KDSN RADIO News
Guitar legend Kenny Wayne Shepherd brings landmark album to Iowa
One of the world’s top rock-blues guitarists has added one Iowa stop to his international tour this spring. Kenny Wayne Shepherd will celebrate the 30th anniversary of his breakout debut album, playing “Ledbetter Heights” in its entirety.
Growing up in Louisiana, Shepherd started plunking on a plastic guitar his grandmother bought him with S&H Green Stamps at age four, but things changed just a few years later when he saw Stevie Ray Vaughan live in concert.
“That was a life-changing experience for me,” Shepherd says, “because the way he affected me, the way he played the instrument, it was like, ‘Wow, I have got to get an electric guitar and I’ve got to learn how to play with that passion and intensity that he plays with.’ And so it wasn’t long after that at age seven that I got my very first electric guitar and I still have it.”
Shepherd signed to a major label at age 13 and later, drove from Shreveport to Memphis to track “Ledbetter Heights” while juggling homework. It was released when he was 18 to much acclaim, and now at 48, Shepherd tells Radio Iowa he continues to love playing that music.
“These songs still resonate. They still connect with the fans,” he says. “My goal was to write and record timeless music that people could be enjoying for decades to come. And here we are, 30 years later, playing this music and the fans are excited about it. We’re excited about it.”
Many musicians who’ve been performing for decades will confess they hate their old hits but keep playing them on the road because the fans want to hear them. That’s not the case for Shepherd.
“I never let myself be convinced or talked into recording or playing a song that I didn’t feel connected to, or that I didn’t really like, and most of the time I wrote the songs as well,” Shepherd says. “So, no, I mean, we play ‘Blue on Black,’ which was probably our biggest radio hit, and we play it every single show, and I’m still not tired of it. And I’m certainly not tired of the way the audience reacts to it.”
“Ledbetter Heights,” named after a historic black neighborhood in his hometown, catapulted Shepherd into the national spotlight and landed him at number-three on Guitar World’s list of top blues artists, just behind B.B. King and Eric Clapton.
Do people still listen to albums? Shepherd acknowledges most of the younger generations only discover music on their phones and through apps, and might download one song onto a playlist.
“My fans, they were around in the era where you would hear a song on the radio, then you would call into the radio station and ask who the artist was, and you would go to your local record store and you would buy the whole album because you heard the one song on the radio,” Shepherd says. “Then you would take it home, put it on, and listen to the whole album while you’re flipping through the booklet and looking at the artwork and reading the lyrics. It was an entire experience.”
This tour, his says, aims to celebrate that experience and help bring listeners back to enjoying music — a full album at a time.
Shepherd is scheduled to perform May 3rd at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines. He’ll play two sets, the first dedicated to his debut album, and the second set will be a collection of his music over the past three decades.
