I am not going to provide any background to these two classic bluesmen, as if you don’t know who they are then your musical education has been sadly lacking. It is their first collaboration together since their 2017 Grammy Award winning ‘TajMo’ and expect this to also gain a great many awards. What may be surprising to many who come to this pairing for the first time is just how feel good and commercial this pairing is, as they sit in the blues as the root but also bring in lots of other elements, including steel drums. Bear in mind that Keb’ Mo’ has been called a living link to the seminal Delta blues while Taj Mahal has been redefining the blues for more than 50 years.
It is much cleaner and pleasant than much of the blues I listen to, in some ways it has almost been sanitised for the modern market, and is certainly very different to what they were both creating decades ago, but while it never has quite that indispensable rawness and pain which I associate with the genre, it certainly is a very pleasant listen but is definitely more blues lite than blues. Consequently this will get a great many favourable reviews and will undoubtedly find them in the Grammies again, but this is way too lightweight for me as it has been cleaned up within an inch of its life. Way more palatable than much of which normally hits the charts, there is just not enough depth for me to want to return to it often.
Rating: 7/10
Links:
https://www.tajblues.com/
https://kebmo.com/
https://concordjazz.com/