By: Rick Landers
Interview by: Cody Sikes
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Photo credit – Mark Seliger
A fine bluesman in his own right, Kenny Wayne Shepherd pumps his own style of blues into both savage mean licks, as well as in moving heartfelt emotional riffs that cut deep with the best of his contemporaries.
Since his early entry to the stage at sixteen, Kenny has wowed a growing fan base of friends who huddle up to the stage to watch and hear him dig into traditional numbers, as well as his own hit songs.
Born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, Shepherd earned his blues stripes with an explosive amount of guitar flash, but also by sticking to the roots of the blues, and being a respected expert on the traditions laid down by the likes of Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Pinetop Perkins from the early days to include another fine blues hero, Stevie Ray Vaughan.
An astute guitarist, Kenny has grabbed and fused the blues, and rock ‘n’ roll into his own melting pot of rip roaring fun.
With millions of albums sold around the world, he has garnered five GRAMMY ® nominations, two Blues Music awards, two Billboard Music Awards, the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive award and a couple of Orville H. Gibson awards. And he’s nailed down several #1 rock singles, while hitting the top of the album charts seven times.
Most recently, Shepherd has been in the news over an issue of national controversy, and his 2021 Blues Music Awards nomination has been rescinded by The Blues Foundation.
In response, Shepherd issued an apologetic response in Rolling Stone magazine. Guitar International supports The Blues Foundation’s decision, as well as Mr. Shepherd’s acknowledgement of the Confederate flag’s offensiveness and his display of it, his apology, and his statement clearly denouncing all forms of racism. Further, Guitar International extends offers to both Mr. Shepherd and Ms. Patricia Wilson Adeb, President/CEO, The Blues Foundation, invitations to present on our pages any clarifications or details of deliberations behind their decisions on this matter, as well as constructive and unifying plans for the blues community’s road ahead.
Notably, Shepherd promoted and honored the roots of the blues, as well as legendary players and others who deserved recognition, with his 2007 CD/DVD package, 10 Days Out – Blues From the Backroads, featuring: Etta Baker, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, B.B. King, Cootie Stark, Neal Pattman, Jerry “Boogie” McCain, as well as members of the Muddy Waters band and the Howlin’ Wolf band.
Back home, Kenny’s rounded up a cool herd of cherished guitars, that include several Stratocasters (one signed by Stevie Ray Vaughan), a couple of Les Pauls (one a family heirloom), and a few acoustics we’d all love to get our hands on, even if just for a song or two. And when rambling on the backroads, he’s got plenty of horsepower in his garage that includes a few muscle cars, including a 1950 Ford Business Coupe with a 396 Chevy big block to burn rubber in….very cool.
Along the way, Kenny has worked alongside many of his own guitar slinging heroes, including: Stephen Stills, Pinetop Perkins, B.B. King, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Hubert Sumlin, and David “Honeyboy” Edwards. And, from the “git go”, Shepherd’s talent was recognized throughout the music industry with a lot of press and record sales, including tracks from his debut album, Ledbetter Heights, that went Platinum, as well as his second release, Trouble Is, that also hit Platinum.
Then there’s a string of hot albums that bring us to his latest live performance album release (November 2020) with the KWS band, Straight to You: Live, that kicks ass once again with some turgid riffs, and we’re looking forward to seeing the group on tour in 2021 – Tour Schedule.
Guitar International had a chat with Kenny last year, where he talked about his bands, the blues, cars, guitars, songwriting, and of course, the pandemic we’re all dealing with these days.
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Cody Sikes: How’s it going man?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Good, how are you?
Cody: Great, how has quarantine been treating you?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Staying busy, my wife and I have six kids, so there’s no shortage of things to do around the house. This lively household has kept us entertained and occupied.
Cody: Cool, man. So just this year, you released what I think is a great live album, Straight To You: Live. In the process of making this, how did you decide that this was the concert to release? What made this show special to you?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: We did the show last November in Germany, during our European tour, which was basically all sold out. We were asked to be part of this prestigious concert series that’s broadcast over there called Rockpalast, so that’s why it was filmed.
After the show, the band felt, all felt like we had a good performance, so we went back and watched some of the camera work, and I have my audio crew recording the audio, which we have actually been doing every night for the past several years. We had all the elements, but there was no intention of a formal release of that night.
What really kind of made my mind up was when the tours started getting cancelled, postponed, and rescheduled for this year. We had all of 2020 booked into 2021, then the virus hit and nobody’s been able to work since. So, I started thinking about it, we had just recorded a new studio album, and I was like, it’s just not the right time to release a studio record because we release new material so that we can go out and play that music for people live, in concerts.
