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BluesWax Sittin’ In With

Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Payin’ His Dues in Homage to The Blues

By Eric Wrisley

In 2004 Kenny Wayne Shepherd hit the road with his band and a portable studio and made a swath across the South, spending each day meeting, talking with, and playing with the bluesmen that have inspired and influenced him. The ten-day trek is the basis for Ten Days Out: Blues from the Backroads, a documentary that catches Shepherd alongside some of the (then) greatest living bluesmen. While Shepherd and his crew are at the center of the story, the real stars are folks like B.B. King, Gatemouth Brown, Honeyboy Edwards, and Henry Townsend, along with a full slate of “lesser-knowns” – regional players whose work stands up even in this field of talent.

The film is perhaps the most entertaining and informative blues documentary I’ve seen, but here’s the thing that grabs me: the music isn’t Shepherd’s, it’s original tunes from all of the people he meets along the way, and the result is royalties that create a revenue stream for those players. This is particularly poignant to me in that playing music is often a labor of love and not always a moneymaker. More than the music, this is what plucks at my heartstrings because Shepherd has found a way to not only pay tribute, but to make a material difference in the lives of some of his heroes.

Even Muddy Waters said that blues had a baby, and they called it rock ‘n’ roll. While Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s brand of blues is a far cry from the Delta, it’s an honest product of who he is and where he comes from – part East Texas blues, part Memphis Soul, and a healthy dose of classic and modern rock. Shepherd has a new album in the works at the moment, but I’m not sure that it will compare to the honest effort of Ten Days Out.

On the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise in January, 2011, I sat down with Shepherd in the Silk Den lounge at the top of the ms Eurodam (“Oooh, this looks romantic,” he says). Even onstage, I find Shepherd a little guarded, but in an intimate setting, he’s surprisingly open and laid back.

Eric Wrisley for BluesWax: I saw most of the movie the other day, although I was running late and missed the Q&A at the beginning. One thing I was curious about was your motivation for making this into a movie.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd: You mean for us doing the movie itself? Well, we were talking about how we were gonna go and do this project ’cause initially it wasn’t going to be a movie. It was just going to be a record, but after talking about it and putting together the logistics of it, we realized that to hear this go down is one thing, but to actually see it go down is a completely different experience. And possibly even make it more significant. So we thought it was too special to pass up the opportunity to put a film together.

BW: What was the process for that? That’s a big undertaking, and for it to come off as well as it did…

KWS: Yeah.

BW: I mean everybody makes a movie at some point in their life, right?

KWS: You can thank Kristen [Forbes] for a lot of that, man. They put all this together. We put a lot of this together really quickly. Not like it was last minute, but it just came together really quickly, and then we went out and did it. And it was definitely a huge project to tackle, and it came off relatively without a hitch. I mean, it was a new day every day and a new experience, a new situation. We were flying by the seat of our pants, you know. We didn’t even really know conceptually which direction we were gonna go with the film. We just started filming and just figured that it would all come together. And it did.

Again, the importance of actually making the film… It’s like, you know, if you listen to a record and you read in the liner notes or something that this song was recorded this way, or this song was recorded in this room or something, it’s like, it doesn’t have the same impact as you being able to see. We were literally sitting in the woods playing that song. You know what I’m saying? It really puts you there with us, and you can kind of feel everything that’s going on as if you were there.

BW: What were the big surprises for you in that experience?

KWS: Every day was somewhat of a surprise. We knew we were going to see this guy this day, these two guys that day, these three guys on this day. But we didn’t really know where we were going to set up and record. If it was going to be at their house, or in their living room, or in their backyard, or if it was going to be a neighborhood blues bar. So every day was a little bit of a surprise because we were just seeing what the day brought.

But one of the most special moments for me, and there was many, but getting to play with Etta Baker in her house ’cause she was just such a sweet lady and she reminded me a lot of my grandmother, and I just felt a personal connection with her. That was very special. It was special playing with all these people, but to actually be able to get up on stage and play with Hubert [Sumlin] and all those guys from Howlin’ Wolf’s band, and Pinetop Perkins and all those guys from Muddy’s band was a dream come true for me because I grew up playing along with their records and just pretending like I was a member of the band.

BW: You do that, too, huh?

KWS: [laughs] Yeah! Actually being able to do that for real, I literally felt like I needed to pinch myself. It was amazing.

BW: Did you have any relationships with any of those guys before?

KWS: Oh yeah, I have a huge history with B.B. [King] obviously. I’ve been playing with him since I was fifteen years old. He’s like a father to me. Hubert has become like a father to me.

