{"id":28418,"date":"2024-11-12T05:30:02","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T10:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28418"},"modified":"2024-10-24T09:30:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T13:30:06","slug":"kenny-wayne-shepherd-the-blues-never-goes-out-of-style-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/12\/kenny-wayne-shepherd-the-blues-never-goes-out-of-style-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenny Wayne Shepherd: The Blues Never Goes Out of Style (Part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

Did you road-test any of that material before you recorded it? <\/b><\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t do that. I\u2019m not really a fan of doing that. I don\u2019t like to perform the songs live until they\u2019ve been released and people have an opportunity to hear the recordings of them. I wouldn\u2019t want somebody\u2019s first impression of a brand new song to be a random cell phone recording [of a live performance].<\/p>\n

How has your approach to music changed in the 25 plus years since you made the original <\/b>Trouble Is…<\/b><\/i> album? <\/b><\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s changed a whole lot. I just follow what has worked for me from day one. At the end of the day, success is: \u201cAre our fans still behind us and are they still showing up for our shows?\u201d And the answer to both of those questions is yes<\/i>.<\/p>\n

But my recipe and my strategy for my music has always been to write and record the songs that I feel inspired to write and record at that time. Sometimes it takes me in a very traditional blues direction, and sometimes it takes me in a straight-ahead rock and roll direction. And sometimes it\u2019s a hybrid of blues, rock, country, r&b and everything in between.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t make everybody happy all the time. But I don\u2019t want to be a predictable artist. I don\u2019t want to be the kind of guy who, you had one successful record, then you just make different versions of that record for the rest of your life. Because then it becomes a situation where, \u201cKenny Wayne Shepherd\u2019s got a new record out, and you already know what it\u2019s going to sound like before you\u2019ve even heard it.\u201d When I put a record out, I want people to be wondering what it\u2019s going to sound like. And hopefully, for the most part, the fans will like what they hear. They respect you more as an artist and they stick with you long term if they feel like you\u2019re still pushing the boundaries, you\u2019re still taking chances and you\u2019re following the inspiration instead of trying to follow some sort of predetermined pattern.<\/p>\n

Do you feel more at home on the stage or in the studio?<\/b><\/p>\n

The place that I long to be the most is on stage. It\u2019s a completely different dynamic; the studio feels a little bit more like work than playing on stage. Playing on stage is pure entertainment. When you\u2019re in the studio, you\u2019re not entertaining anybody. You\u2019re in the process of trying to build something that didn\u2019t exist before. That in itself is fascinating, but it requires a completely different skill set and a completely different approach. And sometimes that feels a lot more like work than walking out on stage in front of thousands of people and just doing what you love to do.<\/p>\n

This Experience Hendrix tour showcases a whole bunch of top-flight musicians. How do you see your role within this live project? <\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m just another gear in the big machine. But what it represents is all of these incredible musicians who span many different styles and genres. It makes you realize the wide reach that Jimi Hendrix\u2019s music has had. You can\u2019t hardly pick up a guitar without having some sort of a Jimi Hendrix influence.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t with us, making music, for that incredibly long. But the albums that he left us with are still standing the test of time. People are still excited to hear these songs played by incredibly talented musicians today. And that\u2019s why the tour is always so much fun, and why it does so well.<\/p>\n

What parts of Hendrix\u2019s artistry move you the most? <\/b><\/p>\n

The thing that I love about Hendrix is that he took chances. He didn\u2019t allow himself to be confined to any boundaries. What\u2019s fascinating is the limited amount of recording technology that was available to those guys back then, and how far he was able to push those limits. He would do things and create sounds that had not quite been done before.<\/p>\n

Hendrix was the guy that I listened to who gave me permission within my own music to not allow myself to be boxed into the confines of a particular musical label. Because he did everything: he played blues music with the best of the best, and then he would literally play whatever music was coming out of him at the time. He played it the way he felt it should be and didn\u2019t let anybody try and tell him otherwise. Witnessing that, listening to that gave me permission to follow that path, but in my<\/i> own way.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for you after this run of Experience Hendrix dates wraps in October?<\/b><\/p>\n

They\u2019re talking about another potential run of dates next year, maybe in the spring. And I have four different albums that I\u2019m currently working on. I have a traditional blues record that I did with blues legend Bobby Rush; that\u2019ll come out sometime next year. And I\u2019m doing a 30th anniversary version of my first album, Ledbetter Heights<\/i> ; that\u2019ll come out probably the end of next year. We\u2019ll probably do a 30th anniversary tour for that album. And there are a couple of other records that I\u2019m trying to finish up, too. There\u2019s a rock and roll cover song album, and I\u2019m getting ready to write some new material for another new album as well.<\/p>\n

Over the years, you\u2019ve worked with many of the biggest names in blues and in rock. Regarding a life in music, what was the best advice you ever got? <\/b><\/p>\n

BB King gave me a lot of private advice that was more personal than professional. And some of those things, even though he\u2019s not here with us, are probably better left between he and I.<\/p>\n

But as far as musical things, Stevie Ray Vaughan wrote on my very first Stratocaster! He wrote a message on there, and he said, \u201cKenny, just play it with all your heart.\u201d And that is what I try and do every time I pick up the instrument and plug it in, because that\u2019s how I connect with people. My goal is to make people feel something through the music that I\u2019m playing. And the best way I know how to do that is to play it straight from the heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Did you road-test any of that material before you recorded it? No, I don\u2019t do that. I\u2019m not really a fan of doing that. I don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28424,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41,49],"tags":[5543],"class_list":["post-28418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-interview","category-new-release","tag-kenny-wayne-shepherd","cat-9-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28418"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28426,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28418\/revisions\/28426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}