Kevin Roosevelt Moore, professionally known as Keb' Mo', is an African American guitarist, singer and songwriter who grew up in Compton, California. Born on October 3, 1951, he came up through church singing, Nat King Cole records and the radio. His first steady work came in the early 1970s with violinist Papa John Creach, and he released Rainmaker in 1980 under his own name.
In 1993 he went to Greenville, Mississippi, and studied with the older blues musician Eugene Powell, who had recorded as Sonny Boy Nelson, visiting Powell's house every day for about two weeks. The following year he reemerged under the name Keb' Mo'. His self-titled debut reached number four on Billboard's Blues Albums chart and included his versions of Robert Johnson's "Come On In My Kitchen" and "Kind Hearted Woman Blues." The 1996 album Just Like You won him his first Grammy, for Best Contemporary Blues Album, and he went on to collect more Grammy Awards across blues and Americana categories over the following decades.
His collaborations have included Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt and Rosanne Cash.
In a 2026 interview, he described recording as a process of trial and error: "You're trying things and deciding what guitar parts work, what doesn't work." That account accompanied The Breakdown, a largely voice-and-guitar album with contributions from Take 6 and the Soweto Gospel Choir.
The album took shape after a hard stretch. On tour in 2024, Moore developed severe shortness of breath and learned he had a leaking heart valve and an aortic aneurysm, requiring major heart surgery that September. He came through the surgery, and the songs on The Breakdown carry what he went through: recovery, faith and loss, set beside the continuing work of making music.
