home. “There was a lot of synth stuff and rhythm stuff,” Linden says. “So, I said to Kevin, ‘Get rid of everything but the strings,’” he remembers. “The real feature wasn’t Kevin’s guitar or anything else, but the strings and their vocal.”

Linden also finessed “The Way I” by asking Moore to take a little pause before singing the word “heaven” in the lyric and by adding a single sustained note on the “I,” played on organ by DeMarco Johnson. “It was real simple, not anything magical,” Linden says. “But it holds your heart without drawing attention to itself. Of course, DeMarco was moving the drawbars around and doing a little bit of right-hand movement. But mostly he was just keeping a little bit of church in the feeling, so it wasn’t just an outer-space atmosphere.”

Embracing a methodology in the studio that blends control and feeling, Moore has cultivated some novel approaches to recording—including his preference for singing scratch vocals a cappella, over nothing but a click, as the first step into tracking a new song.

“I like to start with my vocal, because it gives me something I can wrap my guitar around as tight as I can when I accompany it,” Moore says. “Like on ‘This Is My Home’: When I got that swing in the guitar on the scratch vocal, I can come back with a vocal that’s right in the groove, maybe bring it more in tune or change a few words. After that, everything falls into place and I can start working on the details.

“I’ve never quantized parts, because I want everything to stay quirky,” Moore continues. “It still needs to be people playing it. Sometimes you need things to be tied down and sometimes you just let it ... [Moore makes a whooshing noise, like a bird taking flight].”

The musical range of Oklahoma is mirrored by its lyrical breadth. Along with the romanticism of “Beautiful Music” and “The Way I,” and the moody momentum that powers “Ridin’ On A Train” and “I Should’ve,” the album delivers more topical messages, such as the #MeToo anthem “Put A Woman In Charge” (featuring vocals by Americana tunesmith Rosanne Cash) and an immigrant’s lament on “This Is My Home” (with guest vocals by Christian/Latin pop star Jaci Velasquez).

The title cut, which features lap steel guitar from Robert Randolph, touches on parts of history that have been forgotten—or suppressed—to the detriment of our self-awareness. Written by Moore and Dara Tucker, the song’s lyrics nod to the history of the Choctaw people, as well as the horrific 1921 race riots in Tulsa. Additionally, the incorporation of the phrase “When they go low, we go high” draws a connection to a famous Michelle Obama speech from 2016.

Moore has spoken out through music before; at age 67, this is familiar territory for him. Still, he wonders whether message songs hit with the same impact they used to have.

“I approach issues very carefully now—not because I’m scared to say anything, but because I want to be heard,” he says. “The thing is, I do my records for real people, so I put myself in their place. If I didn’t, I’d be hearing, ‘Get out of politics! Just stick to music!’ People don’t want to be challenged socially. Really, my job as a musician, as someone who communicates in a public way, is to get people to listen and then get them to think.” DB