SHEPHERD KENNY WAYNE BAND, BEST OF. TABLATURE
Series: Guitar Recorded Version TAB
Artist: Kenny Wayne Shepherd
15 songs from this blues guitarist extraordinaire, including, 136 pages
Best of Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band
Series: Guitar Recorded Version
TAB
Artist: Kenny Wayne Shepherd
15 songs from this blues guitarist extraordinaire, including: Alive - Blue on Black - Born with a Broken Heart - Changes - In 2 Deep - Ledbetter Heights - The Place You're In - Slow Ride - True Lies - and more.
Inventory #HL 00690803
ISBN: 9781423401599
UPC: 073999927481
Width: 9.0"
Length: 12.0"
136 pages
Table of contents
Alive
Be Mine
Blue On Black
Born With A Broken Heart
Deja Voodoo
In 2 Deep
Last Goodbye
Ledbetter Heights
(Let Me Up) I've Had Enough
The Place You're In
Shotgun Blues
Slow Ride
Somehow, Somewhere, Someway
True Lies
BLUES GUITAR PHENOMS are a dime a dozen. Rosy-cheeked and eager to please, they are shepherded from venue to venue like circus acts, stunning audiences with their acrobatic techniques and stage savvy. Most succeed in getting an Established Black Bluesman or two to endorse their playing, and the guitar media race to proclaim them the real deal. The trouble is, prodigies usually grow up. And too many guitar phenoms learn the real meaning of the blues when fickle audiences turn their attention to the next generation of young wizards, leaving the too-old 20-year-old out in the cold.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd, who was a teenager and a high school senior in Shreveport, Louisiana, when his acclaimed debut album, Ledbetter Heights (Giant), was released, is an ex-phenom who made a particular splash as a blues baby: Ledbetter Heights went Gold and sat at the top of the blues charts for months. Shepherd's overdriven Strat tone, rapid-fire solos and overt Hendrix-isms had fans proclaiming him the new Stevie Ray Vaughan, no less.
All this potentially meant lots of pressure on Shepherd because he, as much as anyone, knew that blues Peter Pans grow up and have to keep producing when they're 20,30 and even 40 years old. But the blond-haired guitarist knew exactly what to do: hit the road, challenge himself by playing with the best rock guitarists around and grow. And so he joined the G3 tour, first as an opening act and then, with the departure of Eric Johnson, as a full-fledged partner of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. Shepherd impressed many fans on the rest of that tour, and he certainly impressed his tour mates. "When I first heard Kenny Wayne Shepherd, I thought, 'Uh-oh, another Stevie Ray Vaughan clone,' " recalls Vai. "Just like the first time I heard Stevie Ray, I thought, 'Uh-oh, another Hendrix clone.' I was equally wrong both times. Kenny has the depth and insight to make what he doesemotionally powerful and remove it miles from clonedom. He has that elusive 'it.' " "He is a real talent," agrees Joe Satriani. "Anyone can practice guitar, learn some licks and make believe that they're an entertainer. But to be a real natural, to be great at your instrument-to be able to walk out on any stage and immediately plug into both the musicians and the audiencethat is realtalent. And that iswhat Kennyhas." And Shepherd's abilities are abundantly evident throughout The Trouble Is... , the follow- up to Ledbetter Heights. The maturing guitarist partially attributes the new album's strengths, and his growth, to his G3 odyssey. "Ledbetter Heights chronicles a part of KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD·
my career," says Shepherd. "But that part is the beginning. I've grown a lot. I listen back to tapes of myself when I was 15, and it doesn't even compare to how I'm playing now. And I almost feel that way about my first album. I think growth comes along with experience, just being out there doing it." Shepherd's playing today is more confident, more personal and less derivative of Stevie Ray Vaughan, even though he is backed by Vaughan's former band, Double Trouble-drummer Chris Layton, bassist Tommy Shannon and keyboardist Reese Wynans-on half the album. "I wanted to use them because they're simply the best rhythm section for the type of music I like," Shepherd explains. "They're also my friends, and playing with them was a blast." His regular touring band appears on the rest of the album, with new singer Noah Hunt handling lead vocal chores throughout. Highlights include a rollicking run through Bob Dylan's "Everything is Broken" and a great take on Jimi Hendrix's "I Don't Live Today," as well
as Shepherd originals like the leadoff single "Slow Ride," the instrumental "The Trouble
Is" and "Long Gone," which features blues harmonica great James Cotton. As strong as the album is, there's no reason to think that number three won't be even stronger. For Shepherd is, as his friend Steve Vai says, "a work in progress."
GUITAR: This record took longer to complete than you had planned. Why?
KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD: The writing was a little tough. While I was on the road doing
interviews, people kept asking me if I was feeling pressure to come up with a good second album and avoid the "sophomore slump." I was like, "What are they talking about? I don't feel any pressureat all. This is a blast." But then we came off the road to record, and I didn't really have any material because I hadn't been writing, or even thinking about it, for a year and a half. Youget into a road groove: you wake up, do promotion, soundcheck, have dinner, shower, get to the club, play.Then you're up real late, and you're wired. You probably haveto travel, so you get to bed early in the morning, oversleep, get up
and start all over again. I had to get out of that, to change my frame of mind from playing live to writing music. I hadn't done it in a long time, and I got kind of discouraged, at first. Nothing was happening, and I didn't know where it was gonna come from. But I just kept going, and the next thing I knew I had 37 songs.
KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD
GUITAR: The first single, "Slow Ride," is really hard-hitting. It reminds me of Freddie King's "I'm Going Down."
SHEPHERD: Thanks! Me too, actually. We wanted to come out of the box with a slamng ming track that screamed, "We're back!" That song sort of came out of nowhere and
took everybody by surprise, in a way very similar to what "Deja Voodoo" did on the
last album. When I was recording Ledbetter Heights, we cut 13 songs, then took
two weeks off. During that period, I went home and wrote "Born With a Broken
Heart," "Deja Voodoo," "Let Me Up I've Had Enough" and a few more-almost half
of the songs on the album, and most of the big ones. So we decided to do the same
thing this time. I went in the studio with Double Trouble and 19 songs. Then I went
back on the road for a few weeks and wrote two really strong tunes, "Long Gone" and
"Slow Ride."
GUITAR: Now that you're done recording, how do you feel about the final product?
SHEPHERD: I'm really excited about everyng thing. Working with Jerry [Harrison, producer; the former member of Talking Heads has also produced Live, Big Head Todd and othicers-GUITAR Ed.] has been a real pleasure. I think the album is awesome, sonically-the
drums and guitars sound great-but more importantly the material is really strong. I'm
also excited because I sang a lot more this time, doing backup vocals on four or five
songs, plus singing lead on a cut of "Voodoo Chile," which surprisingly sounds pretty
decent. [laughs] Even though we decided not to put it on the album, I feel it was a big
step for me.
GUITAR: That's a tall mountain to climb. SHEPHERD: Yeah, but it felt good. It was awesome to have Chris and Tommy playing it. The fact that I'm singing it feels great, too, because it's a Hendrix song, and it's sort of meant for the guitar player to sing. I just couldn't see doing it with another singer; it was either I sing it or we don't cut it, so I decided to give it a go, and it felt pretty good. I am probably going to start doing it every night.
GUITAR: It must be strange, being a star attraction who doesn't sing, as you have to turn a
lot of control over to another person.
SHEPHERD: Yeah, it is a weird situation. I need to have total confidence that that person
is going to do my music exactly how I want to hear it. That's part of the reason we
felt we had to change singers. Noah is very talented, and he has the right attitude and
voice for what I want to do. I'm singing more myself, which is helping me become an even
bigger part of my music. Just the fact that live I'm now singing all these background
KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD
... vocals, plus doing "Voodoo Chile," will give me more practice on the road than I got last
year, when I hardly sang at all. I'm going to keep practicing and working on it, maybe
slowly adding songs here and there. It's definitely getting better; my voice and confidence
level are both eons beyond where they were when I did "Riverside" [on Ledbetter Heights],
GUITAR: Is it largely an issue of confidence at this point?
SHEPHERD: That's a big part of it. I was definitelya little insecure about it, because if
I am going to do something, I want it to be up to the musical standards that I hold up
for myself. My guitar standards are very high, and I wanted my vocals to be just as good,
though I realize that it's not always like that. Look at Hendrix, Stevie Ray and Eric Clapton.
They're all great singers who improved throughout their careers, but the bottom line
is their singing doesn't compare to their playing, and that's why, for many years, they
all played without singing. It's something they had to grow into, and I'm growing into
it slowly. But I'm not going to rush it. Working in the studio with Jerry has really
helped me get to the point where I can just belt it out and accept the sound of my own
voice, which is really difficult-especially when you hear it played back on big studio
monitors, and you can hear every little mistake. [laughs]
GUITAR: It sounds like Jerry was really good for you. But why, considering all the success
you had together, did you decide to not work with your last producer, David Z?
SHEPHERD: David was great to work with, but I felt it was time to look in a different
direction. Then I heard the Big Head Todd and the Monsters album Jerry produced for
my label [Beautiful World, Revolution], I thought it was clearly Big Head Todd's best,
so I immediately asked my A&R guy to get Jerry. I felt we would see eye to eye, musically.
And I was right.
I felt that this album needed to be more aggressive, both playi ng-wise and in its production.
I feel like my playing has improved at least 90 or 100 percent from when I did
the first album, and I really wanted that to come through. I wanted everyone to be able
to hear the emotion and dexterity that's there now, and wasn't there before.
