KENNY WAYNE SHEPERD BAND – Straight To You (Live)

2LP – 180g Transparent Red Vinyl

The band’s last studio album ‘The Traveler‘ was released in May of last year, giving the band their eighth #1 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart. The performance captured on ‘Straight To You: Live’ took place at the famous Leverkusen Jazzstage for the iconic German TV show, Rockpalast on November 25th, 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of The ‘Traveler World Tour.’

The seven-piece band took the stage and immediately launched into their most-recent hit-single “Woman Like You,” with the honey-soaked powerhouse voice of Noah Hunt blasting “I ain’t looking for a one time girl” backed by the fiery fretwork of Shepherd. It’s the first of four songs from ‘The Traveler’ featured in the set. “The whole intention of this set-list is that we come out with a lot of energy, get the crowd pumped up. We want to get them energized right off the bat.” It slips into the soul-drenched blues of “Long Time Running,” with Chris Layton’s drums firing through the building horn section as Hunt and Shepherd lock-in on duel vocals, whilst blue and yellow lights spray the stage, catapulting you right to the front row of the audience.

“We were really fired up,” he continues. “We had expanded the band and brought in the horn section, it was their first time over to Europe with us. So we were glad to have the full ensemble there. It’s always exciting when we’re incorporating a new album into the live performance. Remembering the show, there were several stand out moments. The song off the new record “I Want You,” is a really extended version, and every soloist gets an opportunity to really shine, and everybody brought it 150%.”

The band never let up, and it’s in a live environment that Shepherd truly lets it rip. The five-time Grammy nominated guitarist has developed a formidable back catalogue that only someone with road-worn life experience can deliver, and this set is besieged with all of the classics. Shepherd prowls the stage on “Diamonds and Gold,” explodes into honkey-tonk revelry on the Elmore James cover “Talk To Me Baby,” and stuns with an 11-minute epic version of “The Heat of The Sun.” “On that the band is really focused, everybody is listening to one another, everybody’s working collectively on the dynamics of the song, bringing it down, building it back up, trying to transcend what’s actually happening on stage and take the music to the next level.”

The band continues to shift up gears with a 9-minute version of “Shame Shame Shame,” a selection from Shepherd’s 1995 debut. “The reason why the song goes on the way that it does is because everybody is feeling it and there’s a lot of special moments that I’m proud of. Giving the keyboard and horn guys their moments to shine, and standing back and letting those guys do what they do best, made me feel just as proud as any solo that I played that night,” he enthuses.

Talking about not being able to perform live during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shepherd says; “I miss it. Live concert performances are the essence of what we do best. So, not having that in our life is yeah, this has been an eye-opening experience I think for all musicians. It’s been a personal loss for every performer out there who does what we do. A lot of our lives have been spent pouring our heart and soul into that.”

The release of ‘Straight To You: Live‘ comes at a time when there is no live music and the world looks very different than it did 12 months ago, but as you watch the seven-piece Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band bow out on a phenomenal finale of Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” and wave goodbye to the cheering Leverkusen crowd, it reignites the love of live music and the hope that is still to come.