As a four-time Grammy winner, Keb Mo can’t exactly be described as an insider tip. Nevertheless, Kevin Moore, as the singer, guitarist and songwriter, who was born in Los Angeles in 1951, is bourgeois, is probably the most popular name among music connoisseurs and colleagues.
I also only became acquainted with Keb Mo in 1998, when his current album “Slow Down” landed on my desk as editor-in-chief of a music magazine. I was quite enthusiastic about it. His bold mix of blues, country and even jazz was unique, just like his voice and his reduced guitar playing. I’ve heard the CD often, probably too often, because at some point I lost interest in it and in Keb Mo, too. It wasn’t until mid-2018 that I sparked it again, when I took his album “The Reflection”, released in 2011, along with 20 other CDs, on a long drive across Germany. At the start in Munich I put this twelve song strong album into the CD player – and only after 600 kilometers it was allowed out again. This mixture of the already mentioned styles melodically and rhythmically threw off some extraordinary songs. For example the almost seven minutes long title track, in which a blues meets the slightly distorted harmonies รก la Steely Dan and in which he completely ignores the usual verse chorus bridge patterns. My second highlight of the CD was the last track: “Something Within”, where he shares the mic with his sister and his mother. A slow, hypnotic, powerful song with almost euphoric energy. An energy that acoustically sweetened the 600 kilometres of motorway for me.
