Keb' Mo' sings those Delta (L.A.) blues

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Keb' Mo' sings those Delta (L.A.) blues
May 19, 2009
By JOHN ORR
Peninsula

Keb' Mo', aka Kevin Moore, is widely considered one of the leading modern interpreters of Delta blues, but he got there via an unusual path: Compton, and then Los Angeles, in Southern California, not Southern Mississippi.

Music started for the talented songwriter and singer at Rosencrantz Elementary School in Compton, where he started on trumpet. He started playing guitar when he was 12, and by the time he hit high school had added steel drums and French horn.

"I was the utility man in the school band," Moore said recently by phone. "Horns, drums, guitar, percussion."

By the late 1970s Moore had started performing with pop violinist Papa John Creach, who, among other gigs, played with Jefferson Airplane.

Since those days Moore has shared stages with all kinds of great blues musicians, from Bonnie Raitt to Taj Mahal, and written songs that have been covered by musicians ranging from B.B. King to Joe Cocker.

Moore will perform Sunday for the second day of the Santa Cruz Blues Festival — the biggest and best blues festival in the Bay Area this year, since Tom Mazzolini's San Francisco Blues Festival was cancelled.

The Santa Cruz Festival — which actually takes place a bit further south, in Aptos — this year is headlined by B.B. King, and includes Moore, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jackie Greene, Ruthie Foster, Carolyn Wonderland and Trombone Shorty.

These days Moore, 57, is known
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as a brilliant songwriter whose work is set apart from the usual blues thing.

"I started writing songs when I was with Papa John Creach," Moore said, "Then later got into it a little deeper. I started catching hold about 1976, '77."

Moore was in Bobby "Blue" Bland's Whodunit Band for a while, and performed with other greats, including Albert Collins and Big Joe Turner, adding to the rich tapestery that forms his songs.

"I came kind of backwards to the Delta blues," Moore said. He had performed all kinds of music by the time he became a master of Dobro and other guitars, and started writing songs such as "Dangerous Mood":

"Look out baby

I'm in a dangerous mood

I done called up the bossman

Told him where to go

And just what to do

Call me crazy

But I did what I had to do

You can call me stupid

I just did what I had to do

I had to steal a little time baby

So I could spend it all on you"

"My subject matter is based on life and what's going on," Moore said. "I try to stay in the moment."

He is also recognized as a chordal craftsman among blues musicians.

"That's all from Mickey's books," he said, "Mickey Baker's books."

(Baker is a blues/jazz/rock guitarist who wrote a series of books, "Complete Course in Jazz Guitar," which has been in print since the 1950s. As half of the duo Mickey & Sylvia, Baker had a hit with "Love Is Strange" in 1957.)

Moore is known for playing blues classics, such as Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain," but of late likes to stick with his own tunes.

"I used to use the classics to fill in the gaps, but once I got enough repertoire, I don't have to go back to the classics — just when I feel like it. There are enough people doing the classics."

Moore will be bringing his own band to Aptos, including drummer Les Falconer III, bass player Reggie McBride, keyboards player Jeff Paris and guitarist Clayton Gibb.

"And I'll be playing guitar," said the man people will be going to see.