Since that’s not happening and people have been asking for years for us to put out a live DVD, and we’ve never actually done it except for one live record about 10 years ago, so I thought this is probably the most perfect opportunity to do it.
We revisited the concert from that night and felt really strongly about it. We thought the fans will be happy and it’s a good representation of the band and the tour we were doing at the time, so we started working on the packing, put it together, and now it’s out.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: I’m really involved in every part of the process. I will say though, that the camera guys and the production crew that were doing the camera work that day are an extremely well-seasoned group of guys, and they know what they’re doing. So, there was not a lot of changes that we felt we needed to make. I really like their initial approach, which was to be very inclusive of the entire band.
When you go watch videos of a lot of guitar players, or bands that kind of revolve around a guitar player, it’s like 98 percent of all the camera work is on that guy. But, all my guys are top shelf musicians and they all contribute, we’re a team up there and I like how inclusive it was. Not every song is just on me all the time, you know.
You see the horn players when their parts stand out, and Chris Layton on drums, the keys, and everybody gets their fair share of time on the screen. They’re really involved in the concert and the viewer gets to see all of that.
Cody: That’s pretty cool, do you keep the same film crew for all of your performances?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Obviously the audio crew, they travel with me, so those guys are always there. As far as the filming goes, we use different people for different shows, but these people were part of the music series over there. So they were used to filming things for television, which really helped out and made the process on the back end a lot less work for us.
Cody: Now that we’re pretty deep into the Covid quarantine, how have you maintained relationships with your fans and fellow musicians?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: We’ve been staying in touch. Noah, who has been the lead singer in my band for a long time, we just got together recently to do some stripped-down versions of some songs for Sirius XM radio, so we got to see each other with that.
I’ve been having regular phone conversations with Chris, my drummer, and text messages and a couple phone calls with the rest of the guys.
In the beginning, every couple of weeks we were having conference calls just to keep everybody updated as to what’s happening with the tour and stuff.
So, we’ve been staying connected, as best we can since a lot of us live in different states from one another.
Cody: Now more than ever, it’s important to stay connected to each other. How do you keep your fans engaged?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: The best way to keep fans engaged is social media, and I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not one of those people that is constantly on social media.
I kind of have to remind myself to do it. I get really busy at home with my wife and my family, and I’ve always been kind of a private person, so I don’t usually like to go around announcing to everybody everything that I’m doing. So, it’s been a real exercise for me embracing social media and trying to find my way through it over the years. We’ve developed a big following and that’s been a great tool to keep a direct dialogue between the fans and the band.
Cody: Shifting gears a bit here, you’ve been a guitarist almost all your life. How do you keep things fresh? Do you still practice new skills, or do you mostly write and learn new songs?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: It’s really about creating music. I would say, generally, the best practice I was getting was on stage. We leave things open-ended on stage for spontaneous things to happen, and we try not to play things the same way every night so that there’s always room for growth. And you play with a certain level of intensity on stage that you just don’t duplicate at home.
So, practicing for me really happens at rehearsal and more-so on stage than anything else. What keeps things interesting for me is writing new material, collaborating with other artists, coming up with new ideas and seeing where that takes us.
Cody: What kinds of music besides rock and blues would you say have influenced your playing?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Oh man, funk without a doubt. Listening to James Brown and his band is hugely responsible for my rhythmic abilities. Jazz, R&B, southern rock, country music, I grew up listening to everything because my dad ran radio stations of many different formats. I grew absorbing all kinds of different music and all of that stuff finds its way into the music that I create, sooner or later.
Cody: Has your quarantine period been a chance for you to develop new styles and techniques?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Well, I think this has been a great opportunity for a lot of guys to brush up on their chops, but for me, it’s been a great opportunity to spend a lot of time with my family that I wouldn’t normally get to spend with them.
We went from having five kids enrolled in school to being forced to quarantine out in California and having to educate them at home, so my hands immediately became full with those kinds of duties rather than being able to sit around for hours everyday playing guitar. But, I still definitely try to focus on different ways of being creative and making music.
Prison Blues by Neal Pattman
Left to Right: Kenny Wayne Shepherd (guitar), Neal “Big Daddy” Pattman (lead vocal/harp) and Cootie Stark (vocal/guitar)
Cody: Do you think it will be strange to readjust to a tour schedule after Covid has subsided?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Yeah, definitely. I’ve gotten on to this schedule, but you know, I’ve done that before. Every year, we get time off around winter and I spend a few months at home with the family.
