Mo Beeg

The occasion of the series of television films broadcast under the umbrella title The Blues in the fall of 2003 provided the opportunity to compile the highlights of Keb' Mo''s recording career thus far into a single-disc collection. One might argue that, with only four regular albums under his belt (there was also a children's album, Big Wide Grin), Keb' Mo' wasn't quite ready for a best-of, but those albums attracted a wide audience among blues fans; each one lodged in the Top Five of Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart, and the second and third, Just Like You and Slow Down, won Grammys for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Actually, it's the self-titled first album from 1994 that is the most impressive (as well as the least "contemporary"), and six tracks from it have been excerpted here, with three from Just Like You, four from Slow Down, and one from the fourth album, The Door…

The rise in the number of titles in the children's music category around the turn of the century was accompanied by a shift in the approach to such recordings. As baby boomers, who remain loyal record buyers, have become parents, the artists who appeal to them have turned to children's music, but it often seems as though the records are still being made for the boomers, not their children. Though the recordings often concern the subjects of childhood and parenting, it is often hard to imagine a child actually enjoying the music. Such is the case with the Keb' Mo' children's album, Big Wide Grin, which is better regarded as a regular Keb' Mo' album on the theme of family rather than an album for children. The singer covers a number of pop evergreens from the late '60s and 1970s - the O'Jays' "Love Train," Bill Withers' "Grandma's Hands," the Winstons' "Color Him Father"…

Just like You is the second studio album by Delta blues artist Keb' Mo', released in 1996. It features guest artists Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt, both on the title track "Just Like You". Unlike the first album, Just Like You features a more blues-pop to blues-rock feel and more of its tracks feature a full band. In 1997, Just Like You won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

Mighty Mo Rodgers (real name Maurice Rodgers) was born in Indiana where his father owned a club that featured blues performers. When Rodgers wasn't studying classical piano he was checking out the blues artists that played there. Growing up, Rodgers was deeply affected by the mid-'60s soul music from the Memphis-based Stax label. Using Stax as an influence, Rodgers started his first band while in high school called the Rocketeers. Upon entering Indiana State College, Rodgers fronted another band, the Maurice Rodgers Combo, playing Wurlitzer piano and incorporating originals with cover versions of popular songs from the era. He finally decided to quit college, move to L.A., and give music his full-time attention…

Keb' Mo' is less a blues singer than a performer who works from that conceptual base, not in the way Taj Mahal does, knowingly carrying a tradition forward, half teacher and wise elder, but more as a populist, the James Taylor of blues, say, or a less recalcitrant J.J. Cale. To criticize him for not being Skip James or Robert Johnson sort of misses the point of what Keb' Mo' is shooting for, and like Bonnie Raitt discovered, bringing a modern pop-blues to a wide audience sure beats playing authentic for purists. Either path is as fake or as real as the other in a post-postmodern age where the blues creaks along as a single DNA strand in a world of rap, metal, and neo-soul. All of which makes the blues a strange career path to use to get straight out of Compton, yet that's exactly what Keb' Mo' has done, rising out of one of toughest urban landscapes in the world by covering Robert Johnson songs on his National steel guitar…

Seemingly coming from nowhere, Mighty Mo Rodgers packs a massive punch that makes you ask, where in hell he came from? A brief stint in music (his was the organ solo on the '67 hit, "Gimme Some Kind Of Sign," and he acted as producer for Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee) ended in disillusionment with the industry. A retreat into a Masters degree (with a focus on "Blues as A Metaphysical Music"), he has returned to make music with "something to say." His brand of "spiritual" blues is for the people and of the real world. This is no revivalist camp, however, but a richly musical charge that recalls the work of the late Curtis Mayfield. Rodgers' deep, warm vocals embrace gospel and R&B, and his voice alternates between a powerful growl and a gentle caress across arrangements designed around solid hooks that first seduce the listener before driving home their message…