Keb' Mo' is less a blues singer than a performer who works from that conceptual base, and like Bonnie Raitt discovered, bringing a modern pop-blues to a wide audience sure beats playing authentic for purists. Either path is as fake or as real as the other in a post-postmodern age where the blues creaks along as a single DNA strand in a world of rap, metal, and neo-soul. So enough about whether he's a real bluesman or not, because in the end he has to put supper on the table, and he does it by crafting a warm, wry, blues-informed version of pop Americana that wrestles with contemporary problems like how to pay the mortgage, the high price of coffee, or how to afford a vacation. This set combines his 1994 debut release, Keb' Mo', with an album that appeared ten years later in 2004, Keep It Simple, and combined like this, they show the full spectrum of what this easy-to-like performer brings to the table.