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.
Born and raised in Compton, Keb’ began
his remarkable journey at the age of 21, when he landed his first major gig
playing with Jefferson Airplane violinist Papa John Creach. For the next 20
years, Keb’ would work primarily behind the scenes, establishing himself as a
respected guitarist, songwriter, and arranger with a unique gift for linking
the past and present in his evocative playing and singing. In 1994 he would introduce the world to Keb’
Mo’ with the release of his widely acclaimed self-titled debut. Critics were
quick to take note of Keb’s modern, genre-bending take on old school sounds,
and two years later, he garnered his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary
Blues Album with Just Like You. In the decades to come, Keb’ would take
home four more GRAMMY Awards; top the Billboard Blues Chart seven
times; perform everywhere from Carnegie Hall to The White House; collaborate
with many including Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, and
Lyle Lovett; have compositions recorded and sampled by artists as diverse as
B.B. King, Zac Brown, and BTS; release signature guitars with both Gibson and
Martin; compose music for television series like Mike and Molly, Memphis
Beat, B Positive, Leanne, and Martha Stewart Living; and
earn the Americana Music Association’s 2021 award for Lifetime Achievement in
Performance.
In addition to
his extraordinary musical output, Keb’ also established himself as a captivating
onscreen presence over the years, appearing as himself in Martin Scorcese’s The Blues, Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, and even the iconic
children’s series Sesame Street. He
flexed his acting chops in a wide variety of projects, as well, portraying Robert
Johnson in the 1998 documentary Can’t You
Hear The Wind Howl, Howlin’ Wolf on CMT’s
Sun Records, and the ghostly bluesman
Possum in John Sayles’ 2007 film Honeydripper.
A fixture on late night TV and award show stages, Keb’ has also performed on
Letterman, Leno, Conan, Colbert, and Austin City Limits in addition to
appearing on nationally televised broadcasts from The Kennedy Center, The Ryman
Auditorium, and Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival.
A passionate philanthropist and
outspoken activist, Keb’ has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in
support of social, environmental, and racial justice throughout his career. As
a celebrity mentor with The Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts Program, which
began under the guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama and the President’s
Committee for the Arts and Humanities, Keb’ “adopted” The Johnson School for
Excellence in Chicago, where he teamed up with teachers, students, and parents
to help develop a thriving arts education program, and as a longtime ambassador
for the Playing For Change Foundation, he’s supported the non-profit from its
early days in its quest to provide free music education and basic needs like
food, water, medicine, clothing, books, and school supplies to children around
the world.
For more information on Keb’ Mo’, please
visit his official website at www.kebmo.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.