Keb’ Mo’ brings The Breakdown to Marion’s Civic Center on Nov 14

The five-time Grammy winner plays Saturday, Nov 14, behind a stripped-back new album, in a theater rebuilt from the Orpheum’s old facade.

A blues guitarist, a voice, and a room that remembers vaudeville. That’s the picture on Saturday, Nov 14, when Keb’ Mo’ plays the Marion Cultural and Civic Center, with the show starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are through the Civic Center.

It’s a first for this corner of the state, by our count: we have no earlier Carbondale-area show on file for Keb’ Mo’. Southern Illinois doesn’t always land on a national blues tour, and this one comes with a new record attached.

That record is The Breakdown, released Aug 21 on Concord, according to Bluestown Music. It’s a ten-track set that strips things back, putting his voice and guitar at the center, and the singles have included “Fussing and Fighting,” “Hand It Over” and “One Day Away.” For a five-time Grammy winner who has spent decades with a full band, choosing to pare it down is a statement about where he is right now.

For a five-time Grammy winner, choosing to pare it down is a statement about where he is right now.

Marion sits in the middle of a busy November run. Keb’ Mo’ plays Greenville–Spartanburg on Nov 8 and Chattanooga on Nov 10 before coming here, then heads north to Chicago on Nov 16, Akron–Canton on Nov 17 and Fort Wayne on Nov 18. For anyone in the region, this Saturday night is the closest he gets.

The building has its own story. The Civic Center stands on the site of the Orpheum Theatre, which opened in 1922 with vaudeville and movies, according to the Marion Illinois History Preservation society. Television cut into its business; it became a movie-only house in the 1950s and closed in 1971. The city bought the property in 1973, renovated it, and reopened it on Aug 16, 1974, as the Marion Cultural and Civic Center.

Then, on March 10, 1997, a fire gutted the theater. The facade was saved, but the rest was torn down. The city and the Civic Center Foundation raised money for a larger replacement, which kept the salvaged terra-cotta front, broke ground in 2002 and was finished in 2004. The new design won an American Institute of Architects Southern Illinois district award in 2005. Today the hall holds 1,094, which makes it one of the larger seated rooms in the region.

That history fits a blues show. The Orpheum started out as a place for touring entertainers to stop in a small Illinois city on their way somewhere else, and the Civic Center is still doing that work, more than a century on, behind the same facade.

What to know before you go: it’s a 7 p.m. Saturday start in downtown Marion. Check the city’s page for the Civic Center and the venue site for box office details.

A bluesman with a quiet new record, in a theater that survived a fire to keep its face. It should be a good Saturday night in Marion.

Sources: Keb’ Mo’ – The Breakdown (Bluestown Music) (bluestownmusic.nl); Keb Mo (Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati newsroom) (casino.hardrock.com); Cultural and Civic Center (Marion Illinois History Preservation) (mihp.org); City of Marion — Cultural and Civic Center (cityofmarionil.gov); Marion Cultural and Civic Center (Enjoy Illinois) (enjoyillinois.com)