Blues
Ledbetter Heights is a very strong debut album from Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Shepherd's guitar style is very reminiscent of the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan. Most of the material here is very strong. The opening tracks "Born With A Broken Heart" and "Deja Voodoo" received extensive airplay on AOR radio and are both excellent tracks featuring Shepherd's outstanding playing. Other strong tracks include the slow blues of "Shame, Shame, Shame", the soulful "Riverside", and the driving "Aberdeen." His version of Howlin' Wolf's "I'm Leaving You (Commit A Crime)" is also an excellent track. However, the best example of Shepherd's playing may be on the slow live track "While We Cry" and the killer ending title track which sounds like it would fit in nicely on Vaughan's Texas Flood album. Other tracks such as "Everybody Gets The Blues" and "What's Goin' Down" are decent, but not as strong as the rest of the album. A great debut, highly recommended to fans of blues guitarists such as SRV as well as the new breed of blues players like Jonny Lang.
By John Alapick.
**
Since Stevie Ray Vaughan's untimely death in 1990, there has been a fear that the future of popular blues died with him. Kenny Wayne Shepherd's debut does much to dispel these concerns. Hugely influenced by the late Texan, this 18 year-old prodigy first picked up the guitar after watching an SRV show from atop one of Vaughan's amps when he was eight. Shepherd's decade-long woodshedding pays off on an album that incorporates versatility and passion missing in musicians twice his age.
The Shreveport native moves naturally from traditional country blues, combining steel guitar and a biting slide ("Aberdeen"), to slow Buddy Guy-styled emotiveness that gets fleshed out by southside-Chicago piano lines ("Shame, Shame, "Shame"). While Shepherd channels Howlin' Wolf's "I'm Leaving You" with the same aggresiveness that Vaughan did, his finest moment comes on a live instrumental called "While We Cry." Starting out inspired by Hendrix's gentler side, Shepherd builds up to a Claptonian pitch egged on by an appreciative crowd--at once defining himself and resurrecting the muse that was seemingly lost on a foggy night in 1990.
From CD Universe.
**
Kenny Wayne Shepherd- (Vocals, Guitar);
Corey Sterling- (Vocals);
Joe Nadeau- (Guitar);
Jimmy Wallace- (Keyboards, Percussion);
Will Ainsworth- (Bass);
Kevin Smith- (Drums).
**
01. Born With A Broken Heart 5:56
02. Deja Voodoo 6:09
03. Aberdeen 4:15
04. Shame, Shame, Shame 6:05
05. One Foot On The Path 3:49
06. Everybody Gets The Blues 5:58
07. While We Cry (Live) 6:17
08. I'm Leaving You (Commit A Crime) 4:16
09. (Let Me Up) I've Had Enough 2:43
10. Riverside 3:46
11. What's Goin' Down 5:30
12. Ledbetter Heights 6:11
**
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