Guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd finds blues, ribs a natural pair
At summer ribs festivals, the food may be hot, meaty and delicious -- but the music tends to be blander than mayonnaise. People go to sink their teeth into some delicious BBQ, and if listening to some dubious "classic" rock or one-hit wonders from the '80s is the price to pay, so be it.
So Ribs on the River 3 this weekend at Trib Total Media Amphitheatre at Station Square comes as a bit of a surprise, showcasing some really solid acts. Headlining the three days are former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley on Friday, then the flashy young blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd on Saturday, and the legendary Leon Russell on Sunday. There will be other musical acts throughout the three days and, of course, lots of food to sample.
Shepherd is actually quite happy to be playing rib festivals.
"In fact, I love doing them, because we usually get a bunch of ribs after the show," he says. "I'm a rib connoisseur.
"Blues and barbecue kind of go together. Most barbecue places you go to are playing blues in the background. It's part of Southern culture, in which the blues was born."
When asked about his favorite rib place in America, Shepherd's response is immediate.
"My house," he says, "because I make some pretty good ribs. One of the great things about being a touring artist is that we get to eat all over the world. It's hard to pick a favorite. I'm serious when I say mine are my favorite. But there's lots of great places -- the Rendezvous in Memphis, the Shed BBQ in Mississippi, Ironworks in Austin, Texas, which is my favorite as far as restaurants go."
Shepherd, 33, took the somewhat sleepy modern blues scene by storm in 1995, when he released "Ledbetter Heights" at age 15. Immediately, the teenage guitar virtuoso began getting comparisons to one of his heroes, the late Texas blues-rocker Stevie Ray Vaughan. The album sold more than half a million copies, which is almost unheard of for a blues record.
Not bad for a kid who couldn't read music, and had barely taken a guitar lesson.
"In middle school, they had a guitar class as an elective. I was already playing guitar, but didn't know how to read music. The teacher would say, 'You need to learn how to play "Ode to Joy." I'd just go home and play it by ear and memorize it, and sit in the class, look at the piece of paper, and play it from memory."
Learning how to play meant listening to a song and trying to replicate it note for note.
"It was a real tedious process at first," Shepherd says. "I'd play a song and take it one note at a time, from beginning to end. It would take hours and hours to put a song together. At some point in your experience of learning the guitar, something clicks, and all the pieces make sense. You can listen to a song, and you don't have to take it one note at a time. You can imagine it already in your head, what you need to do.
"Most of my heroes who are blues players taught themselves how to play. For me, if you want to play the blues, that's probably the road better traveled. Then, you're playing from your heart, not a sheet of paper."
