Keb' Mo' @ New Morning, Paris - July 6th, 2016

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.