Birth name Kenny Wayne Brobst Name Kenny Shepherd | Instruments Guitar, vocals Years active 1990-present | |
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Born June 12, 1977 (age 47) Shreveport, LouisianaUnited States ( 1977-06-12 ) Role Guitarist · kennywayneshepherd.net Spouse Hannah Gibson (m. 2006), Melissa Abcock (m. 2000–2002) Albums Trouble Is, How I Go, Live! in Chicago, Ledbetter Heights, Live On Profiles | ||
Occupation(s) Musician, Songwriter | ||
Kenny wayne shepherd lrbc 2012 born with a broken heart
Kenny Wayne Shepherd (born Kenny Wayne Brobst; June 12, 1977) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He has released several studio albums and experienced significant commercial success both as a blues artist and a young musician.
Contents
- Kenny wayne shepherd lrbc 2012 born with a broken heart
- Kenny wayne shepherd lrbc jan 2014 while we cry
- Life and career
- Personal life
- Live performances
- References
Kenny wayne shepherd lrbc jan 2014 while we cry
Life and career
Shepherd was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He graduated Caddo Magnet High School in Shreveport. The guitarist is "completely self-taught", and does not read music. Growing up, Shepherd's father (Ken Shepherd) was a local radio personality and some-time concert promoter, and had a vast collection of music. Shepherd got his first "guitar" at the age of three or four, when his grandmother purchased a series of several plastic guitars for him with S&H Green Stamps, which Shepherd has said he would "go through like candy".
Shepherd stated in a 2011 interview that he began playing guitar in earnest at age seven, about six months after meeting and being "pretty mesmerized" by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Labor Day weekend in 1984, at one of his father's promoted concerts. His self-taught method employed a process of learning one note at a time, playing and rewinding cassette tapes, using "a cheap Yamaha wanna-be Stratocaster...made out of plywood, basically", and learning to play by following along with material from his father's record collection.
At the age of 13, Shepherd was invited to play guitar onstage by blues musician Bryan Lee. He subsequently made demo tapes, and a video was shot at Shepherd's first performance at the Red River Revel Arts Festival in Shreveport. It was this video performance that impressed Giant Records chief Irving Azoff enough to sign Shepherd to a multiple album record deal.
From 1995 on, Shepherd took seven singles into the Top 10, and holds the record for the longest-running album on the Billboard Blues Charts with Trouble Is.... In 1996, Shepherd began a longtime collaboration with vocalist Noah Hunt, who provided the vocals for Shepherd's signature song, "Blue on Black". Shepherd has been nominated for five Grammy Awards, and has received two Billboard Music Awards, two Blues Music Awards and two Orville H. Gibson Awards.
In September 2008, Fender Musical Instruments Corp. released the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Signature Series Stratocaster, designed exclusively by Shepherd. In 2007, he released a critically acclaimed and two time Grammy nominated DVD–CD project, 10 Days Out: Blues from the Backroads. This documents Shepherd as he travels the country to jam with and interview the last of the authentic blues musicians. As they tour the backroads, Shepherd, with members of the Double Trouble Band, play with a host of blues greats including Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and Bryan Lee, Buddy Flett (with whom he jams at Lead Belly's grave), B. B. King, blues harp master Jerry "Boogie" McCain, Cootie Stark, Neal Pattman, John Dee Holeman, Etta Baker, Henry Townsend with Honeyboy Edwards, and a concert session with the surviving members of Muddy Waters' and Howlin' Wolf's bands, including luminaries such as Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and Pinetop Perkins. In 2010 Shepherd was nominated for a Grammy for Live In Chicago which featured performances with Hubert Sumlin, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, Buddy Flett and Bryan Lee. In 2011, Shepherd released his seventh CD entitled How I Go on Roadrunner Records. In 2014 he released "Goin Home" on Mascot Label Group in Europe and on Concord Records in the US and the rest of the world. In 2015 Shepherd released "Something From the Road Vol. 1," a live special release for Record Store Day in the U.S. In January 2017 the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band went into the studio with producer Marshall Altman to record a new album of all newly written songs that is yet to be titled. This new album will be released in the summer of 2017 to coincide with a major European Tour in July and a U.S. Tour beginning in August.
In 2013, Shepherd, along with Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills & Nash) and Barry Goldberg (Electric Flag), formed The Rides. The three wrote, recorded and released a CD entitled “Can’t Get Enough" on August 27, 2013. Stills refers to the band as “the blues band of my dreams”. The band toured the US in 2013 supporting their debut record, culminating with an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The three reunited in 2015, writing and recording a second release, "Pierced Arrow" that was released on 429 Records and Mascot Label Group in Europe in 2016.
Personal life
Shepherd married Hannah, the daughter of actor Mel Gibson, on September 16, 2006. The couple has five children, three daughters and two sons.