Keb' Mo' Oklahoma (CD)

With the famous musical veteran Colin Linden (The Band, Bruce Cockburn) taking over the production, the album's 10 tracks include the various talents of Keb' Mo, delivering some of the most adventurous and personal work of his career.

The inspiration for the title track "Oklahoma" began with a state visit in 2013 for a benefit show with Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Keb' experienced at first hand the consequences of a destructive tornado. "I thought about what it must be like to live in Oklahoma and all the great people who came from Oklahoma," he recalls. With just one melody in mind for a song about Oklahoma and little personal connection to the state, the title track was almost never conceived. That's until the hands of fate led him to the meeting and songwriting session with Dara Tucker, an Oklahoma-born woman. Together they set out to portray the complicated depth of American history in their home country. Native American connection and tragedy, natural and man-made disasters, incredible musicians and the Tulsa sound as well as Western robustness and strength are themes. Remarkable is the mention of Greenwood/Archer and Pine, known as "Black Wall Street," which was infamously destroyed in 1921 in one of the most devastating massacres in the history of U.S. racial relations.