Signed to a major-label record deal by impresario
Irving Azoff at the age of 13, blues-rock guitarist and songwriter
Kenny Wayne Shepherd exploded onto the scene in the mid-'90s. His debut album,
Ledbetter Heights, garnered massive radio airplay and media attention on its way to topping the blues charts and being certified platinum. This was a curiosity in that FM rock radio was not a reliable home for blues and blues-rock, with the exceptions being
Stevie Ray Vaughan in the mid-'80s and
Eric Clapton and
Johnny Winter in the early '70s. Since then, his aggressive, clean, and meaty, rocking country-blues style has sent all but one of his albums to the top of the blues charts and seven of his singles into the Top Ten. Several of his albums have been certified platinum and gold.
Shepherd's signature song, 1998's scorching "Blue on Black," topped the rock charts as a single. 2014's
Goin' Home not only hit number one at blues but landed inside the Top 100 on the U.S. album charts. He 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 was born June 12, 1977, in Shreveport, Louisiana. He began playing at the age of seven, figuring out
Muddy Waters' licks from his father's record collection (he has never taken formal lessons). At age 13, he was invited on-stage by New Orleans bluesman
Bryan Lee and held his own for several hours, after which he decided on music as a career. He formed his own band, which featured lead vocalist
Corey Sterling, and gained early exposure through club dates and, later, radio conventions.
Shepherd's father/manager used his own contacts and pizzazz in the record business to help land his son a major-label record deal with Giant Records.
Ledbetter Heights, his first album, was released two years later in 1995 and was an immediate hit, selling over 500,000 copies by early 1996. Most blues records never achieve that level of commercial success, much less those released by artists still in their teens. Influenced by (and having played with) guitarists
Stevie Ray Vaughan,
Albert King,
Slash,
Robert Cray, and
Duane Allman,
Shepherd is a performer who thrives in front of an audience.
Ledbetter Heights is impressive for its range of styles: acoustic blues, rockin' blues, Texas blues, and Louisiana blues.
Released in 1998,
Trouble Is... earned a Grammy nomination and
Live On followed a year later. In 2004,
The Place You're In was released on
Reprise Records, and was the first album to feature
Shepherd taking on the majority of lead vocals (singer
Noah Hunt handled the lead on the previous two albums).
Shepherd's next project saw him traveling the American South with a documentary film crew and a portable recording studio as he backed up several veteran blues players on their home turf. The resulting album and film,
10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads, appeared in 2007, and
Live! In Chicago followed in 2010. That November,
Shepherd joined
Jimmy Fallon's house band on TV for an evening, performing with the same Fender Stratocaster that
Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock.
Although
Shepherd stayed busy in the intervening years, 2011's
How I Go was his first studio album proper in seven years. In an attempt to revive the success of 1998's
Trouble Is..., he once again recruited
Noah Hunt on vocals, as well as former
Talking Heads keyboard player and guitarist
Jerry Harrison, who had produced the sessions for that platinum-selling album.
Shepherd followed
How I Go with 2014's
Goin' Home, a tribute to his musical heroes that featured contributions from artists such as
Ringo Starr and
Keb' Mo'. The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band returned in 2017 with
Lay It on Down, a record cut in Shreveport, Louisiana's Echophone Studios and his eighth to top the blues charts.
In late 2018,
Shepherd entered a Los Angeles studio with his band, vocalist
Noah Hunt, drummer
Chris Layton (ex-
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble and
Johnny Winter And), bassist
Kevin McCormick, and keyboardists
Jimmy McGorman and
Joe Krown. A pre-released single, "Woman Like You," was issued at the end of March 2019, followed by the full-length
The Traveler at the end of May, his first for Provogue.
Shepherd made his debut at the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival later in the summer. The following year brought the live CD/DVD combo
Straight to You Live recorded in Germany. ~ Steve Huey & Richard Skelly