|
contents | blues | |||||||||||||
| Blues Icon, Keb’ Mo’, Garners Crossover Attention Since the beginning of his career, three-time Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Keb' Mo', has been recognized as a blues artist. But the multi-talented singer-songwriter is now earning national success and making a name for himself within multiple musical formats, including Americana, Jazz, Country and more. During last night's 57th Annual Grammy Awards, Keb' Mo' was nominated in the categories of Best Americana Album(BLUESAmericana), Best American Roots Performance ("The Old Me Better, " Keb' Mo' featuring the California Feetwarmers), and Best Engineered Album Non-Classical (BLUESAmericana); categories unlike his previous nominations. Keb' Mo' won Grammy Awards in the Contemporary Blues Album category for his albums Just Like You in 1996, Slow Down in 1999, and Keep It Simple in 2005. Prior to this year's nominations, he has had 4 additional Grammy nominations. This past year, Keb' Mo's music resume was diversified through multiple guest appearances and collaborations, including with Kenny Wayne Sheppard, Mindy Abair, and Greg Allman. He was also featured on the Jackson Browne tribute album, Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne, appeared on the release of Orthophonic Joy: The 1927 Bristol Sessions Revisited, which features Country music all-stars Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Marty Stuart and Emmylou Harris, and he collaborated with Melissa Manchester for her song "Feelin' For You, " which is now playing on jazz stations across the country. Throughout the span of his career, he's collaborated with a host of artists including Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Cassandra Wilson, Buddy Guy, Amy Grant, Solomon Burke, Little Milton and many others. Over the past two decades, Keb' has cultivated a reputation as a modern master of American roots music through the understated excellence of his live and studio performances. B.B. King, Buddy Guy, the Dixie Chicks, Joe Cocker, Robert Palmer and Tom Jones have all recorded his songs. Keb' also wrote and performs the theme song for the smash sit-com, Mike & Molly and was music composer for TV's Memphis Beat. His guitar playing has inspired leading instrument makers Gibson Brands to issue the Keb' Mo' Signature Bluesmaster acoustic guitar and Martin Guitars to issue the HD-28KM Keb' Mo' Limited Edition Signature model. His current album, BLUESAmericana, is his first true independent record release. Following it's initial release through Kind of Blue Music on April 22, BLUESAmericana remained in the Top 5 on the Soundscan Blues Album chart for 5 months, with multiple weeks in the #1 position, making it one of the top-selling blues albums of 2014; a major feat for an independent project. The album was also named one of the Top 100 Americana albums of 2014. BLUESAmericana was recorded in Nashville at Keb' Mo's home studio. The album is co-produced by Keb' Mo' and Casey Wasner. Ross Hogarth was the album's mix-engineer and Richard Dodd was the mastering engineer. The album features ten tracks, nine of which were co-written by Keb'. Since it's release, Keb' Mo' has donated 5% of BLUESAmericana sales proceeds to Playing For Change, an organization that was created to inspire, connect and bring peace to the world through music. He has been involved with Playing With Change since it's inception and has been featured in many related videos and events. Keb' is featured on the Playing For Change album: Playing for Change 3: Songs Around the World, which was released June 17, and features over 180 musicians from 31 countries, including Keith Richards, Sara Bareilles, David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Taj Mahal and many others. This year, Keb' Mo' is hitting the road to perform for fans across the country. write your comments about the article :: © 2015 Jazz News :: home page |