Top Ad

Showing posts with label Blues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blues. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

New Album Release from Taj Mahal & Keb' Mo' 'Room On The Porch' on Concord Records /#blues #music

WITH THEIR SINGLE "BETTER THAN EVER"
FEAT. WENDY MOTEN

 


AMERICAN MUSIC MASTERS REUNITE TO “REMIND US WHEN TIMES ARE DARK, MUSIC CAN BRING COMMUNITY, LOVE, AND HOPE” (WNYC)

 

PERFORMANCE THIS WEEK AT NEW YORK CITY’S LEGENDARY TOWN HALL
(MAY 28) KICKS OFF THE DUO’S 2025 ‘TAJMO’ TOUR

 

Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ have released Room On The Porch, an album that celebrates inclusivity, togetherness and the deep African imprint on American roots music. “The porch is a metaphor for a perfect world - with the kind of smiles like those between the two of them on the cover,” said MIX Magazine in a recent front-page profile. Room On The Porch also marks the first time these two legends have teamed up in nearly a decade (since 2017’s TajMo), bringing 10 GRAMMY Awards between them - and catalogs that have left an undeniable mark on American music. "I certainly can't imagine my life without your songs as the soundtrack," said Tavis Smiley to Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ during a recent interview about the new album. The album was also featured in NPR Music's New Music Friday.

 

Room On The Porch features more original co-written tracks between the two American music masters than ever before, while also featuring trailblazing collaborators like John Oates and two-time GRAMMY ‘Song Of The Year’ nominee Ruby AmanfuWendy Moten joins Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ on their radio single “Better Than Ever” which includes a special behind-the-scenes music video. For the TajMo duo though, there was one collaboration that felt particularly moving: “We had our sons in there playing with us and all the other musicians and writers were hanging the whole time,” remembers Keb’ Mo’. “So it was a really fun place to be.” The results, as MOJO described them in a four-star review, are “a perfect mix of expertise and lightness of touch.”

This ten-song collection from Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ encapsulates why “each of them is a standard-bearer in the genre-bending world of folk, blues, soul, and Americana” (Billboard) -- but, as Taj points out, these styles are all deeply tied together by their shared roots. “If you take the African imprint out of Western music for the last 500 years, there’s almost nothing left,” he says. “As much as it might feel like we’re touching on all these different genres, the way I see it, we’re just connecting with the music of our ancestors and their influence on what’s happening now.” 

 

Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ will also bring their TajMo live show back on the road this summer--celebrating Room On The Porch to over a dozen cities across the United States. Live dates kicked off with a special appearance at the Grand Ole Opry (joined by Ruby Amanfu) on album release day (May 23) ahead of their first headline show together at New York’s Town Hall on May 28. The pair were surprised on The Opry stage with a Proclamation from Nashville's Mayor declaring May 23, 2025 as "TajMo Day"!

For more information visit: https://www.tajblues.com/tour and http://kebmo.com/

 

TajMo 2025 Tour Dates:

5/28 - New York, NY - The Town Hall

5/30 - Sidney, ME - Bowl In The Pines

5/31 - Hammondsport, NY - The Pavilion at Point of the Bluff Vineyards

6/1 – Hyannis, MA – Cape Cod Melody Tent

6/3 – Concord, NH – Capitol Center for the Arts – Chubb Theatre

6/4 - South Deerfield, MA - Summer Stage at Tree House Brewing

6/6 - Bensalem, PA - Xcite Center at Parx Casino

6/7 - Selbyville, DE - Freeman Arts Pavilion

6/8 - Vienna, VA - Wolf Trap, Filene Center

6/10 - Huber Heights, OH - Rose Music Center at The Heights

6/12 - Grand Rapids, MI - Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park

6/13 - Interlochen, MI - Interlochen Center for the Arts

6/14 - Highland Park, IL - Ravinia Festival

6/15 - Detroit, MI - Masonic Cathedral Theatre

 

Taj Mahal: Instagram  | Facebook

Keb' Mo': Instagram  | Facebook



#Artist and Track TitleTime
1.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - Better Than Ever feat. Wendy Moten05:04
2.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - Room On The Porch feat. Ruby Amanfu04:05
3.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - My Darling My Dear03:58
4.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out03:42
5.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - She Keeps Me Movin’04:02
6.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - Make Up Your Mind04:40
7.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - Thicker Than Mud04:38
8.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - Junkyard Dog04:21
9.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - Blues’ll Give You Back Your Soul04:47
10.Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' - Rough Time Blues04:30

Best selling smooth jazz at amazon.com
Jazz from Amazon.com

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Mark Knopfler’s ‘Tracker’ coming March 16th/17th

Mark Knopfler’s eighth studio album, Tracker, will be released on March 16, 2015 (March 17 in North America). The album features 11 new songs inspired by a wide range of subjects including Beryl Bainbridge and Basil Bunting. The songs contain Mark’s usual wryly but accurately observed vignettes of real life wrapped up in a musical accompaniment of distinctive subtlety.

Tracker will be available on CD, double vinyl, deluxe CD with four bonus tracks, and a lavish box set that will include the album on both CD and vinyl with a bonus CD featuring six extra tracks, a DVD with an exclusive short film directed by Henrik Hansen and an interview with Mark where he talks about the new record. Sleeve notes have been specially written by acclaimed US author Richard Ford and it also contains a numbered art print and six photographic prints.

