Keb is Wonderful!! Paul Oscher has done a couple of things, Iceman--like being the first white guy to play harp for Muddy Waters--be a first class performer on harp and guitar and singer--on and on--he is also great. Check out this link for more--and search YouTube for some of their performances--you just can't find any bad ones http://www.pauloscher.com/bio.htm
Thanks for helping me reconnect the dots. Of course, Paul Oscher played w/Muddy Waters.
I saw Paul live in 2002. He played acoustic guitar, had a diatonic duct taped somehow with a mic to his neck rack and sounded like the real deal - guitar playing, singing and harmonica tone - big, fat, and greasy.
I see he recorded with Steve Guyger - another excellent real deal vintage sounding player. ---------- The Iceman
I like keb' mo' generally. I didn't like what he did to Folsom prison blues, or rather his stated reason for changing it. What he did was fine if it meant the song had meaning for him, but since it completely changed the meaning, I think "just write a new song". Still, I'm grateful to him for demonstrating the power of one line, and I probably didn't really understand that song until he changed it. ----------
My all time favorite Jazz bassist Mitchell Coleman Jr. was interviewed this past weekend on Big Blend Radio & Magazine! It’s so awesome to see a great artist getting the recognition they deserve. Coleman went on and talked about his new solo album titled Soul Searching, which has become my favorite album of this year. That funk/fusion sound he does? Pure perfection! You can listen to his Big Blend interview here at: http://bit.ly/MC-Big-Blend-Radio-Interview.
He also has a Facebook at: http://bit.ly/MitchellColemanJr, Twitter at: https://twitter.com/MitchOnTheBass and website www.MitchellColemanJr.com if anyone wants to learn more about him.
Been listening to Keb Mo on satellite radio for 10+ years, really good stuff. Nothing is better than Blues 24/7. :-) Rondo
Last Edited by Rondo on Mar 24, 2015 5:14 PM
I'm a fan. Liked his Folsom Prison arrangement for a couple reasons, not the least of which is that he played it on a Larry Pogreba, aluminum reso guitar (with a classic, antique hubcap for the reso cover).
Had to plug Larry there (sorry for the OT) as he's possibly the most innovative luthier in America. Amazing instruments. ---------- Marr's Guitars
Offering custom-built Cigar Box Guitars for the discriminating player of obscure musical unstruments
I truly love Keb' Mo's singing and songwriting. He's not a particularly good harp player. I'm intrigued by that paradox. He's one of the very best blues songwriters we've got, and he's also got huge gifts as an expressive singer. And then the harp comes in and it's....mediocre.
Every time his songs come on the radio, I turn 'em up.
"Perpetual Blues Machine" is Exhibit A. Perfect composition, perfect singing. And....harp. It's not bad. It's just clearly not as brilliant as the other two things:
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Mar 24, 2015 7:48 PM
Im into Keb Mo, bigtime. It was 1995 and I was in a Borders bookstore and I bought his album "Just Like You" I was a few hours away from home and listened to it non stop in my car. Great picking, great voice and great songs. I had just started playing Harmonica, so to me, it was good harmonica playing too.
I have seen him live every chance I get since then.
A couple of years ago, Keb (Kevin Moore) was playing at the Blues and Barbeque Festival, here in New Orleans, and I decided to fix him up with one of my custom HarveyHarps. I went looking for him before his set back stage, at the main stage, where he was going to be the headliner, and found out that he was at the musicians hospitality across the street, so I went to see him. He was sitting there eating some food, and I went up and introduced myself, and informed him that I brought him a harmonica. He thanked me, looked it over, and played it a little bit. He said the words I always love to hear. "Wow, what did you do to it" I explained the harp customization thing to him, and he said How much are they. I told him, and he ordered 4 of them.
He explained that he has always played Lee Oscars, and that they have become so hard to play that he hires Other Harmonica Players to record on his albums. He said he wanted to start playing more harmonica, and would like to play melodies and other music, in addition to blues. I asked him what kind of music he wanted to play, and he said like " Somewhere over the Rainbow" and stuff like that. So, I pulled out a harmonica, and we sat there playing Somewhere Over the rainbow. It was pretty memorable for me. I had not noticed that Johnny Sansone had come in, and was listening to this conversation, and he asked me if I was teaching Keb how to play harmonica. We had a good laugh.
When he had his performance, he played a few songs in his rack with his harp, and then pulled the one I gave him out of his pocked and played it straight. He gave me a big smile. Nice feeling.
He's a nice guy. Many years ago, when I was playing a festival in Tulsa, I got the chance to have breakfast with him and Chris Smither. Full-timers being nice to the part-timer. But they had no attitudes. It was just another breakfast in the festival hotel.
What I admire about Keb' Mo' is that when he found that his career as an L.A. songwriter and R&B session guy wasn't working out, he made a creative leap, renamed himself (Kevin Moore became Keb' Mo'), and took advantage of the post-1990 fascination with Robert Johnson by getting out there and playing some of RJ's stuff really well. He let the blues mafia decide that he (along with Alvin Youngblood Hart and Corey Harris) was the second coming of RJ.
Then, as that route began to play itself out--or perhaps when he started to get tired of it but BEFORE his public felt it was played out--he began to exercise his compositional skills to write a range of material that wasn't just blues. He found a way, in other words, of using the blues to become the performer and songwriter he wasn't quite being given a chance to become in his earlier incarnation as Kevin Moore.
I respect that. It bespeaks a genuinely creative soul.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Mar 25, 2015 2:42 PM
Nicely said, Adam. I agree. Keb Mo is a wonderfully versatile songwriter with a strong blues foundation. He reminds me, if slightly,of Tom Waits.He collaborated with the Old Globe Theater in San Diego by writing the music for a stage production based on the life of Robert Johnson. This man is versatile. ---------- Ted Burke __________________ ted-burke.com tburke4@san.rr.com