2024 may not have been the best of years for Keb’ Mo’–already facing the end of a nearly 20-year marriage, Keb’ experienced shortness of breath while on tour and required open heart surgery–but we know that at least one good thing came out of it, in the form of Mo’s latest album The Breakdown (Concord Records).
Recorded in Keb’s home studio outside of Nashville while he recovered from surgery, the 10 tracks on The Breakdown feature Mo’ playing mostly alone and acoustic, something Keb’ has never before done for a full album. While the recording tends to be one of Keb’s mellower overall, with all of the songs here being either slow or midtempo numbers, the stripped-down approach does allow for more of a focus on Mo’s voice and playing than we usually get to hear, and certainly doesn’t impede Mo’s ability to maintain the listener’s interest.
After kicking off on a swaying, handclap-accompanied “Fussing and Fighting”, toward the end of which we hear Keb’ get a bit more forceful vocally, the bluesman moves to “Every Step of the Way,” one of several slow, softer tracks on the album that really spotlight the gentler, more soaring side of Mo’s vocals. As you might expect with a project recorded under the circumstances with which Mo’ was dealing at the time, when Keb’ says “it felt like everything in my life was breaking down” (hence the album’s title and the bluesman’s response of “break[ing] the music down, too”), many of the songs here have deep, reflective lyrics, with Keb’ delivering such verses as “I’m so tired of thinkin’, like I’ve got life figured out/ The only thing in my control, is I’m gonna do my best and let the rest go… and I don’t know what’s around the next turn, but I’ll win, or I’ll learn/ wherever ‘morrow leads, I’m gonna be thankful, for every step of the way” (“Every Step of the Way”); “Every day, I count my blessings, do a little less second guessin’/ this life and every breath you take is borrowed/ I’m taking myself too serious, I tell myself: lighten up, you might have more yesterdays than tomorrows” (“More Yesterdays”); “and I’m always warnin’, you’ll wake up one mornin’, to find your oasis is not what it seems/ You can save all your dreams and schemes for the other love in your life/ I’m livin’ in the moment tonight” (“Living in the Moment”); “no matter where I go, or what I do, my stitched-up heart’s gonna’ carry me through” (“Stitched Up Heart”); and “You may be closer than you think, to your miracle/ it might be one day away, only one day away, just one day away, that makes the difference” (“One Day Away”).
While some of the tracks, such as “Stitched Up Heart”, were obviously written following Mo’s surgery, others have been brewing some time longer for Mo’ and may have just needed the right perspective to finish writing and/or record them, including, for example, a “More Yesterdays” that Keb’s been piecing together for the past decade and a half, and the serene “Living in the Moment,” which was actually written almost 50 years ago, with ‘Mo also revisiting a track from his 1996 album Just Like You in the breezy, clap-driven “Hand It Over”, this time bringing in the Soweto Gospel Choir to add more of an African sound.
Another number featuring handclaps–“They Don’t Make ‘Em (Like They Used To)”–also includes guest backing vocals, in this instance, from a cappella soul-jazz group Take 6, along with some harmonica from Mo’, to make for the coolest, most grooving track on the album, while the swaying “We Make Love” serves as an entertaining reminder of the “work” we should all be doing on a daily basis, with such lyrics as “You don’t need an education, you don’t need a phone/ you don’t need a car, you can work from home/ Open up your heart each and every day, and whatever you need is gonna’ come your way/ we make peace, compassion, we make time in a timely fashion/ we make love, we make love, we make love”.
Together, it all makes The Breakdown easily one of most inspirational albums we’ve ever heard, not to mention a pure joy to which to listen!