"This
is a homecoming in more ways than one," Kenny Wayne Shepherd says of Goin’
Home, The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band’s May 20, 2014 debut on Concord Records.
(International release dates may vary) "I felt like I was retracing my
steps and reliving all the good times that I've had in my life because of this
music. And hopefully, that amount of
happiness comes through on the album."
In a
20-year recording career that began when he was just 16, Shepherd has
established himself as an immensely popular recording artist, a consistently
in-demand live act and an influential force in a worldwide resurgence of
interest in the blues. Now, the five-time GRAMMY® nominee delivers one of his
most personal projects to date with Goin' Home, his eighth album and his first
to be recorded in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana.
Recorded
in a mere 11 days, Goin' Home finds Shepherd revisiting a dozen of the vintage
blues classics that first ignited his love of the blues and inspired him to
play guitar. The artist's sharp interpretive skills and sublime guitar work
shine on his renditions of tunes originally popularized by such blues icons as
B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King, Muddy Waters, Magic Sam, Johnny
"Guitar" Watson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells.
Goin'
Home—which continues in the spirit of Shepherd's widely acclaimed 2007
album/film project 10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads—came together when
Shepherd decided to take advantage of an 11-day gap in his touring schedule.
"Everybody was originally gonna fly home and have a break," he recalls,
"but I saw it as an opportunity to make some music. I had been looking for
songs and preparing to make a record like this, so I asked the guys in the band
for some more song suggestions and we rerouted the tour bus down to
Louisiana."
The
process of choosing material for the project allowed Shepherd to relive some of
his earliest musical epiphanies. "I dug through tons and tons of songs and
artists' catalogues, trying to find songs that I thought would be right for
this record," he explains. "That brought back all these distinct
memories of sitting in the living room in front of the record player and
cassette deck as a kid and learning how to play this material."
The fact
that the album was recorded in Shreveport, where Shepherd had come of age
musically but had never actually recorded, raised the project's emotional
intensity. "Being in Shreveport really brought me back, and being
surrounded by my family and the music that I cut my teeth on brought up a lot
of vivid memories."
Although
Shreveport didn't have a world class recording studio when Shepherd was growing
up, the city is now home to Blade Studios, the celebrated facility run by
respected drummer/producer Brady Blade, who's renowned for his work with the
likes of Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Dave Matthews. Armed with an
encyclopedic knowledge of American Blues, Shepherd and his band—singer Noah
Hunt, ex-Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton, former
Firm bassist Tony Franklin and keyboardist Riley Osbourn—cut 22 songs, with no
studio trickery and minimal overdubbing.
"We
did it the way records used to be recorded," Shepherd explains.
"Everything, including the vocals, was basically cut live in the studio
with everybody in the same room, with the instruments all bleeding together
onto two-inch tape. I wanted to record these songs in the same spirit in which
they were originally recorded, so the 11-day time frame was self-imposed. That
put pressure on everybody to get it right the first time, and I had the utmost
confidence in everyone's abilities and knowledge."
Also
lending a hand on the project are several talented friends who shared
Shepherd's enthusiasm for Goin' Home's back-to-basics concept. Those include
fellow guitar icons Joe Walsh, Warren Haynes, Keb' Mo' and Robert Randolph,
longtime friend Ringo Starr, Fabulous Thunderbirds frontman Kim Wilson, the
Rebirth Brass Band and co-producer Blade's father, Pastor Brady Blade Sr., who
lends a bracing dose of preaching to Shepherd's version of Bo Diddley's
"You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover."
"Everybody
who performed on the record shared my passion, appreciation and respect for
this music, but they're also all good friends of mine," Shepherd notes.
"It was all pretty casual; I'd just run into people and ask if they wanted
to be a part of it, and every one of them contributed something significant to
the record.
"I
feel like I've matured a lot as a musician," Shepherd concludes. "My
purpose for making music is the same as it ever was, but I've also learned a
lot over the years. Less can be more. The great blues musicians who originally
moved me didn't always have to burn up the neck of the guitar by playing a
bunch of notes. They knew how to play the right note at the right time, in a
way that just pierces you right to your heart. That was an important lesson,
and it's my goal to move people in that same way that my role models moved
me."