Mark said: “The album title ‘Tracker’ arrived out of me trying to find my way over the decades. Out of me tracking time – looking at people, places and things from my past, and out of the process of tracking as in recording tracks in the studio.”
See below for the official track-listing and click here to listen to the first single, “Beryl”. Keep an eye on your inbox in the coming weeks for MarkKnopfler.com pre-order information.

1. Laughs and Jokes and Drinks and Smokes
2. Basil
3. River Towns
4. Skydiver
5. Mighty Man
6. Broken Bones
7. Long Cool Girl
8. Lights of Taormina
9. Silver Eagle
10. Beryl
11. Wherever I Go (featuring Ruth Moody)


Best selling smooth jazz at amazon.com Jazz from Amazon.com
Bookmark and Share

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band - "Goin' Home" In Stores Now on Concord Records #blues, #video

"This is a homecoming in more ways than one," Kenny Wayne Shepherd says of Goin' Home, The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band's debut on Concord Records. "I felt like I was retracing my steps and reliving all the good times that I've had in my life because of this music. And hopefully, that amount of happiness comes through on the album." Order Goin' Home from amazon.com

In a 20-year recording career that began when he was just 16, Shepherd has established himself as an immensely popular recording artist, a consistently in-demand live act and an influential force in a worldwide resurgence of interest in the blues. Now, the five-time GRAMMY® nominee delivers one of his most personal projects to date with Goin' Home, his eighth album and his first to be recorded in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana.



Recorded in a mere 11 days, Goin' Home finds Shepherd revisiting a dozen of the vintage blues classics that first ignited his love of the blues and inspired him to play guitar. The artist's sharp interpretive skills and sublime guitar work shine on his renditions of tunes originally popularized by such blues icons as B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King, Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells.

Goin' Home-which continues in the spirit of Shepherd's widely acclaimed 2007 album/film project 10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads-came together when Shepherd decided to take advantage of an 11-day gap in his touring schedule. "Everybody was originally gonna fly home and have a break," he recalls, "but I saw it as an opportunity to make some music. I had been looking for songs and preparing to make a record like this, so I asked the guys in the band for some more song suggestions and we rerouted the tour bus down to Louisiana."

The process of choosing material for the project allowed Shepherd to relive some of his earliest musical epiphanies. "I dug through tons and tons of songs and artists' catalogues, trying to find songs that I thought would be right for this record," he explains. "That brought back all these distinct memories of sitting in the living room in front of the record player and cassette deck as a kid and learning how to play this material."

The fact that the album was recorded in Shreveport, where Shepherd had come of age musically but had never actually recorded, raised the project's emotional intensity. "Being in Shreveport really brought me back, and being surrounded by my family and the music that I cut my teeth on brought up a lot of vivid memories."

Although Shreveport didn't have a world class recording studio when Shepherd was growing up, the city is now home to Blade Studios, the celebrated facility run by respected drummer/producer Brady Blade, who's renowned for his work with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Dave Matthews. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of American Blues, Shepherd and his band-singer Noah Hunt, ex-Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton, former Firm bassist Tony Franklin and keyboardist Riley Osbourn-cut 22 songs, with no studio trickery and minimal overdubbing.

"We did it the way records used to be recorded," Shepherd explains. "Everything, including the vocals, was basically cut live in the studio with everybody in the same room, with the instruments all bleeding together onto two-inch tape. I wanted to record these songs in the same spirit in which they were originally recorded, so the 11-day time frame was self-imposed. That put pressure on everybody to get it right the first time, and I had the utmost confidence in everyone's abilities and knowledge."
Also lending a hand on the project are several talented friends who shared Shepherd's enthusiasm for Goin' Home's back-to-basics concept. Those include fellow guitar icons Joe Walsh, Warren Haynes, Keb' Mo' and Robert Randolph, longtime friend Ringo Starr, Fabulous Thunderbirds frontman Kim Wilson, the Rebirth Brass Band and co-producer Blade's father, Pastor Brady Blade Sr., who lends a bracing dose of preaching to Shepherd's version of Bo Diddley's "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover."

"Everybody who performed on the record shared my passion, appreciation and respect for this music, but they're also all good friends of mine," Shepherd notes. "It was all pretty casual; I'd just run into people and ask if they wanted to be a part of it, and every one of them contributed something significant to the record.

"I feel like I've matured a lot as a musician," Shepherd concludes. "My purpose for making music is the same as it ever was, but I've also learned a lot over the years. Less can be more. The great blues musicians who originally moved me didn't always have to burn up the neck of the guitar by playing a bunch of notes. They knew how to play the right note at the right time, in a way that just pierces you right to your heart. That was an important lesson, and it's my goal to move people in that same way that my role models moved me."

Find out more about Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band


1. Palace Of The King 3:46
2. Everything Gonna Be Alright 4:16
3. I Love The Life I Live 5:38
4. House Is Rockin’ 2:57
5. Breaking Up Somebody’s Home 4:59
6. You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now 8:02
7. You Can’t Judge A Book By The Cover 3:26
8. Boogie Man 4:04
9. Looking Back 4:04
10. Cut You Loose 4:33
11. Born Under A Bad Sign 4:22
12. Still A Fool 7:28

Best selling smooth jazz at amazon.com
Jazz from Amazon.com
Bookmark and Share