Keb’ Mo’
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Keb’ Mo’
July 20 @ 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm
$44 โ $107Show Description
With five GRAMMYs, 14 Blues Foundation Awards, and a groundbreaking career spanning nearly 50 years under his belt, Kebโ Moโs got nothing left to prove. Just donโt tell him that.
โI may be turning 70,โ Kebโ reflects, โbut Iโm still breathing and Iโm still hungry. Iโm still out there going for it every single day.โ
Born and raised in Compton, Kebโ began his remarkable journey at the age of 21, when he landed his first major gig playing with Jefferson Airplane violinist Papa John Creach. For the next 20 years, Kebโ would work primarily behind the scenes, establishing himself as a respected guitarist, songwriter, and arranger with a unique gift for linking the past and present in his evocative playing and singing. Though he recorded a one-off album in 1980 under his birth name, Kevin Moore, it wasnโt until 1994 that he would introduce the world to Kebโ Moโ with the release of his widely acclaimed self-titled debut. Critics were quick to take note of Kebโs modern, genre-bending take on old school sounds, and two years later, he garnered his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album with Just Like You. In the decades to come, Kebโ would take home four more GRAMMY Awards; top the Billboard Blues Chart seven times; perform everywhere from Carnegie Hall to The White House; collaborate with many including Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, and Lyle Lovett; have compositions recorded and sampled by artists as diverse as B.B. King, Zac Brown, and BTS; release signature guitars with both Gibson and Martin; compose music for television series like Mike and Molly, Memphis Beat, B Positive, and Martha Stewart Living; and earn the Americana Music Associationโs 2021 award for Lifetime Achievement in Performance.
In addition to his extraordinary musical output, Kebโ also established himself as a captivating onscreen presence over the years, appearing as himself in Martin Scorceseโs The Blues, Aaron Sorkinโs The West Wing, and even the iconic childrenโs series Sesame Street. He flexed his acting chops in a wide variety of projects, as well, portraying Robert Johnson in the 1998 documentary Canโt You Hear The Wind Howl, Howlinโ Wolf on CMTโs Sun Records, and the ghostly bluesman Possum in John Saylesโ 2007 film Honeydripper. A fixture on late night TV and award show stages, Kebโ has also performed on Letterman, Leno, Conan, Colbert, and Austin City Limits in addition to appearing on nationally televised broadcasts from The Kennedy Center, The Ryman Auditorium, and Eric Claptonโs Crossroads Festival.
A passionate philanthropist and outspoken activist, Kebโ has devoted countless hours and helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of social, environmental, and racial justice throughout his career. As a celebrity mentor with The Kennedy Centerโs Turnaround Arts Program, which began under the guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama and the Presidentโs Committee for the Arts and Humanities, Kebโ โadoptedโ The Johnson School for Excellence in Chicago, where he teamed up with teachers, students, and parents to help develop a thriving arts education program, and as a longtime ambassador for the Playing For Change Foundation, heโs supported the non-profit from its early days in its quest to provide free music education and basic needs like food, water, medicine, clothing, books, and school supplies to children around the world.
Bringing it all back home, Keb looked to his own story for inspiration on his captivating new album, Good To Be, artfully linking the grit and groove of his Compton roots with strum and twang of his more recently adopted hometown of Nashville, TN, where heโs lived and worked for the last eleven years. Drawing on country, folk, blues, and soul, the collection transcends genre and geography, weaving together a joyful, heartwarming, and relentlessly optimistic tapestry that manages to encompass the entirety of this once-in-a-generation artistโs larger-than-life career.