Over 25 years, Keb’ Mo’ has collected 5 GRAMMY Awards for his Blues-meets-Americana Signature sound. If you haven’t had the pleasure to hear his work in action, just picture a musical cross between the legendary blues of Robert Johnson and infectious groove of Jack Johnson Keb’ Mo’ will connect with you at his show, or even on film. He’s collaborated with some of the most talented and respected artists and directors of our time. And when President Obama invites you to perform at “A celebration of American creativity” at the White House along with the likes of Buddy Guy, James Taylor, Usher, Carol Burnett and Esperanza Spalding... you’re in pretty good company. We sat with Mr. Moore at Berklee School of Music and talked about putting musicians into musical buckets, collaborative writing and how women need to be in charge.
It’s hard to know where to start when talking about our next great artist. And it wasn’t a surprise to Hallways when Joe Spaulding asked Kevin Roosevelt Moore, Aka Keb’ Mo’, to be an honorary Chair at the FARHOF.
Over 25 years, Keb’ Mo’ has collected 5 GRAMMY Awards for his Blues-meets-Americana Signature sound. If you haven’t had the pleasure to hear his work in action, just picture a musical cross between the legendary blues of Robert Johnson and infectious groove of Jack Johnson
Keb’ Mo’ will connect with you at his show, or even on film. He’s collaborated with some of the most talented and respected artists and directors of our time. And when President Obama invites you to perform at “A celebration of American creativity” at the White House along with the likes of Buddy Guy, James Taylor, Usher, Carol Burnett and Esperanza Spalding... you’re in pretty good company.
We sat with Mr. Moore at Berklee School of Music and talked about putting musicians into musical buckets, collaborative writing and how women need to be in charge.
We look forward to having our honorary Chair, GRAMMY winning, Blues-Americana guest Keb’ Mo’ join us someday at the FARHOF / Boch Center, and we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.
02:30
Talking to Mike Yeah, yeah, so please, Mr. Moore. We have Mr. Kevin Moore here, Kevin. Oh, I just met Kevin Moore Jr. That was a pleasure. Yeah. Right. It's an artist's name is K. Roosevelt. k. Roosevelt. This. That's how he goes about Yes, that's his handle. Like he's a drummer. No, he's a really good drummer, but he's a singer songwriter. He's a singer songwriter, but he happens in the more like, hip hop bourbon world like, he's kind of a badass dude. He's very quiet. He'll never tell
03:00
You, those of you that the ones who don't tell you and I talked him into come and play and drum. Can you brush off your chops a little bit and complete jobs with me?
03:10
Okay.
03:12
Does he does he play with you a lot? Now? Is this such a
03:18
complex?
03:19
I got this doesn't work on this other thing I got.
03:22
So that's very special. You know, my 14 year old has the same expression. Yeah, he's he doesn't play music though. He's a basketball guy and a pitcher. So I always have this I'm, I'm pretty bad athlete. But like I have this image of us like actually playing together. Yeah. And I think we'll, we'll throw a pass, I think but there's there's something about that connection that I don't have to tell you. How is that with playing with Phil Collins? Does that do with his son? That's true. The drummer Yeah, it's like it's like butter. It's just like, he reads my mind. You guys play together in the house? Or like do you have to
04:00
jammed together before like a lot before, there's not as much as you think we would have. Yeah. He just knows things. You said he reads your mind. Yeah, take me to that moment on stage. It's just you know, just knows what to do. He's very intuitive musician when we're on the road with Taj Mahal and myself to attach his daughter's singing background, and their voices sounded completely different. But when they sung together, it was like, magical because they got the blood cow. The blood sound louder the butter blood sound is the Bloods? Is this blood sound kind of like something's
04:38
something you just can't put your finger on. Why do why do they blend like that? I think it's fascinating because when you see people that may look look like each other or sound like each other talking, but it makes sense that if they would harmonize.
04:50
Anyway, so yeah.
04:53
All right. That's it
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We're done here. No, no, that's a wrap. Let's talk about let's talk about
05:00
hallways and, and roots music and a little bit about why we're here today with Mr. catco.
05:09
The one of the, you know, in looking up some information if I first heard of you, it was telling Ron hurt Ron here the other day.