But what’s really going to be an adjustment is being back up to that level of stamina and having that level of intensity we perform with on stage. The calluses on my hands just aren’t what they used to be, and I’m sure the stamina’s not quite there either, so that’s all going to need to be built back up.
When we ramp up the tour again when we can go back out, there’s going to be a lot of practicing and probably several full band rehearsals to get everybody firing on all cylinders, and it’ll probably still be several shows into the tour before we start stretching out and hopefully get close to where we left off.
Cody: Has anyone surprised you recently with a technique or style that you’ve never heard before?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: I can’t say that anyone’s blown my mind like that. I was flipping through Instagram the other day and found one of those “riff war” videos. I watch a lot of people and what they’re doing on Instagram to try and keep with what’s current, and young players and new people.
Some guy posted a thing that was part of the #riffwars thing that so many people do in this guy was doing flamenco stuff, and you really got to see what his right hand was doing, in addition to the left. That stuff is just so fascinating to me, dude. The way those guys play and everything they do with their right hand is just mind-blowing for me. It’s extremely impressive.
Cody: Yeah, that rhythmic picking is a tough skill to master.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: It’s next level stuff. It is out there, for real.
Cody: Who are some of your favorite artists to see on Instagram?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: I don’t have favorite artists, I mean, I follow all my friends because I like to see what they’re doing and obviously support them, their pages, and their music. But, I also like to flip through that feed of suggestions based on the algorithm of what you look at. Basically, that’s how I’ll discover new, younger players and I really like coming across that the most.
You find something new, you hear something new, you learn a new name, and you think, maybe that’s someone to watch out for. What’s really impressive is the amount of not just young people, but young women that are into the instruments right now and really doing a good job with it, which I think is fantastic.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Photo credit – Mark Seliger
Cody: Yeah, that’s really cool. There’s a lot of fascinating artists out there, and social media makes it easier for innovators to get their work out there.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: It’s a great tool for so many people. There are young artists who have three quarters of a million people following them and I’ve never even heard of them before.
But, they’ve been able to build this following and are making a name for themselves and getting exposure. It’s incredible because nothing like that existed when I first hit the scene. It just puts power in the hands of young people, and I think that’s fantastic.
Cody: When you listen to music, how do you usually go about finding new stuff, besides social media?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: I’m becoming somewhat of a dinosaur. I have a record player, I have a vinyl collection, I listen to satellite radio in the car. I have streaming stuff on my phone as well, but it’s really kind of random to be honest with you. I would say we have probably every format available to us, but I’m not really locked in to any one particular format. I kind of use them all sporadically.
Cody: That makes sense. It’s probably better to be more dynamic with how you take in music to get more variety.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: I like the quality, you know. I don’t know how much it matters to people nowadays, but when you’re in the studio and you know what the music sounded like when it was first created, and you hear how many times down the chain it’s been stepped on digitally, you can hear the quality of the music suffer as a result, like sonically. So, I like the highest fidelity experience as possible. Sometimes you just have to make do with whatever’s closest to you, and if that’s an iPad or a cellphone, then that’s what it’s going to be.
Cody: When you’re working on songs, how does technology like that play into your recording?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: It’s great. The technology, as far as writing songs goes, is incredible because I can’t tell you how many songs that I would have written if I would have a had a way to put the idea down immediately. I would have an idea come to me, but I can’t read or write out music, so I’d have to try and remember it and a lot of times I’d forget it. I wouldn’t have a cassette recorder nearby, so I would have no way of documenting it.
Nowadays, I just whip out the cellphone, hit the voice memo thing, and now I have hundreds and hundreds of ideas just stored in my cellphone. And now, people can make demos and homemade albums on their iPad using Garage Band. All the stuff that is available to us musicians today is pretty incredible, when you think about it. Especially if you were making music before any of that stuff was around.
Cody: Do you think that there is a Kenny Wayne Shepherd style that sets your playing apart from others, like a signature sound? And if so, do you think it’s a gut level or technical thing?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: For me, it’s all about feel and passion. I’ve never been the fastest player or the guy with the hugest vocabulary of licks, it’s been 100 percent about feeling the music and convey that feeling to the audience. I try to get as transparent a sound as I can in my guitar, a nice round, organic, fat Strat sound.
I try to get my guitar to the amp with the least amount of effects necessary, and just keep it real. I like to make people feel something, even by just playing one note, rather than trying to impress them with a hundred notes.
