If one looks up “A rolling stone gathers no moss” in a book of adages, you just might see a picture of bluesman Keb’ Mo’ next to it. Born Kevin Moore, the Compton native released his self-titled debut under his stage name back in 1994. Since then, he’s dropped fourteen more solo albums, racked up five Grammy wins, and most recently recorded last year’s Grammy-nominated album Room on the Porch, his second collaboration with friend and mentor Taj Mahal, the duo’s first since 2017’s TajMo.
And while the twosome lost out on the Best Traditional Blues Grammy to Buddy Guy’s “Ain’t Done With the Blues,” Moore didn’t expect to cut another record with Mahal.
“Taj and I were happy with the first one,” he said with a chuckle during a recent interview. “It was good—it wasn’t like, let’s not do it again, but we didn’t want it to become a series or a sequel. But we did it and are very proud of it. I love it just as much as the first one. It’s not a bad thing. It’s cool.”
He added, “For this one, we had one song, went in the studio, and wrote the songs from there. This one was a little bit more of being in the studio, whereas the first one, we had a song and started writing other ones over the phone while sending ideas back and forth. With ‘Porch,’ we got in the room all together and wrote it. Writing was Taj, my son, and his son Ahmen. We just kind of hashed out the record and invited a few extraneous writers to help out. It was about seeing what we could do on the fly. I was really surprised at how the record came together and the quality we were able to get up to speed with on the fly.”
Infused with a laid-back vibe and pangs of familiarity, Porch has plenty of gems ranging from a honeyed reading of the blues standard “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” that finds both men trading verses amid a gentle organ runs and lush gospel harmonies, to the heartfelt love song “My Darling, My Dear,” which is gently nudged along by banjo as Mahal and Moore’s gruff and honeyed vocals intertwine seamlessly.
Elsewhere, veteran vocalist Wendy Moten adds some sweet vocal phrasing to the rhythmically crackling “Better Than Ever” amid a wash of subtle harp runs and Mahal dropping in French phrases, while the opening title cut uses loping rhythms, subtle fiddle and guest Ruby Amanfu’s pretty vocals to line this musical invitation of love and brotherhood. It all adds up to the kind of creative fellowship Mahal and Moore have that the latter continues to marvel over and appreciate.
“Taj is so friggin’ brilliant and bright about music,” Moore said without hesitation. “He could literally be a professor of music at Harvard. Taj literally paved the road and kept the road open for twenty years before anyone tried to jump in there with him. I was always riding shotgun. Taj is a big deal. He’s one of those artists who maybe never gets huge, huge, but is very important, like the blues. The blues was never a huge market, but it’s an important genre to all the other genres because of what it gives to everybody. The authenticity and rawness that it brings and stands on. That’s what Taj is—he’s that kind of artist. He’s a very important artist.”
Moore continues to be grateful for the guidance he’s received from older icons like Mahal and Bonnie Raitt, adding: “I feel like I’m the child of both of them because of their love for the blues, their willingness to go outside of it and bring that sentiment into all other kinds of things. Turns out you can do that, and I did it, too.”
It’s all wrapped up in humility that will be on full display when Moore hits the stage this year for his own shows.
“When folks come see me, they can expect a unique experience every night,” he said. “What they expect is authenticity, and that’s what I’m hoping to bring each night—authenticity.”
**Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’ perform at the Mountain Winery on Sept. 3rd
