Kenny Wayne Shepherd has been making music since he was 13 years old, but he waited until the ripe old age of 18 to release his debut album, Ledbetter Heights. This week the blues guitarist looked back on his debut album 30 years later, talked about his upcoming Rock covers LP, and his desire for a Country cover of "Blue on Black" with Rob Stone of the Rob + Holly Show.
LISTEN NOW: Kenny Wayne Shepherd with Rob + Holly
"It's a monumental record. I mean, this is ground zero. This is the beginning for us," Shepherd says of Ledbetter Heights, which was released in 1995. "This is the introduction of, you know, me and my music and my band to the world. And it's like the foundation, it's like we met our fan base and started building our fan base on this record. And now here we are 30 years later."
Kenny tells us he's currently working on a Rock covers album, and took some time to talk about the covers of "Blue on Black" that exist in that genre and his hopes for a Country version to eventually emerge.
"'Blue on Black' for me, we released it in 1997 and it was a massive hit for us and it set a record at the time for the most consecutive weeks at number one on the Rock charts in the history of the Rock charts," remembers Shepherd. "Then 20 years later, Five Finger Death Punch, which is a heavy, heavy Rock band, they contacted me and said, you know, 'we're gonna record this for a new album, and then we want to do another version of it and have you play on it.' And I'm like, 'OK, great.' And then they had Brantley [Gilbert] come in, and then he became part of it. And then we had Brian May from Queen playing guitar on it. So it was like all these different worlds coming together."
"20 years later, it was like exactly 20 years later, they put it out and it shot up to number one all over again on the Rock charts."
"I would love nothing more than for some Country artist to come and cover that song, I think, because it's a hit song no matter what, no matter what format it is, and I think that the right artist covering that song can have a#1 hit within Country radio too, and I hope that happens."
To hear much more from Kenny Wayne Shepherd, check out the full interview above.