Interview: Kenny Wayne Shepherd Talks ‘KWS Backroads Blues Festival’ and The Blues

By Martine Ehrenclou

Who better than five-time Grammy nominated, blues-rock multi-platinum icon Kenny Wayne Shepherd to cultivate the second annual KWS Backroads Blues Festival featuring three-time Grammy nominee Joe Bonamassa, Grammy nominee Eric Gales, King Soloman Hicks and Grammy Award-winning blues artist Bobby Rush?

Talking with me from his home in Shreveport, LA, Shepherd said, “We’re just continuing with the momentum that we started with the inaugural run last year with such a great lineup with Buddy Guy and Christone Kingfish Ingram, and me and my band. This year we’re expanding on it.” He added, “We’re trying to bring what we believe are the hottest performers in the genre today.”

When asked to explain the Backroads Blues Festival Tour, Shepherd said, “I wanted to do a more traditional blues festival-style lineup where every artist is featured with their own band and they get their own set. Last year, Kingfish went on, and then I went on after him, and gave what I believe was the appropriate respect to the living legend, Mr. Buddy Guy, to have him close the show. Then the three of us came out together at the end of the show and did some good old-fashioned blues jamming on the guitar.”

Shepherd continued. “That way everybody has their own set and then at the end we’ll come together and we’ll play a couple songs and jam out. I think the audience will love and appreciate it. They certainly did last year.” He added, “People save up money and they spend their hard-earned cash on things like concerts, and I want them to feel like they’re getting their money’s worth. I don’t want anybody to walk away disappointed. I want them to feel like they got more than what they bargained for.”

The KWS Backroads Blues Festival sounded so exciting that I made a mental note to check if it was coming to my city.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s multi award-winning, platinum selling film and album project 10 Days Out: Blues From The Backroads saw Kenny traveling across the country with his band and a portable studio to spotlight and play alongside the world’s most renowned blues players, as well as the genre’s lesser known and towering talents.

Kenny’s deep love of the blues and blues history shined through as he talked about his documentary. “If you look at that original documentary, it was a multi-generational type thing. I was going to the originators, if you will, especially some of them being the oldest living blues artists at the time–Henry Townsend and Pinetop Perkins and oh man, Honeyboy Edwards.”

“You also had BB King too, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, but these guys were 20 years BB’s senior at that point.” Shepherd’s enthusiasm grew as he recounted his journey with the documentary. “BB was in his seventies at that point, and some of these people were in their nineties. People had been doing it decades longer than BB. We had BB, we had Bryan Lee and Buddy Flett. It was kind of connecting all the dots. Ultimately, I did it for the love of the music and the artists that came before me. They’re the reason why I’m able to do what I do. It’s kind of a continuation of that. Last year was a multi-generational thing. You had Buddy Guy, one of the last true direct connections lineage-wise to a particular generation of blues musician. Then you have me, who kind of was the younger generation, now I’m becoming one of the old timers. Then you have Kingfish who is one of the next generation.”

“Doing it for the love of the genre and the love of the music and for the love and appreciation of the fans and trying to give them something unique that they can really be excited about,” Shepherd said. “Which was the same thing with the documentary and the album that we did with 10 Days Out: Blues from the Back Roads.

“That’s why it’s called The Back Roads Blues Festival, because there’s a lot of similarities. The mission is pretty similar. Obviously, the ultimate mission is get out there and play some great music and entertain some people, but there’s more than that. It has a real purpose behind it.”

It sounded very personal for Shepherd. I asked him to elaborate.

Shepherd said, “One of the things that I’ve always noticed at my shows because of my story and how young I was coming up, you would see a lot of young people. Either they were my age coming to see me play, or you would see parents bringing their little kids because they heard about my dad taking me to concerts and me seeing people like Stevie Ray Vaughan and it changing my life. We’ve always had a lot of young people. I remember going to blues festivals, and playing them, playing other blues festivals as an artist. A lot of the time you see these multi-generational groups of people, grandparents, parents, and grandchildren, all come to these. It’s like you can see they’re bringing their kids or their grandkids, and this is an opportunity to turn them on to the music. By doing so, by converting new fans, and then you’re continuing the longevity of the genre.”

I said, “And creating a bond with families over the love of the music too.”

“Absolutely. Just the 10 Days Out Project is a big reminder to everyone that we got to appreciate these musicians while they’re still here with us because I think the majority of all the artists that were featured in that project have passed on,” Kenny shared. “We’re reaching out to people like Bobby Rush, who I love and who is also from my home state. So is Buddy Guy for that matter. Buddy Guy comes from South Louisiana. We want to have the originators, the guys that paved the way for people like us, we want to have them involved. That’s the reason for reaching out to people like Bobby Rush and Buddy Guy for sure. Not to mention, they’re incredibly talented and great entertainers, so they’re going to put on a great show.”

Adding that Joe Bonamassa is at the top of his game and the genre, he explained his thinking that for the fans to see Bonamassa and Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band together, is good for the fans. Along with the aforementioned blues legends, he believes it’s good for the genre. “These are the people whose names are brought up when you talk about the best of this genre in modern times. “

Curious about his take on the future of the blues, I asked where he saw the blues in five or ten years.

Shepherd said, “I think over the next few years artists are going to see new and different faces in their audiences, and new people are going to get turned onto the music as they get more and more tired of popular music because it’s oversaturated and it all sounds the same, and they’re looking for something real to sink their teeth into. The genre’s not going anywhere. It has its surges in popularity. I believe it’s experiencing a current surge right now.”

I asked Shepherd what’s coming up for him and asked about his current tour Trouble Is…25. 

“We have so many wonderful things going on,” Shepherd said. “I have two new albums ready to be released, plus two cover albums that we did just for the fun of it. That’s like four albums that need to be released at some point soon. Then we have the Back Roads Blues Festival that we’re working on. And our current tour is going great (Trouble Is..25). We started last February and I thought we would do it for three to six months, and it just started selling out, and the fans were like, ‘You got to bring it here, you got to bring it to this town. We want to see it.’ Now it’s been extended into the first half of this year. We’re taking it over to Europe. I mean, we started this year and almost every show that we did for the first two and a half weeks of shows was sold out.”

I said, “Trouble Is..25” is so popular.”

Excitement creeping into his voice, Shepherd said, “All over again. It’s amazing. That’s the thing with doing this kind of music is it doesn’t get old. It doesn’t sound dated. People still want to hear it and if people are hearing it for the first time, it doesn’t sound like it’s trapped in a specific era.”

For more information and tickets for the KWS Backroads Blues Festival see HERE