Ledbetter Heights

Updated on Jan 18, 2024

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Released September 19, 1995 Length 60:55 Artist Kenny Wayne Shepherd Label Giant Records		Recorded 1994–1995 Ledbetter Heights (1995) Trouble Is... (1997) Release date 19 September 1995

Genres Blues, Rock music, Rock and roll, Roots rock Producers Kenny Wayne Shepherd, David Z Similar Kenny Wayne Shepherd albums, Blues albums

Matthew davidson ledbetter heights kenny wayne shepherd cover

Ledbetter Heights is the debut album by American blues solo artist Kenny Wayne Shepherd. He was a mere 18 years old during its release on September 19, 1995. The album's name refers to a neighborhood in Shepherd's home town of Shreveport, Louisiana. It also featured lead singer Corey Sterling on vocals.

Ledbetter Heights was an immediate hit, selling over 500,000 copies by early 1996. It was certified Gold by the RIAA in 1996 and certified Platinum by 2004. Most blues records never achieve such a level of commercial success, much less ones released by artists who are still in their teens. Ledbetter Heights also spent 20 weeks topping Billboard's blues chart. In their list of blues artists, Guitar World voted Shepherd #3 after B.B.King and Eric Clapton.

Album title

The Ledbetter Heights neighborhood, formerly known as "St. Paul's Bottoms" and traditionally referred to as "The Bottoms", is one of the earliest parts of Shreveport to be settled outside the original downtown district, dating back to the 19th century. For almost all of its history, it has been predominantly African-American. In the early 20th century, there was a red-light district with legal prostitution within this neighborhood, and musician Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, after whom the neighborhood is now named, lived and performed there. The renaming of the neighborhood to Ledbetter Heights in the 1990s was part of an effort to rehabilitate the area's image, as it had become known as an economically depressed and crime-ridden area.

Shepherd named his debut album after this neighborhood as an homage to the blues tradition of his home town.