Goin' Home: Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Kenny Wayne Shepherd was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and is a "completely self-taught" guitarist who does not read music. Shepherd's father was a local radio personality and some-time concert promoter, who had a vast collection of music that influenced young Kenny. Shepherd got his first "guitar" at the age of four, which his grandmother purchased. with S&H Green Stamps.
Shepherd began playing guitar in earnest at the age of seven, about six months after meeting and being "pretty mesmerized" by Stevie Ray Vaughan, in June 1984, at one of his father's promoted concerts.
His self-taught method was a process of learning one note at a time, playing and rewinding cassette tapes, using "a cheap Yamaha wanna-be Stratocaster...made out of plywood, basically", and learning to play by following along with material from his father's record collection.
At the age of 13, Shepherd was invited to play guitar onstage by blues musician Bryan Lee. He subsequently made demo tapes, and a video was shot at Shepherd's first performance at the Red River Revel Arts Festival in Shreveport. It was this video performance that impressed Giant Records chief Irving Azoff enough to sign Shepherd to a multiple album record deal.
From 1995 on, Shepherd took seven singles into the Top 10, and holds the record for the longest-running album on the Billboard Blues Charts with Trouble Is....
In 1996, Shepherd began a longtime collaboration with vocalist Noah Hunt, who provided the vocals for Shepherd's signature song, "Blue on Black". Shepherd has been nominated for five Grammy Awards, and has received two Billboard Music Awards, two Blues Music Awards and two Orville H. Gibson Awards.
Shepherd married actor Mel Gibson's eldest daughter, Hannah, on September 16, 2006, and they have three children.
In 2007, he released a critically acclaimed and two time Grammy nominated DVD–CD project, 10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads. This documents Shepherd as he travels the country to jam with and interview the last of the authentic blues musicians. As they tour the backroads, Shepherd, with members of the Double Trouble Band, play with a host of blues greats including Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and Bryan Lee, Buddy Flett (with whom he jams at Lead Belly's grave), B. B. King, blues harp master Jerry "Boogie" McCain, Cootie Stark, Neal Pattman, John Dee Holeman, Etta Baker, Henry Townsend with Honeyboy Edwards, and a concert session with the surviving members of Muddy Waters' and Howlin' Wolf's bands, including luminaries such as Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and Pinetop Perkins.
In September 2008, Fender Musical Instruments Corp. released the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Signature Series Stratocaster, designed exclusively by Shepherd.
In 2010 Shepherd was nominated for a Grammy for Live In Chicago which featured performances with Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Buddy Flett and Bryan Lee.
In 2011, Shepherd released his seventh CD entitled How I Go on through Roadrunner Records.
OFFICIAL KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD BAND VIDEO FOR "NEVER LOOKIN BACK (2011)
1n 2014, having already set an impressive standard for creative vision and world-class musicianship, Shepherd delivered his most personal project to date with Goin' Home. Recorded in an 11-day whirlwind in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, the release finds Shepherd revisiting a dozen of the vintage blues classics that originally inspired him to pick up the guitar and pursue a life in music, approaching the material with an intensity that affirms his deep connection to these time-tested classics. "It was definitely an emotional experience, and it was the most fun I've ever had making a record," Kenny Wayne Shepherd says. "I felt like I was retracing my steps back to where it all began."
On Goin Home, Shepherd's sharp interpretive skills and sublime guitar work shine on his renditions of tunes originally popularized by such blues icons as B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King, Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Stevie Ray Vaughan,Buddy Guy and Junior Wells. Shepherd's memorable readings of such beloved standards as "I Love the Life I Live," "The House Is Rockin'," "Breaking Up Somebody's Home" and "Born Under a Bad Sign," along with some lesser-known tunes drawn deep from within the catalogues of his heroes. Shepherd's new interpretations are faithful to the spirit of the originals, while serving as vibrant expressions of Shepherd's musical soul.
Goin' Homefirst began to take shape when Shepherd decided to take advantage of an 11-day gap in his touring schedule. Rather than use the time to take a break, he rerouted his tour bus to Shreveport and headed for Blade Studios, run by Shepherd's hometown friendand respected drummer/producer Brady Blade, renowned for his work with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Dave Matthews. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of American Blues, Shepherd and his band—singer Noah Hunt, ex-Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton, former Firm bassist Tony Franklin and keyboardist Riley Osbourn, whose voluminous credits include work with B.B. King, Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker—cut 22 songs, with no studio trickery and minimal overdubbing.
Also lending their talents on Goin' Homeare several talented friends who shared Shepherd's enthusiasm for the project's back-to-basics ethos. Those guests include fellow guitar icons Joe Walsh, Warren Haynes, Keb' Mo' and Robert Randolph, longtime friend Ringo Starr, Fabulous Thunderbirds frontman Kim Wilson, the Rebirth Brass Band and co-producer Blade's father, Pastor Brady Blade Sr., who lends a bracing dose of preaching to Shepherd's version of Bo Diddley's ""You Can't Judge aBook by the Cover."
KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD TALKS ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM
The same deeply-ingrained passion for the blues that powers Goin' Home has driven Kenny Wayne Shepherd ever since he first discovered the music and taught himself to play guitar.
Shepherd predicts that the lessons he learned in making Goin' Home are likely to influence his approach to record-making in the future. "We had so much fun doing it this way that it never felt like work," he asserts.
"As an artist I feel it’s appropriate to make a record that feels right at that time, whether it’s a rock record or a straight blues album, or something in between."Shepherd concludes, "Trying different things is how you evolve, as a musician and as a person. And in the process of that, you figure out what works for you and what gets you inspired."
Kenny and the band will be touring the UK again next year.
KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD & NOAH HUNT HAVE A MESSAGE FOR THEIR UK FANS