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My, my secret santa boss years ago back in 1948 99, maybe
05:28
he gave me He gave me two CDs he gave me Steve Earle. And he gave me a demo album. That's the first that's the first time I saw your music. You gotta check this guy out. He's on He's amazing. And I don't know where that was in your career. But I mean, obviously you you've done a lot.
05:44
But it's a great album. But you know, one of the things that kind of surprised me and I guess not now that we've been doing this for a while, it doesn't surprise me anymore. Is that you won you won an award for Americana Album of the years. That correct is an American American album. I was nominated
06:00
The Americana category for an album. And I'm nominated this year for the Americana. Oh, congratulations. So does that moniker does that name feel like do you feel like you fit into Americana? Is that like a word that you use to describe your music at all? To me, in a world where everything is split and divide, divided into categories? Yeah, you know, there's a lot of gray area between a lot of categories. Is this that or is it that, you know, but when you take all the things that are rooted in American music, you know, a some form there.
06:38
And you don't know what it is, but you know, it fits. It's America. People like to put things into buckets. Yeah, it makes it I don't know, do I put it in so then they don't have a bucket to put it, they put it on its own pile. So if we will, we'll figure it out later. And if you're a musician and you get put in a pile, you know, it's harder for you to
07:00
can't connect with the greater population like my first record was the whole blues record. But they put me in the blues category and I just went with it because better and have a category than okay all right that's well so it's an address where people can actually find you yeah and then they can go oh that's not blues and go like that's not blues but I like it or what's that doing there? They whatever they found it right. Yeah, that's really interesting. I think it seems to bother some musicians that we've talked to like we're not we're not this we're not that when it but in the end I think it kind of it helps pedestrians like us just say just say your something. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, cuz then they then you can kind of say like, my name is. My name is john. But that's not my real spiritual name. Just go with john. Gotta have it.
07:53
It reminds me of like, you can't just say classical music. Yeah, the hell does that mean? There's like, there's like a
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vt oh four was what areas from right? Yeah, what what century? Yeah.
08:07
Yeah. Is it like a quartet? Is it a symphony? You know, the Chamber Orchestra? Right so it's a Brass Ensemble as well. I think Americana is interesting because mostly because the name America is in it. Yeah. To me I don't think of music when I hear the word Americana I actually think of the country.
08:29
So, you know, I that's a kind of a weird thing. I mean, it's like, you know, it's a cool thing I think because it's like we all we all contributed to this music over many years. I think it's great. I think it's just a great category that just kind of glues everything together. So like, I mean, like last year with them.
08:51
Brand new Carl, big breakout here. He is amazing artists, you know that previously. What is Brandi Carlile
09:00
She country is she pop is she? What is she is she like woman's rockin she What is she? And because of Americana, she has this platform now where she can be recognized for her true gift and her and her all the splendor that she is. So we are we're coming down here before speaking of America we you know, met your wonderful wife and we were talking about Beth Nielsen Chapman and your your collaboration on that incredible song put a woman in charge put a woman in charge. I was at a bar mitzvah this morning of all things. Okay, morning bomb. It's a morning Bar Mitzvah. But blacksmith. Yeah, it's girl. So yeah. So yeah, she was talking about women's rights and talking about some Torah portion about women. And we were talking about 2020 is coming up where women are going to 100 years since women can vote. 100 years is a long time and it's also not a long time. So I just kind of wanted to see your perspective as someone that was maybe still connected, you know, with that effort, but that was a powerful
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video that I saw that you and your you and your wife made together and, and Beth Nielsen Chapman. Well, that was an amazing project, it kind of like grew out of a writing session for the
10:14
Oklahoma release was put out this year. But before we knew that was gonna be Oklahoma and before we even knew it was going to be an album. So out of this writing session came
10:27
the saw woman in charge, and before we were finished with it, and I wrote it with a friend of mine, john lewis Parker, one of my main writing partners, and we, I said, john,
10:39
we can't do this. He said, I know we got to get a woman in here.
10:46
So get the Rolodex I got on the phone.
10:50
I didn't need to run it. Okay, you know, Beth, what you're doing. I just have not been doing anything which is rare.
