Mo’ Better Blues?

There’s something surreal about the idea of the blues thriving as the 21st century approaches. Who could have predicted that music born of the repression, primitive conditions and cultural isolation endemic to the early part of this century was destined to become an arena attraction, a marketing commodity, a form of mainstream musical mass communication?

Naturally, there are those who believe it wasn’t meant to be this way. Purists decry the House Of Blues’ franchising of the music and cringe at the thought of blues pioneer John Lee Hooker hawking products on TV commercials.

To them, Keb’ Mo’ could be seen as The Enemy.

The singer-songwriter-guitarist, who was born Kevin Moore and whose stage name could be construed as a affectation of African American dialect, stretches the limits of the blues parameters into commercial pop music. It could be argued that Keb’ Mo’ is to the blues what Kenny G. is to jazz.

Yet some of the material on his latest album, “Just Like You,” shows Moore to be a gifted interpreter of the blues and a legitimate innovator whose readings update a genre in dire need of refreshment.

Moore, who plays tonight at the Coach House, didn’t grow up steeped in the blues, doesn’t come from the South and practically begs for a volley of slings and arrows from outraged blues purists by using photos on “Just Like You” that mimic the only two surviving photos of Robert Johnson, the holiest of the holy figures in blues history.

Moore isn’t particularly concerned about ruffling feathers.

“My music isn’t a conscious effort to be one thing or another, it’s just the way I play,” Moore, 45, said by phone recently from a San Francisco motel room. “I’m in the blues genre mostly because you need to be in a genre, you know?

“But labels don’t bother me. All the music and writing experiences I had beforehand, I guess the blues is my final destination for all that. I don’t know where it goes from here, but the blues is like my anchor, a place to dig my heels in.”

Moore doesn’t fit in the biographical context of the classic blues man. He’s a product of modern-day Los Angeles rather than some rural Southern hellhole, he’s educated and well-spoken as opposed to primal and unsophisticated, he came to the blues as a career choice rather than as a matter of pure expression and survival.

Rather than indulging in any uncomfortable apologia for his roots, Moore elects to link the Robert Johnsons to himself, rather than the other way around.

“The basic blues guy of the past may not have been book-learned, but he learned from life,” said Moore. “He was just as educated as anyone, he was just educated differently. His education came from hard knocks, which is just as valid an education as any.”

And while Moore cites any number of blues musicians as influences, he also names performers from other fields who were equally important to him.

“I’ve been influenced by probably every artist in the Top 40 to come along in the last 20 years,” he said. “I’m influenced by writers like Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill, I’m influenced by James Taylor, I’m influenced by Aretha Franklin, Isaac Hayes, all that Stax stuff, it’s whole mix of people. I picked up knowledge wherever I could get it. I went to school and studied jazz theory, I took private lessons, I learned from watching friends play.”

Moore performed from the time he was a teenager--as a solo performer, in local bands and as backing guitarist for other artists (including a stint with Papa John Creach). He did an album for Casablanca Records in 1980 that attracted little notice, then he melted once more into the background before deciding to dedicate himself to his music.

One day in 1987, Moore decided never again to take a job other than performing, and his career has been climbing ever since.

“I just decided I wasn’t having any luck with anything else,” he said. “At that point, I wasn’t going to become the executive of a big company or anything, I wasn’t going to start some new industry, so I might as well put all my eggs in one basket and make a commitment.”

Moore was signed to the reactivated Okeh Records--one of the original blues labels of the 1920s and a resurgent R&B; force in the ‘50s. His album “Keb’ Mo’ ” was released in 1994. The album won him much critical acclaim, a growing national following and a W.C. Handy award for country/acoustic blues album of the year.

“Keb’ Mo’ ” was a sparse outing, mostly just Moore and his Mississippi John Hurt-like finger-picking and simple-but-sweet slide work. In contrast, “Just For You” is a half solo, half band-driven effort that includes Moore in vocal duets with Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne.

For all the modern production and instrumentation of the full band material, however, it’s still the solo numbers that leave the lasting impression. The gospel-tinged “Hand It Over,” the lyrically harrowing “Momma, Where’s My Daddy” and the lilting “Lullaby Baby Blues” feature unique chording and phrasing and poetic lyrics almost never found in the realm of the blues.

Some might complain about his unconventional muse within the idiom, but Moore refuses to be limited by the standard three-chord blues progression and “I woke up this morning” brand of lyrics. It’s also true that the gems of “Just Like You” are surrounded by songs and packaging that undeniably are aimed at the commercial bottom line.

But Moore is at heart a humble craftsman rather than a self-aware pathfinder, his objectives are to entertain and earn a living rather than to revolutionize--much like, well, B.B. King, whose music has been among the most revolutionary in the blues.

“My goal is to give my divine gift of music its best shot,” said Moore. “And for anyone who wants to hear it to get a chance to.”

* Keb’ Mo’, Shook Up World and Cat Blues perform tonight at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $15-$17. (714) 496-8930.