The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band - Goin' Home

KWS can't read music.  He learned to play guitar by ear by listening to his radio D.J. and concert promoter Dad's extensive record collection, much of it blues recordings, and through a devotion to the blues stylings of Stevie Ray Vaughan. He sings only occasionally and has always concentrated on his axe skills. His band, The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, has one of the best male bluesrock voices in the business, Noah Hunt, thereby leaving KWS to his Stratocaster.  KWS learned to write killer blues and rock tunes and, in 1996, the Band hit gold with the single "Blue on Black."  Although KWS can't read music it has not stopped him from churning out amazing new material and jaw dropping renditions of old blues standards.  Since 1995, he has had seven number one albums on the U.S.
Blues Charts, took to the road with members of Double Trouble and played with blues pioneers for an award winning double album and video called 10 Days Out: Blues From The Backroads, and formed a side project band called the Rides with Stephen Stills and Barry Goldberg. To say the last couple of decades for KWS have been successful would be an understatement.

The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band's next release, titled Goin' Home, will be available May 20, 2015. It will simply add to KWS' reputation as a badass blues guitar slinger.  The album is a return to roots affair.  KWS gets to play and embellish upon those blues classics that he pulled from Dad's record collection and wore out needles learning how to play.  It features songs by his greatest influences, among them, B.B. King, Albert King, Bo Diddley, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny "Guitar" Watson and Lee Dorsey. Here's the tracklist:

1. Palace Of The King
2. Everything Gonna Be Alright
3. I Live The Life I Love
4. The House Is Rockin’
5. Breaking Up Somebody’s Home
6. You Done Lost Your Good Thing
7. You Can’t Judge A Book By The Cover
8. Boogie Man
9. Looking Back
10. Cut You Loose
11. Born Under A Bad Sign
12. Still A Fool

The album also hosts guest appearances by guitarists Joe Walsh, Warren Haynes, Keb' Mo' and Robert Randolph, plus Ringo Starr, Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the Rebirth Brass Band and a KWS mentor, Pastor Brady Blade Sr. If there is one blues album you buy this year this should be it.  Pre-orders are now being taken at amazon.com.

- Old School