Kenny Wayne Shepherd talks collab with Bobby Rush on Young Fashioned Ways ahead of Uptown gig

Bobby Rush and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. // photo courtesy the artist

Kenny Wayne Shepherd exploded onto the national blues scene with the release of his 1995 album, Ledbetter Heights, and only confirmed that attention when “Blue On Black,” the lead single from his sophomore follow-up, Trouble Is …,  hit number one on the Mainstream Rock charts. Since, then Shepherd has continued to make music, touring with everyone from Buddy Guy to Van Halen, and releasing an astonishing number of albums.

His latest, Young Fashioned Ways, sees Shepherd collaborating with musical icon Bobby Rush on a set of new tunes, along with revisiting some of Rush’s most-loved songs. Recorded live at Royal Studios in Memphis, it’s a rollicking set of blues. In support of the album, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Bobby Rush are headed out on the road. That tour stops at the Uptown Theater on Friday, April 25, so we hopped on the phone with Shepherd to discuss just how Young Fashioned Ways came to be.

The Pitch: You and Bobby Rush met on a cruise?

Kenny Wayne Shepherd: Well, no. I don’t actually remember the exact place we were the first time we met, but we had played the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise together a couple of times, and I had watched him, but I had never actually played with him until I invited him to come and be my special guest at my Backroads Blues Festival a couple of years ago. That’s what began this whole situation and this experience, and led to the recording of this record.

What were the initial seeds that made this album happen?

Well, I mean, initially for me it was just having him come and sit in with my band at the blues festival. What happened was he walked out on stage–we hadn’t rehearsed anything, really–the audience is there, we’re halfway into the show, and he just came out and he commanded the stage. He immediately won the audience over.

We had this dynamic and chemistry between the two of us as we played. In my experience, you can’t fake or manufacture chemistry between people. It either exists or it doesn’t. The same is true in the music business, sports, everything across the board, you know? I immediately recognized that we had this real, legitimate chemistry, and we were playing off of each other and interacting with each other through the songs.

I was like, “Dude, this feels pretty special. There’s something to this,” and so, after we finished that show, I went up to him and I said, “Hey man, I think we need to do a record together,” and he was like, “I was just thinking the same thing.” That was literally the beginning of it, but he said in that moment, “We’re gonna make a statement to the world by doing this record together.”

His whole thing as well is like, “We’re from the same area, but we’re decades apart in age, but none of that matters. It doesn’t matter how old we are. It doesn’t matter what color we are. We came from the same area. We grew up on the same kind of music.”

The difference is, he’s one of the originators of the genre, and then I’m a product of people like him and all my heroes that helped create the music that inspired me and then turned me into the musician that I am.

Part of recording this album is that you’re not just writing original songs, you’re revisiting some of Bobby’s classics. Is it a way for you to be connected to that history

To be honest with you, I didn’t know that those songs that we did–I think there are three or four of them on the record–but I didn’t know that those were songs that he had previously recorded. When we entered the studio, we had literally zero discussion. It’s the first time ever that I’ve made a record where I had no idea whatsoever what we were going to record, because I tried to talk to Bobby a few times before we made the record about songs, like did he want me to send him any ideas or music or lyrics or whatever, and he just wouldn’t respond to me.

He would respond to me about everything else, but when it came to the songs, he never responded. I just thought it was really strange, but interesting, but obviously, he had a plan, and I think it was really great, to be honest with you, that it worked out that way. That’s another example of him knowing more than I do about this kind of stuff

I literally walked in there and had no idea about any of the songs we were going to create or record while we were in there. Everything just happened. One thing happened, and the next thing happened, and it just was this chronological experience. When we played those songs and he started singing those songs, he would show me a guitar lick, and then I would make it my own, and then we would start recording. I had no idea that those were previous songs of his, and so therefore, we approached them and me, as a producer, I approached them as if they were brand-new songs.

I wasn’t attached to any specific previous version of those songs. If I would’ve known that we were rerecording some songs he had previously recorded, I probably would’ve gone back and listened to those before we made the record, and then that would’ve influenced how I would’ve approached the song, so I actually think it was pretty genius that I had no idea and he never told me because then we were able to give these songs a completely new treatment.

How are you approaching this for the tour?

Well, some things are gonna be a little different for the tour, as well, because there are so many different combinations throughout the record of instrumentation. Some songs are just totally stripped down and it’s acoustic guitar, harmonica, and a vocal, and then some have acoustic guitar, keyboards, harmonica, and a vocal, then sometimes it’s electric guitar, keyboards, harmonica, and a vocal. Sometimes, it’s drums, bass, and then we get all the way up to the horn section.

I like that because it takes you on an instrumental experience, like a journey through the different historical sounds of blues music. The original blues was totally stripped-down acoustic. Then we went into the electric era where electric instruments were introduced and then all the way to the full big band sound with the horns and everything, but for the live experience, I didn’t want there to be people constantly walking on and off the stage. I felt that might be a bit of a distraction, so we slightly reinterpreted some of the songs for the live show to try to minimize the number of musicians walking on and off the stage.

We’ll see how it goes. It was great in rehearsal. The rubber meets the road when you actually get out there and play it for the fans and you see how they respond to it. Everything was really intuitive, and we just let the music guide us, and that’s what we can expect from the live show as well. If things need to be adjusted, we’ll find out very quickly and we’ll make those adjustments.

How has your band responded to learning these songs?

They’re pumped up about it. I mean, who wouldn’t be excited about the chance to play with Bobby Rush and do this? This is different. It’s cool. This show’s gonna be a different experience for anybody who’s ever seen one of my shows or anybody who’s ever seen one of his shows, because you are gonna get both. You’re gonna get Kenny Wayne and Bobby Rush, and we’re gonna open the show together and we’re gonna do songs from this record, then we’re gonna have a intermission, and then the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band is gonna come back out, we’re gonna do that thing, and then at the end we will bring Bobby back up for a big encore finale kind of thing.

It’s gonna be a unique experience, and my band was fired up about the possibility because anytime you’re doing something different, it keeps it interesting for everybody, both the fans and the musicians.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Bobby Rush play the Uptown Theater on Friday, April 25. Details on that show here.