[San Diego Troubadour] Kenny Wayne Shepherd Revisits his Early History

It seems impossible that it’s been 30 years since Kenny Wayne Shepherd burst on the scene, the designated heir apparent as the next great blues guitar hero. He was part of a mid-’90s crop of young teenaged blues guitar whizzes who arrived nearly at the same time. Shepherd’s debut, Ledbetter Heights, was issued in 1995, a few months after he turned 18, with “Monster” Mike Welch’s debut in 1996 (who was not yet 18), and Jonny Lang’s big label debut a year after that (the day before he turned 16!).

The three of them were often viciously vilified by self-appointed blues “purists” who objected to, well, seemingly their very existence. That the three of them have all persevered and created respected bodies of work in the intervening years is a testament not only to their respective talents and discipline, but also to the emptiness of the self-appointed gatekeepers’ attacks against them.

In an interview ahead of his June 23 show at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, Shepherd was asked about the criticism he received when he was just starting out.

“I heard all kinds of stuff. Obviously, you’re interested in what people are saying about you. You want people to know about you and what you’re doing. Back in the ’90s, that was the early days of the Internet, before social media. You had chat boards that people would get on. You would read people talking trash and saying all kinds of things.

“It took a while to get adjusted to the fact that when you’re in the public eye, people are going to have opinions and they’re going to express them. You obviously want everyone to love and appreciate you, but that isn’t going to happen.”

Read the full interview at SanDiegoTroubadour.com >>