GUITAR: Why do you think that is?
SHEPHERD: It's a result of doing so much touring. When you play live every night for a
year and a half or two years straight, it really makes your chops a lot better. You don't
notice it so much while it's happening, but you listen back and hear it. When we started
touring to promote Ledbetter Heights, we did about 250 shows in a year and a half.
How could you not grow from that experience?
GUITAR: How exactly have you improved?
SHEPHERD: Well, I really practiced my vibrato
a lot, and I think it's way better. I also
bend much more precisely and confidently; I hit all my notes now. Basically, my overall
technique is just much better than it was. But I also think I've developed better taste
and more of an understanding of when to hold back and when to let it rip and really
playa lot of notes. Being on the road with guys like B.B. [King] showed me a lot. He
can knock you off the stage with one note, so I tried to figure out how to do that. In
terms of influences, I've also gotten more into Albert King, so there's more of his licks
popping up in my pLaying.While I was on the road, I got really deeply into Albert and Hendrix.
GUITAR: Playing with Double Trouble must have been exciting for you.
SHEPHERD: There was definitely a lot of excitement there, from me and also from them. We kept a lot of my original tracks from our sessions because the three of us were playing off of each other so much. I'd playa lick and Chris would accent it perfectly,
and when I tried to overdub it wasn' t as locked in, because when we were
doing it together, there was so much intuition happening. They inspired me to play
a lot of new and different stuff. Sometimes, I'd just want to see if I could turn their
heads. The whole experience was definitely inspirational.
GUITAR: Sure. That's the band you grew up worshipping.
SHEPHERD: [laughs] Definitely. But I know those guys so well now that they are real
friends. Chris and I talk on a regular basis, and I also love Tommy. He's really funny, the
kind of guy who has to have dessert after every single meal. Of course, they both quit
drinking and everything, and now they've quit smoking, too. Tommy chews that
Nicorette gum and has a patch on at the same time, and he's going around sniffing
people's cigarettes. [laughs] He's a character, and he is truly one of the kindest guys
I've ever met. We wrote a lot together, and they really didn't write much with Stevie.
There was a lot of jamming going on. We probably have five OAT tapes of stuff that
isn't on this album. They're the best rhythm section for the kind of music I'm doing.
They're the guys who pretty much created the stuff.
GUITAR: What do you think they brought to Stevie's music?
SHEPHERD: The rhythm section is the foundation.
They pushed Stevie to play; they were an integral part of his sound.
GUITAR: There was a strong element of restraint in Stevie's playing that I detect in yours.
SHEPHERD: Thanks. A lot of players think that Stevie's music is just such fiery, asskicking
guitar that to match it they have to play all-out, over-the-top, going-for-broke,
on ten. But it's not about that, man. It's about taste and restraint. That's where the
single-note thing comes in, the understanding of Albert King, just being real tasteful.
Youcan play something fast, but play it tasty and fast. Put some emotion into it.
The thing that I dug most about Stevie's playing is that it's a bridge between blues
and rock, and I think that's the direction my music leans towards. My music has a little
bit of a harder, sharper rock edge than Stevie' s did. I'm probably the middle point
between Stevie and Hendrix.
GUITAR: You started your first national tour playing small clubs, then opened for everyone from B.B. King to Bob Dylan to the G3 tour. Ultimately, you became a full-fledged member of the G3-one of the Big Three. How have you enjoyed the tour?
SHEPHERD: It's been great. Joe, Steve and Robert Fripp are all really a pleasure to work with. I saw Steve when he toured with David Lee Roth and was wearing all the fluorescent green and pink stuff, and I heard a bit of Satriani's stuff, like "Satch Boogie," but I got my first real dose of them when I did the first shows. I was impressed with both of them. I really dig what Vai does and enjoy listening to him because he has extremely creative ideas that I wouldn't come up with, placing notes in ways that I wouldn't. I've heard him play some licks that just blew my mind. He is a truly phenomenal guitarist. But I'm a little more drawn to Satriani because he puts a lot of blues into his music. There's a lot of Albert King in there, wh ich may surprise people who haven't seen him live. It surprised me. I think anyone who's into guitar music should check these guys out live, even if you don't think you want to. Same goes for Robert Fripp, who has been opening the shows. His set is very interesting and exotic. They've all been great, and the jam at the end of the show is killer.
GUITAR: Blues harmonica great James Cotton appears on "Long Gone." What did you want out of him?
SHEPHERD: I love his work with Muddy Waters, especially on Hard Again and King Bee, and I wanted to hear that sound. And we got it, man. James played his ass off. He did some cool fills throughout the song, then at the end of the tune he just went off and played some incredible stuff. I really felt like I was listening to a Muddy Waters record when I heard that, which was exactly what I ....
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