ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 7, 1997 TAG: 9702070017
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO
SOURCE: MARTHA IRVINE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kevin Moore was uncharacteristically grumpy.
He'd had little more than two hours of sleep after a sold-out gig in San Francisco before dragging himself out of bed to begin his rounds on the TV and radio talk-show circuit.
Guess that's what happens when you start hitting the big time.
``I had an attitude,'' said the Los Angeles-born blues man, ``So I had to have a little chat with myself. I mean, so what if I'm tired?''
Lack of sleep and tight schedules are the sorts of things that Moore, known on stage by his nickname Keb' Mo', calls ``good problems.'' In fact, they are the very things - those, and a budding musical career - he had craved for more than 20 years.
The 45-year-old musician is, after all, a late bloomer, though not for lack of trying.
Moore got his first record contract - oddly enough, for an ill-fated disco record - at age 19. He also played and sang in cover bands and wrote songs for other singers.
``I was one of those hired-gun songwriter types,'' he says.
But his career wallowed in anonymity until he settled in as blues vocalist and guitarist with a little harmonica on the side. Then someone at Epic records happened upon a cassette tape and, at age 41, raspy-voiced Moore became one of the newest blues sensations.
Now the man who used to play in hotels and at weddings has recorded two albums for Epic and is performing before packed houses across the country.
``I've always gone where I'm invited,'' Moore likes to say. ``It's like going to someone's house for dinner. My job is bringing the music.''
It's a typically humble statement for the musician, who's known as a snappy dresser with a sly sense of humor on stage and a fun-loving Everyman to his friends.
``He's a down-home guy with a city sensibility,'' says Joellen Friedkin, who's been playing keyboards with Moore for the past few years.
Success, she says, has hardly fazed him.
``Even though he's from LA, he seems like he could be a sweet guy from a little town in the South,'' she says.
Moore - who now lives in blues capital New Orleans with his wife, Georgina - grew up in Compton, a Los Angeles suburb. He got his first guitar at age 12 during a visit to his Uncle Herman's house in San Jose and also dabbled in steel drums, trumpet and French horn as a student at Compton High School in the 1960s.
That's also where he first saw legendary blues man Taj Majal, who quickly became one of his musical idols.
``It was one of those experiences that only I was having,'' he says of the concert. ``No one else seemed to get it.''
His influences still include Taj Majal - with whom he has played on stage - and blues great Muddy Waters. But he also counts musicians such as Shawn Colvin and Lyle Lovett among his influences.
The result has been songs that, while strongly influenced by blues, often evade labels.
``He's something a little different. His music crosses a lot of format borders,'' says Bill Evans, music director at San Francisco's KFOG radio station, which often plays Moore's music. ``Some people concentrate on their playing. With Kevin, the song is foremost.''
But, while he strays from blues from time to time, Moore also knows what got him where he is.
``The only songs that have really stood out or had a life were the ones
that said something about life,'' he says. ``So the blues has become a meter I
sort of gauge things by.''LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
by CNB