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After Kevin "Keb' Mo'" Moore led his clunky rock & roll band through two or three songs, it seemed the singer-guitarist was in for a tough night: The beginning of his show wasn't even interesting enough to make the sold-out crowd stop talking and pay attention.
"We got a ways to go," Moore sheepishly announced. But then he temporarily dismissed the band, picked up an acoustic guitar and visibly relaxed. He was in full command of "Every Morning," a soft song from his self-titled 1994 debut, and the audience quieted down to catch the soulful nuances of his voice.
From then on -- even when the band returned a half-dozen songs later -- the 45-year-old Moore had no problem holding the crowd's attention, and he gave his best songs a sense of humor as well as a natural bounce. On album, "Love Yourself" comes across as a self-absorbed New Age update of Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With," but Moore gave it so much personality that it might have seemed like a winking tribute to masterbation if the rest of the show wasn't so squeaky clean. "Give yourself a big old kiss on the mouth," Moore ad-libbed, with smooching noises.
The band also redeemed itself after Moore's acoustic set, shifting easily from reggae ("Tell Everybody I Know") to New Orleans R&B ("She Just Wants to Dance"), to straightforward Chicago electric blues (a 12-bar finale with the opening performer, guitarist Ronnie Baker Brooks). Unfortunately, it also dragged many songs out with unfocused guitar, keyboard, and even bass solos.
Moore draws clear inspiration from Robert Johnson, but he doesn't even try for the legendary Delta bluesman's intense, morbid passion. Instead, some of his too-smooth songs sound more like Bonnie Raitt's early-'90s hits -- blues with all the rough edges sanded smooth. Moore may h