Cody: So, when recording, do you have a specific sound in mind, or do you try to get the best sound out of the available equipment?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: I hear a sound in my mind for a particular song, and then I chase that. Usually I try and have enough equipment available that I can find that sound. You want to have as much stuff on hand as possible to help you accomplish that end game, which is whatever that tone is you hear in your head.
Cody: Do you have any new, upcoming projects, or maybe something you’ve wanted to get to but has always been on the backburner?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Like I was saying earlier, we have a new record that we made back in March, but we’re just holding on to it. We’ll release that when we know we can go back on tour, so there’s certainly new music coming down the pipeline.
I have a side band with Stephen Stills and Barry Goldberg called The Rides, and we were talking about writing and recording a new record before the virus hit, so that got put on hold.
Then there’s a documentary film that we did, a little over ten years ago, called 10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads and we were talking about doing a sequel to that, which perpetually gets put off because it’s very complicated, but it’d be nice to actually put that one out. We have a lot of things that we’re shooting for, and a lot of things already done, and a lot of things that are in the works.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: My biggest challenge is to give all of my obligations the appropriate amount of attention. That includes my fans, my bands, and my family, so being able to properly divide my attention and my time so that none of them are neglected, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of balancing that so far.
Cody: I would imagine that kind of time management takes a lot of practice.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Yeah, you have to set limits and know your boundaries, and not go over them. I can’t be gone for more than four or five weeks straight without coming home and spending time with my family, because otherwise it’s too much.
Cody: I’ve heard that you’re quite the car guy. What’s going on in your garage right now?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Well, we’re building a 1970 Cuda convertible, that’s a big-time custom car that we’re working on. So, that’s been a pretty long project that will hopefully get done sometime in the next year.
I also have a ’74 Dodge Ramcharger truck that we’re trying to build. I’ve also got several completed cars. One of my most fun cars that I recently acquired was the 2018 Dodge Demon which has 840 horsepower and is just a monster to drive. You know man, cars and guitars go hand-in-hand. Almost every guitar player I know loves automobiles to some degree, and it’s certainly one of my passions.
Cody: Do you have a favorite car, overall?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: I would say that the biggest car I was dreaming to have was the ’70 Cuda convertible, so I got that and we’re rebuilding it from the ground, up. When we finish that, it’ll be a big accomplishment for me, because I’ve always wanted to have one of those.
Cody: That’s pretty incredible, man. Has it been a tedious project?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: It’s taken a while, but we’re seriously tricking this thing out. We have a 707 horsepower, supercharged motor in it and all the latest and greatest technology. It’s a lot of work going into it, but once it’s done, it’ll all be worth it.
Cody: What’s something an interviewer has never asked you about before that you’d love to talk about?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Dude, I’ve been doing interviews so long, I don’t think there’s anything that hasn’t been asked. A better question would be “What have they asked you that you don’t want to answer anymore?” [Laughs] Because sometimes you get the same questions over and over and over.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Photo credit – Mark Seliger
Cody: Well, what is something that you don’t like to answer anymore?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: “How old were you when you started playing guitar?” I think everybody knows by now that I was a kid when I started playing, and my story’s been told so many times over the years. I think it’s an interesting story, don’t get me wrong, but I think people have heard it so many times already.
Cody: Do you have any shoutouts to anyone who’s supported you or just made life easier for you?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: For me, my career was launched by radio airplay. That’s something that, nowadays, is hard for artists in my genre. There’s not a lot of radio support anymore, there’s no formats for artists like me on the radio anymore.
I am really grateful that I got in towards the end of the era of being able to be a blues-based artist, have a hit song, sell millions of records, and develop a strong fan base that has helped me go strong for 30 years, you know. It seems like a cliché answer, but without the fans, obviously none of it would be possible.
If we go get onstage and nobody shows up, that’s the end of it. They’ve been with us for a long time and continued to support us and what we do, so that’s the biggest shoutout of them all, to the people who spend their hard-earned cash to come see us play music.
Cody: Do you have any advice for fellow musicians and fans who can’t wait for the live music to come back?
Kenny Wayne Shepherd: None of us can wait until live music comes back. The fans and the musicians, I think, are probably equally as anxious. I just hope that it can happen sooner than later, and that people will feel comfortable going out and seeing live music.
Some artists in the industry are concerned that it might be forever changed or that it might be decimated, and nobody knows what’s going to happen until we get the chance to go back out and see how it turns out.
All I can say is support your artists, whoever they are. Whatever music or band you’re into, just show them your support.
Musicians need it right now because they’re not able to work and they have families that they’re trying to support, as well. When they get that chance, they’re really relying on the fans to show up for them, so just show them the love.
