CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Keb' Mo'
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City/Place:
Nashville, Tennessee
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
Compton, California
Current News
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What's Up?
With five GRAMMYs, 14 Blues Foundation Awards, and a groundbreaking career spanning nearly 50 years under his belt, Keb’ Mo’s got nothing left to prove. Just don’t tell him that.
Life & Work
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Bio:
Raised in Compton, Keb' embarked on his extraordinary journey at 21, marking a pivotal moment when he secured his first major opportunity playing alongside Papa John Creach, the violinist of Jefferson Airplane. Over the subsequent two decades, Keb' thrived behind the scenes, earning recognition as a revered guitarist, songwriter, and arranger. His ability to seamlessly bridge the past and present through expressive playing and singing became evident.
While he had a brief stint with an album in 1980 under his birth name, Kevin Moore, it wasn't until 1994 that Keb' Mo' emerged, captivating audiences with his self-titled debut. Critics lauded his modern, genre-blending approach to classic sounds. Just Like You, released two years later, earned him his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. In the years that followed, Keb' claimed four more GRAMMY Awards, topped the Billboard Blues Chart seven times, and collaborated with icons like Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, and Lyle Lovett.
Beyond his musical prowess, Keb' made a mark onscreen, appearing in Martin Scorsese’s The Blues, Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, and Sesame Street. He showcased his acting skills, portraying Robert Johnson in the documentary Can’t You Hear The Wind Howl, Howlin’ Wolf on CMT’s Sun Records, and the ghostly bluesman Possum in John Sayles’ Honeydripper. His performances extended to late-night TV and award shows, including Letterman, Leno, Conan, Colbert, and Austin City Limits.
An ardent philanthropist and vocal activist, Keb' dedicated significant time to social, environmental, and racial justice causes. As a mentor in The Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts Program and a longstanding ambassador for the Playing For Change Foundation, he contributed to arts education and global music education initiatives.
Returning to his roots for inspiration, Keb' crafted his latest album, Good To Be, intertwining the raw essence of his Compton upbringing with the melodic influences of his current home in Nashville, TN. With a blend of country, folk, blues, and soul, the album transcends boundaries, creating a joyful, heartwarming, and unwaveringly optimistic narrative that encapsulates the breadth of this artist's extraordinary career.
Contact Information
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Management/Booking:
General inquiries:
management [at] kebmo [dot] com
Publicity
Missing Piece Group
Joe Sivick
joe [at] missingpiecegroup [dot] com
Booking - North America:
WME - Ben Schiffer
bps [at] wmeagency [dot] com
Booking - Rest of World:
ATC-Live
stuart [at] atc-live [dot] com
colin [at] atc-live [dot] com
Clips (more may be added)
"In a small world great things are possible." The small world phenomenon ("6 degrees of separation") + personal curation for the 1st time on planet Earth.
In this matrix it's not which pill you take, it's which pathways you take, pathways originating in the sprawling cultural matrix of Brazil: Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, European, Asian... Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, delineated by the Bay of All Saints, earthly center of gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings — and the sublimity they created — presided over by the ineffable Black Rome of Brazil: Salvador da Bahia.
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano Veloso, son of the Recôncavo, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Caetano Veloso
THE MATRIX MISSION: What do Jimmy Cliff, Jimmy Page, and Dionne Warwick all have in common? They've all lived in Bahia and Dionne is moving back (visitors include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spike Lee, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, David Byrne and Sting, among others). But so have lived and now live untold numbers of Bahian creators whose magisterial work has never had the major media means to reach beyond limited surroundings. In order that the creators of Bahia might have global reach, all creators must have global reach.
QED: 'mātriks / "source" / from "mater", Latin for "mother". We're real mothers for ya!
Susan Rogers
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze: manager, Kamasi Washington
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad: Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd-Webber: UK's premier cellist; brother of Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals: World's premier klezmer violinist
Developed here in the Historic Center of Salvador da Bahia ↓ .
Bule Bule (Assis Valente)
"♫ The time has come for these bronzed people to show their value..."
Recommend somebody and you will appear on that person's page. Somebody recommends you and they will appear on your page.
Both pulled by the inexorable mathematical gravity of the small world phenomenon to within range of everybody inside.
And by logical extension, to within range of all humanity outside as well.
8 billion human beings tend to within six degrees of connection to each other.
In a small world great things are possible.
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
I built the Matrix below (I'm below left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian. If you create too, join them in the Matrix.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.