Kenny Wayne Shepherd and his band are on the road celebrating the 30th anniversary of his debut record Ledbetter Heights. Shepherd was 18 years old when the record was released and it set him on a trajectory of becoming one of the top blues rock guitar players in the world. Kenny Wayne Shepherd and his current band brought a reimagined, reinvigorated version of this seminal record to Medford, MA, just outside of Boston, and played hot enough to melt the mountains of snow still outside.
Please scroll below for the MisplacedStraws Kenny Wayne Shepherd live photos and review.
The night began with Shepherd taking the stage, backed by a stripped-down version of his band, Kevin McCormick on bass, Joe Krown on keys, and Sam “Freight Train” Bryant on drums, for the blazing instrumental title cut “Ledbetter Heights”. Shepherd was in the zone immediately, showing off the speed and dexterity of the best right hand of any guitar player I’ve ever seen. The title track closes the original studio album, so it was interesting to hear it kick off this live album performance.
Vocalist Noah Hunt, along with Doug Woolverton on trumpet and Charlie DiPuma on sax, joined the band for “Born With A Broken Heart”. Hunt is one of the great vocalists in the genre. The late Corey Sterling sang on the original record with Hunt taking the mic beginning with the follow up Trouble Is…. A handful of tracks from Ledbetter have been in the setlist over the years, but it was great to hear Hunt’s take on some of the deeper cuts. Shepherd mentioned that he and recently rerecorded the entire record with Hunt on vocals and that version will be released in May.
The slight shift in running order between the studio record and this live performance continued throughout the night. Normally, the purist in me would prefer the traditional sequencing, but this order provided maximum impact in the concert setting. The album’s big hit, “Deja Voodoo” dropped to the five slot, while the deep blues tracks “Aberdeen” and “I’m Leaving You (Commit A Crime) had a little more room to breathe lower in the running order. This version of the record ended with the gorgeous instrumental “While We Cry”. Bookending the set with two very different styles of guitar instrumentals was a great call as they illustrate the breadth of Shepherd’s playing on the record.
The set finished with a run of songs from throughout Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s career, including two from his most recent studio record Dirt On My Diamonds, Vol 2. The highlight of this second set was the return of fan (and my personal) favorite “I Found Love (When I Found You)”. Shepherd mentioned how it was one of their most requested songs and has been used countless times as a wedding or proposal song. “Dark Side Of Love” from 2011’s How I Go ended the set before the monster hit “Blue On Black” kicked off the encore, which ended with a soaring version of Joe Walsh’s “Turn To Stone”.
Album anniversary tours are a unique thing. For people who either weren’t fans at the time, or, in some cases, not born yet, it provides an opportunity to view a snapshot of a point in history they didn’t experience. For others, like me, it brings us back to who we were at that moment in time. I turned 23 the day before Ledbetter Heights was released on September 19, 1995, I was in my second year of law school and blown away by hearing this 18-year-old kid play guitar when “Deja Voodoo” came on the radio. Hearing Kenny Wayne Shepherd play these songs now makes those memories flood back, the good, the bad, and the amazing. Ledbetter Heights wasn’t my introduction to the blues, but it was the record that made me want to dig deeper into the genre, a journey I still treasure thirty years later.
