Grammy Highlights: Keb’ Mo’s 2015 Americana Nomination
Terry Roland
Posted On February 6, 2015
Singer-Songwriter Keb’ Mo’ is already a three-time Grammy winner for Blues Album of the Year. His 2014 release BLUESAmericana brings him his 8th nomination and could give him his 4th win. Only this time, he’s nominated not for Contemporary Blues, but for Americana Album of the Year. He seems more than happy about the catagory change. The 63 year-old Southern California veteran musician wondered recently on the phone about his blues credentials. However, it doesn’t take more than a heartbeat for him to confirm his roots-Americana qualifications.
“I’ve wondered myself about what genre I am as an artist,” he says. “I came out as a blues guy. While I think I’m kind of blues, when I look back on it, none of my records have been straight blues. I have a lot of different things going on in my songs. When I look back on it and then think forward to what I’m doing, I’ve come to think of myself as an Americana artist.”
Indeed, BLUESAmericana, lives and embraces it’s title well. With well-crafted songs, produced with just the right mix of funk and elegance, it flows with a feel of country-blues, gospel, folk, and soul, covering an often confessional core of a skilled singer-songwriter. In other words, the album has found a home in the expanding definition of Americana today.
But Keb’ Mo’ hadn’t heard of the movement until after he moved to Nashville. In 2011, veteran blues-rocker, Greg Allman, asked him to present his Americana Music Association award at Ryman Auditorium.
“At first, I thought Americana music was what used to be called alternative country music,” he says. “Then, three years later, I was asked to present a lifetime honor at the same show in 2014 for Taj Mahal. I started to see that a lot of what the music had in common was something undefinable, even though they may show up in a certain genre. All this great music was landing there as Americana. At the Ryman last year, I saw [St. Paul & the] Broken Bones along with Cassandra Wilson. There was something open-minded and refreshing about that. It’s that place where you can listen to music and at some point the labels disappear into the diversity.”
Having grown up in Compton, California in the 1950s and ’60s, places Keb’ Mo’ at a pivotal time in Caliornia music history, when there were still pure jazz and blues clubs in the L.A. area. That’s when Compton was home to the “Town Hall Dance Party” broadcast that saw some of country music’s most legendary icons perform. In the late ’60s, when Mo’ was a teenager, racial tension ruled the day in the Los Angeles area. But, he saw music around him as a healing force.
“Man, there was diversity then,” he says. “Taj Mahal was from L.A. I loved the coming together of the music without racial boundaries. The first time I heard The Band’s “Up On Cripple Creek,” it was from a black guy!” He laughs. “A black guy turned me onto The Band! I’ve been running in this stuff for years. I grew up on I had Spirit, Friends of Distinction, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Smokey Robinson.”
But, it was in the ’70s when he saw the greatest example of cultural and racial harmony at a music event. “The most diverse, best crowd I ever saw was at a Bob Marley show at UCLA,” he remembers. “Everybody was there — every race, all ages. There were no boundaries there.”
Although BLUESAmericana is among the five best Americana Grammy choices this year, it was missing from No Depression and many Americana-roots Best of the Year lists for 2014. Mo’ laughs in response:
“It was my wife who pointed this out to me,” he says. “She told me, ‘look you’re nominated for the Grammy for Americana, but you’re not on the Top 50 Albums for 2014 in No Depression. If I’m truthful, when I make a good record I want it to have its own arms and legs. I want it to go the distance. My first record went gold, but it took 12 years. It was resonate and purposeful. I feel this way about my career and this new record. So, I’m not insulted about not being on the list. I’m happy that people are listening. I’m grateful for being nominated for the Grammy. This is really a grand undertaking for me. BLUESAmericana is a new statement. When people open up their minds listening to your music, that’s really the list to be on.”
