KEB' MO'
Big Wide Grin (Sony Okeh)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes

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Kevin Moore AKA Keb' Mo' is one of America's premier acoustic bluesmen and he excels at making spare, spend-some-time-at-home albums that are a joy to listen to. This album is a departure from that formula. Big Wide Grin is designed as a "family" album that parents & kids will both enjoy. It's mostly covers of famous songs like the Ojay's "Love Train" and "Sly Stone's Family Affair." He doesn't try to duplicate the original tunes with a full funk treatment, but he does bring it up to a full band sound, sometimes with a backing chorus, about the level you might find on a Bonnie Raitt record. The cuts concentrate much more on Keb' Mo's singing, and though he does get in his licks, sometimes it seems a little stilted. He might have done better to bring it down one more notch, more like how he treats Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" and Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," which features a duet with his son.

My favorite cuts are the lesser known songs, especially "The Flat Foot Floogie," a lovely jive tune that just scats along, and the lead track "Everybody Be Yourself." A couple acoustic numbers slip in here and there including "Color Him Father" and a heartfelt "America The Beautiful," that have Keb' Mo' sounding more like his landmark earlier albums, The Door and Slow Down.

Big Wide Grin's a little overproduced in spots, but Keb' Mo' still channels the same kind of happy energy that Bobby McFerrin and Taj Mahal have down to a science, and with all that in his favor your family can't help but have, er, a Big Wide Grin too.

© 2002 - Rusty Pipes