BW: As a result of this project?

KWS: Mm-hm, absolutely. That’s one of the most wonderful things that I took away from that project was the personal relationships that I gained. That’s one of the best things about my career to me. You know, it’s wonderful getting to play with these guys, but when B.B. comes… I could go to any one of his shows anywhere in the world and show up, and they’re gonna welcome me in. He’s gonna call me up on his bus, and say, “Son, sit down.” Like, he calls me “son.” Same thing with Hubert, and the personal relationships that I’ve developed over the years with my heroes are some of the most special things to me and a result of my career. It’s pretty amazing.

BW: One of the guys, I think it was Gatemouth, but I can’t remember – I jotted notes on someone else’s bar tab, as you can see here – he said they learned the music in the community, as a part of their day-to-day existence, what they grew up with. It’s a little different for you, not growing up in that environment in the same way…

KWS: No, it’s a little different, obviously their generation grew up around the music in a different way, but I definitely grew up around the music, just not necessarily in the same way they did. My musical history goes back to the day that I was born. My dad was a disc jockey, so he was on the radio. There was music around me twenty-four/seven. I was going to concerts – I saw Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker when I was three years old. I was going to concerts all the time and getting to meet artists and getting a glimpse into the life of a musician. We were going to bars, ’cause in Louisiana, man, there was no twenty-one-and-over. So we were going to see bands play together. And I was watching people like Buddy Flett in my hometown, getting to know him and watching what he does and stuff. Taking notes, you know.

So I grew up around the music, and especially being from Shreveport, Louisiana, there’s all kinds of music there. I was exposed to country and gospel and R&B and blues and rock ‘n’ roll. We would jump in the car and drive five hours north to Memphis, or we would drive five hours south to New Orleans, or five hours southwest to Austin, or three hours west to Dallas, or over to Mississippi. We’re just surrounded by it all there. Music is very much a part of the culture there, and if you pay attention at all, you get exposed to it.

“Actually being able to play with Hubert Sumlin and Pinetop Perkins for real, I literally felt like I needed to pinch myself. It was amazing.”

BW: When I watch you perform, the blues is the foundation, but there’s something else that comes in. I’m forty, and I’m guessing you’re younger than me…

KWS: Thirty-three.

BW: There’s a more modern rock ‘n’ roll sensibility comes through. Where does that come from?

KWS: Like I said, growing up, being exposed to all those kinds of music, my dad was primarily on rock radio. He was also on country radio. I think he actually got his start on an R&B station. I was exposed to a lot of rock & roll, going to concerts with him, seeing bands like Van Halen and Aerosmith, you know, Lynyrd Skynyrd and stuff like that. And always being exposed to whatever the current music was at the time, for better or for worse.

BW: I was going to say that what comes through, for me, is a 1980′s rock ‘n’ roll, like you mentioned Van Halen and Aerosmith. There’s something about that in what you do.

KWS: It definitely finds its way into my music to a degree maybe in the sounds and the approach, or maybe in the rhythm or the chords. But when I start playing solos, man, it’s all straight blues influence. I mean, on my fourth record, that was a straight-ahead rock record. And you can hear a lot of the rock ‘n’ roll influences that I had on that album, but when I was playing solos you were hearing Albert King and B.B. King.

BW: Albert King is a good example – the line gets blurry between blues and rock.

KWS: You know what’s awesome about Albert King? And I think so many guitar players do this, if I’m playing a song that I’m not completely familiar with, if I’m sitting in with somebody or whatever, Albert King is the guy you can always pull out of your back pocket. It’s always gonna work. It’s like Stevie [Ray Vaughan] when he did that David Bowie album. If you listen to most of the stuff he played on that record, he’s playing all Albert King licks. Albert King’ll work on anything. That’s one of the best things to pull out of your bag of tricks is some Albert King riffs.

BW: That’s the best example of it – Albert King licks with David Bowie.

KWS: It always works, man, it’s amazing. A lot of times, if I’m playing on somebody’s record, the first thing you go to is some Albert King stuff. It just sounds incredible. He’s one of my biggest influences as well. The man just had amazing sound, you know. He didn’t have a huge bag of tricks, but he had a very effective bag of tricks.

BW: Have you been jamming with anybody this week [on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise]?

KWS: I’ve been watching the jams, but usually what happens is I forget you gotta bring your own guitar and all my guitars are in my guitar tech’s room. So by the time I get out there, a lot of this is past my bedtime, you know, I have kids.

