Good Strong Woman
by Keb' Mo' (featuring Darius Rucker)

Album: Good To Be (2021)
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Songfacts®:

  • Veteran blues musician Keb' Mo' recalls some sage advice from his mama on this track, which is the lead single from his 2022 Good To Be album. She told him to ditch the untrustworthy gold-digger he loved in favor of a "good strong woman" who would have his back when times got tough.
  • Keb' Mo' is joined by Darius Rucker, the former Hootie & The Blowfish frontman who started a country music career in the late 2000s. In fact, it was Rucker who sealed the deal on the song's fate. Mo' explained: "It's a song that I didn't think I'd be recording, but it was just too much fun, and I had to give it a shot. When Darius Rucker got involved, it went from fun to stun."
  • Mo' turned to several Nashville songsmiths to put this country-influenced tune together. It was co-written by Jason Nix ("Made For Me") and Jason Gantt (Jordan Davis' "Take It From Me") and produced by Vince Gill. In a 2022 Songfacts interview, Mo' explained why he sought Gill for the project. "Vince is a good friend of mine. It was more like working with a friend than working with a 'country star,'" he said. "I like to work around people I have a history with, and people that get what I'm doing, and who are skilled at the same time. Originally, he was going to do the whole record. Then Covid hit, and we kept trying to figure out how we were gonna do it, you know? What happened was, we narrowed it down. We said, "Let's do three songs." Three of the songs on the record, which are, 'Good To Be,' which is the title cut, ''62 Chevy,' and 'Good Strong Woman.'"
  • Mo' was born in the Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles but has a great appreciation for country music. When he was working as a flower deliveryman, he used to listen to country radio on his route. "I was always a big fan of country lyrics," he told Songfacts.
  • Good To Be dropped three years after a pair of hit releases from Keb' Mo': the Grammy Award-winning album Oklahoma (Best Americana Album) and the Christmas record Moonlight, Mistletoe & You, which went to #1 on the US Blues Albums chart.
  • The music video shows Mo' and Rucker laying down the track in the studio, along with Gill and guitarist Tom Bukovac, while other friends hang out during the session.

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