| Kenny Wayne Shepherd | |
| Birth Name: | Kenny Wayne Brobst |
| Birth Date: | 12 June 1977[1] |
| Birth Place: | Shreveport, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Instrument: | Guitar |
| Years Active: | 1990–present |
| Past Member Of: | G3 |
Kenny Wayne Shepherd (born Kenny Wayne Brobst; June 12, 1977) is an American guitarist. He has released several studio albums and experienced significant commercial success as a blues rock artist.
Shepherd was born in Shreveport, Louisiana.[2] He graduated from Caddo Magnet High School in Shreveport. He is "completely self-taught",[3] and does not read music. Growing up, Shepherd's father (Ken Shepherd) was a local radio personality and some-time concert promoter, and had a vast collection of music. Kenny received his first "guitar" at the age of three or four, when his grandmother purchased a series of several plastic guitars for him with S&H Green Stamps, which he has said he would "go through like candy".
Shepherd stated in a 2011 interview that he began playing guitar in earnest at age seven, about six months after meeting and being "pretty mesmerized" by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Labor Day weekend in 1984, at one of his father's promoted concerts. His self-taught method employed 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.
Blues musician Bryan Lee invited the then-13-year-old Shepherd to play guitar onstage. 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.
In 2000, Shepherd played guitar on the end title theme for the animated feature .
In September 2008, Fender Musical Instruments Corp. released the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Signature Series Stratocaster, designed exclusively by Shepherd. In 2007, he released a critically acclaimed and two-time Grammy nominated DVD–CD project, . 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 Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, and Pinetop Perkins.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, titled How I Go, on Roadrunner Records. In 2014 he released "Goin Home" on Mascot Label Group in Europe and on Concord Records in the US and the rest of the world. In 2015 Shepherd released "Something From the Road Vol. 1," a live special release for Record Store Day in the U.S.In January 2017, the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band went into the studio with producer Marshall Altman to record a new album of all newly written songs titled Lay It On Down and released the album on August 4 (July 21 in Europe on Mascot Label Group). Lay It On Down is the eighth record by the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Chart.
Shepherd made his Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival debut on 16 July 2019.[4]
On May 31, 2019, Shepherd released The Traveler on Concord Records and Mascot Label Group in Europe. The album, like the previous release Lay It On Down, was co-produced by Marshall Altman. The Traveler was chosen as a 'Favorite Blues Album' by AllMusic.[5]
Shepherd headlined the 2020 Mahindra Blues Festival, along with Buddy Guy, Larkin Poe and Keb Mo.[6]
In March 2021, the Blues Foundation revoked Kenny Wayne Shepherd's 2021 Blues Music Awards nomination for Best Blues/Rock Artist. According to a statement from the organization, the decision was made over Confederate flag imagery displayed on Shepherd's The Dukes of Hazzard "General Lee" car replica. Shepherd acknowledged the offensiveness of the flag on his car and said he had permanently covered it some time ago. "Years ago I put that car in permanent storage and some time ago, I made the decision to permanently cover the flag on my car because it was completely against my values and offensive to the African American community which created the music I love so much and I apologize to anyone that I have unintentionally hurt because of it." The organization also asked Shepherd's father, Ken Shepherd, to step down as a member of its board of directors. Ken Shepherd declined to comment on being asked to step down.[7]
On December 2, 2022, Shepherd released Trouble Is... 25, a complete re-recording of his sophomore album for its 25th anniversary. The album includes a never-before-heard cover of Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man."[8]
In 2013, Shepherd, along with Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills & Nash) and Barry Goldberg (Electric Flag), formed The Rides. They released their debut album Can't Get Enough on August 27, 2013. Stills refers to the band as "the blues band of my dreams." The band toured the US in 2013 supporting their debut record, culminating with an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The three reunited in 2015 for a follow-up album Pierced Arrow, released on 429 Records and Mascot Label Group in Europe in 2016.
Shepherd married Hannah Gibson, the eldest daughter of actor, Mel Gibson, on September 16, 2006.[9] The couple have six children.
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [13] | US Blues [14] | AUS [15] | NZ [16] | SWE [17] | SWI [18] | UK [19] [20] | ||||||
| Ledbetter Heights | 108 | 1 | — | 25 | — | — | — |
Platinum[21] | ||||
| Trouble Is... |
| 74 | 1 | 57 | 36 | — | — | — |
| |||
| Live On |
| 52 | 1 | — | — | — | — | — |
| |||
| The Place You're In |
| 101 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| 164 | 1 | — | — | 52 | — | — |
| ||||
| How I Go |
| 52 | 1 | — | — | — | 86 | 92 | ||||
| Goin' Home |
| 25 | 1 | — | — | — | 77 | 82 | ||||
| Lay It On Down | 34 [23] | 1 | — | — | — | 27 | 100 | |||||
| The Traveler |
| 103 | 1 | — | — | — | 12 | 94 | ||||
| Trouble Is... 25 |
| — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| Dirt on My Diamonds Vol. 1 |
| — | — | — | — | — | 44 | — | ||||
| "—" denotes a release that did not chart. | ||||||||||||
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US Blues | US Rock | |||
| Live! in Chicago |
| 114 | 1 | 42 | |
| Straight to You: Live |
| — | — | — | |
| Year | Song | Peak chart positions | Album | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US Main. Rock | |||||||
| 1995 | "Déjà Voodoo" | — | 9 | Ledbetter Heights | ||||
| 1996 | "Born with a Broken Heart" | — | 15 | |||||
| "Aberdeen" | — | 23 | ||||||
| 1997 | "Slow Ride" | — | 3 | Trouble Is... | ||||
| 1998 | "Somehow, Somewhere, Someway" | — | 3 | |||||
| "Blue on Black" | 78 | 1 | ||||||
| "Everything Is Broken" | — | 10 | ||||||
| 1999 | "In 2 Deep" | — | 5 | Live On | ||||
| 2000 | "Was" | — | 9 | |||||
| "Last Goodbye" | — | 14 | ||||||
| 2004 | "Alive" | — | 13 | The Place You're In | ||||
| 2005 | "The Place You're In" | — | 30 | |||||
| 2011 | "Never Lookin' Back" | — | 36 | How I Go | ||||
| "Come on Over" | — | — | ||||||
| 2014 | "You Can't Judge a Book By the Cover" | — | — | Goin' Home | ||||
| 2020 | "Christmas Must Be Tonight" | — | — | rowspan=4 | ||||
| "Cool Yule" | — | — | ||||||
| "Zat You Santa Claus" | — | — | ||||||
| 2021 | "Hit 'Em Back" | — | — | |||||
| 2022 | "True Lies" | — | — | Trouble Is... 25 | ||||
| "Ballad of a Thin Man" | — | — | ||||||
| "—" denotes a release that did not chart. | ||||||||