BW: Ha ha, I haven’t been up past two this whole week! And that was pushing it for me. I’m forty!

KWS: I was up till three the other night, and I can’t tell you the last time I was up till three o’clock in the morning. Luckily, I live on the West Coast, so it was still only like eleven o’clock for me. But anyway, I’ve been inclined to jam, but I’ve never had my guitar with me. And then half the time, when the jam’s going on, I end up back in my room falling asleep. But what we’re gonna do is on Friday night when we play out on the pool deck, I’m gonna have a bunch of people come up and play with us.

BW: When you perform, you always wear that cross. Is that something deeper, or is it just a piece of jewelry?

KWS: It’s a little bit of both. I’m a religious person. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus, you know. But also, it’s nice that crosses are cool as well. It works into the whole… it’s fashionable to wear a cross, you know. It’s kind of a multi-purpose thing for me. It looks good, but it also has meaning to me.

BW: When you buy music or listen to music, what medium do you use?

KWS: You know, it’s funny, I never even had an iPod until I bought my first iPhone, and then it took me like a year or more of having that to actually use the iPod in the iPhone. I’m this weird kind of guy, because I’m an analog guy in one sense, because my whole approach to music is very old and traditional. I like to use all the old stuff – instruments, amps, pedals – all analog stuff. But then I love technology to a degree. There’s a lot of things about it that fascinate me. I still like to listen to CDs, but we did a pressing of vinyl for the Ten Days Out project. We did a two-LP limited edition where you could listen to it on a record player. There’s a huge audience for that. A lot of people still love to listen to vinyl. I think that’s cool, man.

I listened to things when I was a kid on the record player. Used to put the ZZ Top Fandango record on, that live record, on the record player. My dad had a huge record collection. I wish he still… [nostalgic gaze out the window] I wonder where they all are. Vinyl is awesome. Cassettes not so much anymore. Not too long ago, I found a cassette, and I was curious what was on it ’cause I used to sit around in the living room of my mom’s house and play guitar and record myself on the cassette. So I’m always curious if I can find some of that stuff. But you put the tape in the tape player, and you hit play, and it just tears the tape up, ’cause it’s been sitting for so long.

So not so much cassettes; still a lot of CDs, but I have a lot of music on my iPod now. I have come into the age of the iPod.

One of the cool things about technology for me as an artist is, we’re mixing, or we do something in the studio, or we cut a track, and I want to be able to listen to it. So they email it to me, I download it, sync it up to my phone, and it’s with me everywhere I go. I’m gonna lose a CD before I’m gonna lose my phone – hopefully!

The other thing that’s so cool about the phone is that it has a voice recorder in it. [Points to my old-school, circa 1995 cassette recorder] So you could actually have done this interview on an iPhone, and then synced it up to your computer and had it right there.

BW: That’s the final straw! I’m getting an iPhone!

KWS: If I have an idea for a song, I just whip out my phone, hit record, and lay it down right there because I can’t tell you how many ideas have been forgotten because I didn’t have a way to record it. So that’s a big benefit.

BW: What do you see happening in the entertainment industry with all of the segmentation as a result of the Internet and different channels for media and entertainment?

KWS: Well, I have no prediction about where the industry is going, because who would have thought in 1995 when I put out my first album and sold over a million copies, and fifteen years later, or even less than that, ten years later, everybody’s record sales – everybody from Madonna to Joe Blow – everybody’s album sales all of a sudden were half of what they used to be. And now they’re even a fraction of that, if you’re lucky. Nobody was expecting that, I don’t think. And with technology changing as much as it does and as fast as it does, with all this new stuff becoming available, there’s no telling where the future of the music industry is going to go.

But the future of the blues is in really good hands. You look at an event like this. It’s sold out every year, and there’s a huge amount of talent on here. And there’s a lot of young people, people from my generation. You got Ronnie Baker Brooks, you know. And then you’ve got younger people like the Trampled Under Foot kids. And even, there’s a little kid that was on the San Diego trip, he was a little kid running around playing harmonica.

BW: Oh, Kyle Rowland!

KWS: Yeah! All these people have talent, man, and they’re all trying to do the blues the best way they know how. And they’re doing it justice. And the fans are the ones that are gonna keep it alive. The musicians, yes, we’ll continue to pump new life into the music, but the fans are the ones that are responsible for keeping it alive. And blues fans are lifelong fans, so when you have fans like that, you’re in good hands.

Eric Wrisley is a contributing editor to BluesWax. You may reach him by commenting below. If you like this interview, please click on “Like” at the top of the page.