The Ark Presents Keb' Mo' At The Michigan Theater & Kristina Train

"Blues for today's world" Singer-songwriter and guitarist Keb' Mo' has reinvented the blues for modern times. Born Kevin Moore, he's a native of the same South Los Angeles streets that spawned hip-hop's most violent strands. Keb' Mo' was born to parents from the Deep South, and he grew up with the blues. But it took a long musical apprenticeship before he found his way back to the genre. He learned to play the guitar, then the trumpet, French horn, and steel drums. Keb' Mo' played in gospel groups and even a calypso band when he was young, and for many years he had a flourishing career as an R&B session guitarist and as a staff songwriter for the A&M label.It was an ongoing gig with Jefferson Airplane blues fiddler Papa John Creach that caused Keb' Mo' to start thinking once again about the musical legacy that had come down to him through his family. He met various blues musicians, including Albert Collins and Big Joe Turner, and he joined those players in jam sessions and later on gigs that took him deeper into the music. In 1990, still under the name Kevin Moore, he landed the part of a Delta bluesman in a play called "Rabbit Foot." He learned to play Delta blues guitar, and his 1994 debut album, "Keb' Mo'," included a pair of covers of songs by blues legend Robert Johnson. He later portrayed Johnson in the documentary "Can't You Hear the Wind Howl?," and he had another great blues-related role in the recent John Sayles film "Honeydripper."From the beginning, though, Keb' Mo' was a classic bluesman with a difference. "The blues is rooted in really good, strong songwriters," he told a Buzzine interviewer. And that statement describes no one better than Keb' Mo' himself. Over eight albums and some superb shows in southeastern Michigan, including a headliner slot at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival, Keb' Mo' has gone beyond classic Delta blues and songs modeled on the classics. The world he writes about is the complex experience of contemporary life, which is approaches with a strength and spirituality drawn from the musical depths he has explored over his career. Steve Leggett of the All Music Guide calls Keb' Mo's recent "Suitcase" album a "suite of songs dedicated to the emotional baggage everyone carries with them as they plow through increasingly complicated lives in search of peace, love, and some measure of personal redemption." Keb' Mo' is a true creative force, a charismatic musician who never stops exploring and has the gift of bringing audiences along with him on his musical journey. His music is always new, but it also has the classic blues function of bringing comfort and hope in a difficult world. The blues, for Keb' Mo', is a healing power, and a path of creative renewal. Visit Keb' Mo' on the Web