11:00
Right over and jumped in. We got it done and became like, we have to put this out now. It wasn't like you know, it was wait till the now let's just go so we put it out into single and
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it was just really a great event
11:17
it's really got a great beat. No it's that that's what did Clark would say. Yeah, it was kind of good beat. Yeah, you can dance and the hook and the whole message anyway it's great so and who was in charge of that session in charge of all who were in charge together we're just right was a collaboration a lot of writing session and on the on the recording of it and the production of it. john and i shared the production responsibilities yet, whereas I was on my way out to go to the road. So I had a basic track which is the vocal on it and he kept the thing going up so we pass it around. He kept putting things on doing things to it and but the spirit of that song is
12:00
If I was a bigger artists, you know, that would have been a huge hit. I mean in a big category because I didn't really have a huge hit, you have to be in a big category. Blue categories and blues and category blues in America is not a big category had I been like Katy Perry, or even like somebody in a position because you got to be in that position that you have to be up to bat. You know, right hit a home run. If you if you're in the audience and you're out, you can't hit a home run. You got to be in position with all the people around you and everything going, then you can hit a home run. We put it out there, you know, Rosanne Cash but the message itself though, and what you came up with, I think is in some ways you're ahead of the game, because it resonates it's timely. And we're really proud of it really proud of that. But we we're not we don't do this for the success of the money in the glory here. We do it to put out something that's gonna take on the minds and the hearts of the people. Bring something forward.
13:00
subject for this is going to make people think and maybe we'll have an opinion and have discussion and talk about it. So, so women, women, men, or we're smart. Women are just a little smarter. That's all and they have a different kind of smart. For instance, the just to where we're sitting in the room, why are we sitting in this room right here, instead of over there where we could have done in this feels much better? Because a woman came in the room and said, Why don't you guys try it like this? And what's a collaboration? It's not like, you know, she did everything we wish her included in the conversation. So that that made things better. Beth made the song better. And women in society when we exclude the women, we're excluding something that's very important to our society. So you don't exclude the women because they have ideas that are very important. I wanted to talk about Nashville a little bit because, you know, one of the things that we've also talked about at the hall is that there's a
13:54
there's like a triangle between Boston Belfast and Nashville. Maybe you can help me well.
14:00
I mean, I know more about the national Boston but when we met with actually Joe speaking of Joe Spaulding, who's in the room, we talked about a connection between the three different Sister cities of America on actually you live in Nashville now correct? Yeah, very close in Franklin, Tennessee. Very close. Close enough. It's right there. I mean, this is Franklin there's a right there close enough. How does living near Nashville? How does that affect the way you write the way you you know, listen to music the way you learn about different musicians? Is that a big part of your of the culture of music for you? Yeah, it would national. There was exposed me to a whole different group of artists, musicians, singers, whatnot. And, and it also exposed me to the collective consciousness of that community, which is different from the collective consciousness of musicians in Los Angeles. There's a Morris there's
15:00
more of a sense of hustle in Los Angeles, because you have to. But when I moved to Nashville 10 years ago, the thing of hustling was really
15:10
not. I mean, there's a hustle, don't get me wrong. But there was people really, I'm more into helping each other and collaborating. And so 10 years later, as things money got tighter in Nashville, rent went up, national became national became the it city. And now artists are being kind of like, having to go
15:34
it's getting kind of expensive. Okay, we gotta, but the spirit of it didn't change. Yeah, still got that. You know, I'll help you. You know, right. You know, I see that a lot. I see so many musicians, especially in the Americana and blues and roots, folk music, so much collaboration, people being on each other's albums, the collaborative effort there is. It's great. I love it. The one thing one thing
16:00
About that, too, that also causes that is when record companies are not as involved. There's not a lot of artists without record company. And record companies thing is always gonna be on that album. Well, then your contract, we're not gonna allow that. Yeah. So is there a part of the music itself that breeds collaboration, Nashville, whatever was going on in Nashville, musically, it's pretty good. And it was there before I got there. So I can't really describe it as something that's, you know, new how it's changed it because I went and joined into it, as opposed to like, being a part of something that created it. But I can say, from that standpoint, it's really is really wonderful because it just freshen everything up. For me as an artist and I had more space to work with, to do more, do more things.
