Keb' Mo's debut album on Okeh Records is one of my favourite albums and one of the ones I've listened to the most in the nineties. Those songs have been such a big part of my life that it's hard to put into words. His second album was very pleasant, but more of the same and a little too polished. And I kind of lost track after that and haven't seen him live in twenty years.
Both times I saw him back in the day he played by himself, just a man and his capo'ed slide guitar and a harmonica. But this time he brought a band with him and the mood is a little more soul and a little less delta.
Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. The more sophisticated arrangements suit his warm voice perfectly and makes the whole thing a little more danceable, for lack of a better word. It's jut a different take on the repertoire. And the repertoire is top notch: his songs are beautiful slices of Americana, deceptively simple and emotive.
This is not the kind of blues that gets you down. It's an uplifting blues, a glorious blues that celebrates mornings and life and wind and music. It's the kind of blues you crave, a blues that fills a hole, a blues full of soul.
