Shepherd travels to roots in blues

By Patrick Daugherty

Published Feb. 2, 2007

Kenny Wayne Shepherd used to be famous. He burst onto the scene in 1995 as an 18-year-old blues prodigy who had only started playing four years earlier, and he quickly mesmerized and energized the stagnant blues scene. His debut album went platinum and his singles were ubiquitous on mainstream rock radio. But unsurprisingly, the scene dried up, and the blues went back to where it had been since the 1960s: the back bins of used record stores.

Shepherd took another go at the business in 2004 by updating his sound and singing his own songs — he previously had another band member do it — but failed to find an audience. Instead he found John Mayer had already cornered the white boy blues market. It didn't help that his new album sounded like a Jane's Addiciton cover band imitating Shinedown — with a guest appearance by Kid Rock himself to boot.

Shepherd has gone back to the lab again, and returned with 10 Days Out (Blues from the Backroads), an ambitious dual CD/DVD project that features Shepherd and members of Double Trouble (Stevie Ray Vaughn's band) embarking on a "ten-day trek into the heart of America," according to the disc's liner notes.

Shepherd is determined to give the original blues-pickers their due by going anywhere there are blues musicians. The journey produced 15 songs that came about after Shepherd visited blues musicians "in their homes, backyards and local clubs, creating as intimate and intense a blues film as has been seen in many a year."

So this really isn't as much a Kenny Wayne Shepherd record as it is a blues mix tape. Shepherd plays on every song, but he rarely, if ever, shines the spotlight on himself.

The effect is quite appealing at times. Many of the songs have a down-home feel and stay true to the spirit of the genre that evolved into popular music as we know it.

The problem is to some modern listeners good old straight ahead blues is not all that appealing, especially when it is sung by an aging axman 40 years past his prime. Listening to some 80-year-old nursing home resident just isn't as exhilarating as hearing an original Son House or Howlin' Wolf recording. Listeners would be much better served looking up these originals or getting their blues vicariously through superfans such as the White Stripes, Rolling Stones or even Led Zeppelin.

Some of the songs are just as tired as the performers. How many hundreds of thousands of versions have been recorded of "Sittin' On Top Of The World" or "The Thrill Is Gone" by B.B. King alone? In fairness to King, he tries to put a new spin on his song, but the result ends up sounding more like a botched James Bond theme than a new B.B. King classic. The thrill is gone, indeed.

Despite the retreads, the disc does have some high, nearly stunning moments. Listening to a 96-year-old Etta Baker pluck her guitar like a teenager on "Knoxville Rag" is transcendent. It is equaled in its improbability and quality by 93-year-old Henry Townsend, who is blind to boot, playing "Tears Come Rolling Down."

Shepherd wants to give the blues to a younger generation. Some of it might be lost on today's 20-year-olds as this disc confirms, but it also confirms something greater: Blues music is the heart and soul of all that we hold dear in music today, and this is a heart that will not stop beating.