16:51
I had a 400 square foot recording studio in LA, you know, and now I have a lot of 1500s
17:00
With the studio now, so three times a space to work hands. Yeah. Which is allows me a lot more leverage and rooms to work elbow room. You know, I can park, you know, 10 cars in my driveway. I have a green room. You were staff writer for Anna records. Did you during emo music? Yeah, it was what's the publishing arm of a&m records? Yeah. So I'm always interested in that, because we talked Lauren McKenna on a different podcast before and she does a lot of writing for a lot of other people. I mean, there's a lot of people who do that. But um, I want it what's the experience, like when you're writing for other people? And, you know, when did you ever write something and be like, I want this for myself? Or how does that dynamic work when you're writing for somebody else? Well, my experience of writing for other people was first I didn't start out to write for other other people. But when I got this writing gig, of course, they want you to write for other people and
18:00
I basically failed miserably at it. I got maybe two or three cuts. Yeah, you know, one was a moderate success of solid hit the r&b charts of number, probably 40. Top 100 it became clear later the writing experience was about the experience of writing itself. And learning how to be in the studio and Learning Studio skills. Okay, writing skills. So at the point when I realized that I wasn't good at writing for other people, and I started writing for myself, my skill had rose to a place where like, now I can really write for myself. Writing for other people is an art that I'm not good at something but I'm really good at it. As I ride from I'm very personal person. So I write what I know when you write for yourself. How does that connect to the performance? Well, that becomes a performance when you're writing for yourself, you writing about something, and you have a memory and you have a point of reference that every time you sing that song, that thing pops up, but you just wrote something
19:00
fluff, which is made up and has no, no grease to it. What comes up when you sing it is no grease. No, nothing. It's just fluff. So we started this conversation talking about butter, fluff, grease and blood
19:16
wash. marshmallow fluff was invented in Boston, Massachusetts wasn't. Yeah, you know, marshmallow fluff is like peanut butter and
19:24
butter. Yeah. Fluffy. No. It's like a disgusting things were invented in Boston. That's true. We invented the podcast. I don't know if you knew that
19:32
I know now
19:35
Where you going next? what's what's next for you? We're going to Tarrytown New York. Okay. And is this a big tour for you right now? You like hidden three week tour. Three week tour. Pretty big. Yeah. Three weeks long enough. long tour. Yeah. Yeah. And then you're going back to Nashville, or area, Nashville, and the Christmas album. What's that called? The Christmas album. It's called moonlight. mistletoe in you. We need
20:00
More we need better Christmas music is the song Christmas is annoying on that song on that album. Okay, I'd like the irony there. Yeah, that's my favorite song.
20:11
What are we gonna write a Hanukkah song together? Come on, let's go.
20:15
I thought I thought I wrote Hanukkah who's the CEO of Sandler sales? He has that market no one will talk. No one will touch
20:25
and we wish you well what's and after the tour, you're going back like Chuck said and and what's next in the in the in the cab mo plan? Well, I'm hoping to work and
20:37
I'm going to work with an artist named chick streetman. When I get home in January, then after that,
20:44
I'm going to get to work on what the weather is. I got my son out here so we can like kind of collaborate and do some things. We're talking about a project for me. One of those projects this kind of like, different the people probably go like what
21:00
Hello, Kevin Oh, doing now, projects. Gotta keep guessing. No, sometimes you got to do some for you. And but you always do it for you. But, you know, an audience is a wonderful thing to have, you know, but they also they kind of hold the energetically they hold you were the way you are. And when you do something different, you know, you run the risk of, you know, alienation slight alienation and complaints. Because people are recruited to have it. I mean, even me, I like I like what I like, you know, when when john mayer made a
21:35
I was a big fan of the continuing album.
21:39
In when
21:40
in the battle battle, battle studies came out and I'm like, What is this
21:47
like continuum.
21:50
And then I had to put it down and about a couple months later, after I I picked it up and I loved it, that that kind of shift for a musician can be
22:00
Trying to their fans sometimes. I mean, don't just look at them. Just look at Dylan when he went electric. That's still a good reaction like, what is this? Yeah, I think it is kind of kind of it's kind of what Kanye West does like a slap in the face. Like, what can you say? I'm the greatest entertainer. And he's
22:16
he says he can't be wrong. If you said it must, must be true must be true. Sure it gets people talking. Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a great show.