Kenny Wayne SHEPHERD - Ledbetter Heights 1995

Kenny Wayne SHEPHERD - Ledbetter Heights 1995

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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Kenny Wayne SHEPHERD Band - Live On 1999

Kenny Wayne SHEPHERD Band - Live On 1999
Label: Giant
Recorded Live at Arlyn Studios, Austin, Texas;
The Plant, Sausalito, California;
House Of Blues, Memphis, Tennessee;
Encore Studios, Burbank, California.

Blues

To hear Kenny Wayne Shepherd's new single, "In 2 Deep", as well as "Them Changes", you might think he had abandoned his blues roots altogether. These are two smoking hard-rock tracks, bordering on metal. But there is plenty of blues on "Live On", his best, most consistent release so far. Of course there are the standard blues shuffles in "Shotgun Blues" and "Losing Kind." "Last Goodbye" is a mid-tempo blues tune reminiscent of the lighter side of the Allman Bros. "Never Mind" and "You Should Know Better" are up-tempo blues with the familiar KWS swagger, and then there's the scorching cover of Peter Green's classic, "Oh Well." Ex-Allman Warren Haynes adds some slide guitar to "Every Time It Rains." The mood mellows considerably toward the end,and this is where "Live On" shines the brightest. The title track is an anthemic blues ballad with a gospel feel. The track features great background vocals by Stephanie Spruil and Pat Hodges. "Where Was I?" is a brisk soft-rock tune punctuated by Shepherd's bluesy soloing. The cd closes with the appropriately titled instrumental, "Electric Lullaby." A new addition to the KWS Band is bassist Keith Christopher, who plays on several albums by the hard-edged country-rock band Shaver. ("Unshaven:Live" is a great 5-star cd worth checking out.) Unfortunately missing from the KWS band is keyboardist Jimmy Wallace, who contributed greatly to the band's first two releases.
**
Being a teenage blues guitar prodigy is a double-edged sword. Stunning technique brings attention, but also criticism that it's all style and no soul. This criticism plagued Kenny Wayne Shepherd since his popular debut album, Ledbetter Heights, and it's warranted to a certain extent. It didn't help that Shepherd so strongly recalled Stevie Ray Vaughan. It also didn't help that some of his material was a little too slick, appealing as much to album rock as to blues-rock audiences. By the time of his third album, 1999's Live On, he had begun to reconcile these two sides of his personality, but the best thing about the record is that it's tougher and stronger than its two predecessors. There's still a fair amount of crossover -- a Hendrix cover and a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" -- but Shepherd not only seems to be developing a style of his own, the playing of his band has become grittier, or at least it's being captured better on record. Shepherd can still fall prey to excess, but not as often as he used to. He's figuring out how to restrain himself, and his music is all the better for it.
By Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide.
**
Kenny Wayne Shepherd- (Vocals, Guitar);
Noah Hunt- (Vocals);
Keith Christopher- (Bass);
Sam Bryant- (Drums).
Also:
Stephanie Sprail, Pat Hodges- (Vocals);
Bryan Lee- (Guitar);
Warren Haynes- (Slide Guitar);
James Cotton, Mickey Raphael- (Harmonica);
Reese Wynans- (Keyboards);
Tommy Shannon, Arion Salazar, Les Claypool- (Bass);
Chris Layton- (Drums).
**
01. In 2 Deep 3.15
02. Was 4.00
03. Them Changes 3.19
04. Last Goodbye 4.33
05. Shotgun Blues 4.49
06. Never Mind 3.58
07. You Should Know Better 4.12
08. Every Time It Rains 3.46
09. Oh Well 3.37
10. Wild Love 3.42
11. Losing Kind 4.31
12. Live On 4.35
13. Where Was I? 3.30
14. Electric Lullaby 3.12
**
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