Kenny Wayne Shepherd has lived more than half of his life in the spotlight. At the age of at 16, he was signed to a major record label. While a senior in high school, he recorded his first album and while most of his classmates were looking for a part time summer job after graduation, Kenny was embarking on a world tour. Now, at only 33 years old, he has sold millions of albums worldwide, received four Grammy nominations, two Billboard Music Awards, two Orville H. Gibson Awards, the Blues Foundation’s Keeping The Blues Alive Award, and a Blues Music Award among many other accolades. He has had four No. 1 blues albums and a string of No. 1 mainstream rock singles and his last project, 10 Days Out; Blues From The Backroads, has not only received critical acclaim, but was also the # 1 selling Blues Album of the Year in 2007. He is widely considered to be one of the best blues/rock guitarists (James Brown once referred to him as “one of the wonders of the world”) and on September 1, 2008, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation released the guitar that Kenny designed – the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Stratocaster®.Kenny has been featured on television shows such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Show with David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel Live and Craig Ferguson to name a few. He has been featured in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Maxim Magazine, Blender, Spin, USA Today and a host of other publications.
His musical career has been nothing short of phenomenal.
In 1995, a teenage Kenny Wayne Shepherd burst onto the music scene with the release of his debut album Ledbetter Heights. Ledbetter Heights produced radio hits “Deja Voodoo”, “Born With A Broken Heart” and “Aberdeen”. His relentless touring and success on rock radio launched the sales of the album to Platinum status.
His follow up album, 1997’s Trouble Is…was a huge commercial success as well, with radio hits such as “Somehow, Somewhere, Someway”, “Everything Is Broken”, “Slow Ride” and “Blue On Black”, which was a record breaking # 1 song on Rock Radio for 17 consecutive weeks. The Platinum selling Trouble Is… earned him his first Grammy nomination, two Billboard Music Awards (Rock Song of the Year and Blues Album of the Year) and the Orville H. Gibson Award among many other honors.
1999 saw the release of Live On. More touring, more radio hits, “In 2 Deep”, “Was” and “Last Goodbye” and more album sales assured another Gold album. It also saw another nod from The Recording Academy with a second Grammy nomination.
After relentless touring for basically five years, Kenny Wayne Shepherd took a well-deserved break. In 2004, he came back strong with the release of his 4th album The Place You’re In, a blistering rock record. As his fan base grew, so did his touring and his success with appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live and another year-long national tour.In 2007, Kenny released his most ambitious project to date. A full-length feature film documentary with an accompanying live album entitled 10 Days Out: Blues From The Backroads. The film follows Kenny and his friends, Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon (Double Trouble) and Noah Hunt embarking on a ten day trek into the heart of America visiting blues veterans in their homes, backyards and local juke joints. The film and CD features performances with some of the most renowned blues artists of all time, including B.B. King, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Hubert Sumlin, Pinetop Perkins and Honeyboy Edwards along with some of the blues lesser known, but towering talents. The CD/DVD earned him 2 more Grammy nominations, The Blues Foundation’s “Keeping The Blues Alive Award”, a Blues Music Award (formerly The W.C. Handy Award) and was Billboard’s # 1 selling Blues Album of the Year in 2007.
On September 1, 2008 Fender Musical Instruments Corp. released the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Signature Series Stratocaster, a guitar Kenny spent countless hours designing. The guitar is technically built similar to Kenny’s #1 Stratocaster, a 1961 original, and is available in three different paint designs. The first shipment of guitars sold out nation wide and is currently available at music stores across the country.
As a follow-up to 10 Days Out, on September 28, 2010 the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band will release its seventh project, Live In Chicago which features well-known staples from the Kenny Wayne Shepherd catalog alongside a batch of classic material chosen specially for these onstage collaborations. "The music we played with these special guests actually isn't even the music from the 10 Days Out project," Kenny says. "It's a good balance.” The respective résumés of the guests on Live in Chicago read like a history book of blues and rock n' roll.
Hubert Sumlin joined Howlin' Wolf's band in 1949 at the age of eighteen. Hailed as one of the greatest guitarists of all time by Rolling Stone, he's beloved by everyone from Jimmy Page to Carlos Santana. "He's influenced people like Clapton and Keith Richards," Kenny says.
Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, like Sumlin, played with Muddy Waters. He co-founded the Legendary Blues Band with Pinetop Perkins, Louis Meyers, Calvin Jones and Jerry Portnoy, racking up six Grammy Awards and memorably playing John Lee Hooker's backup band in "The Blues Brothers." "We also had two people I looked up to tremendously growing up and learning to play guitar," Kenny says. "Buddy Flett is from my hometown. He's one of the hottest guitar players from my area." And of course Bryan Lee, who gave Kenny Wayne Shepherd that big break early on.
With Kenny's strongest tunes from his best loved albums, his scorching band, that pedigree of guests and one of the most noteworthy performances in any genre in recent memory, Live in Chicago is truly something special. "Usually a live record is just live versions of all of your old stuff," Shepherd rightly points out. "This collection is a great, diverse combination for the fans."