MUSIC Kenny Wayne Shepherd tours his 25th anniversary release of ‘Trouble Is …’

BY CRYSTAL SCHELLE Special to The News-Post

When most artists decide to release an anniversary album, it usually gets a new cover treatment before it’s shipped out and put on shelves.

But Kenny Wayne Shepherd is not like most artists.

The 45-year-old Louisiana native has played guitar professionally since he was 13. This week, he’ll perform at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races for a sold-out show.

When it came to celebrating the 25th anniversary release of his 1997 album “Trouble Is …” last year, Shepherd wanted to give his fans the gift of a totally new version of an old classic. The album was released in December 2022.

“My fans still buy albums, like physical copies, but for the most part, people consume music differently, so we wanted to do something different,” Shepherd said during a telephone call outside of Nashville, Tennessee. “We also wanted to really emphasize how special this record was for us and the genre.”

That meant a complete rerecording of the album, new packaging and a concert video, as well as a documentary film that tells the story of the making of the record, which is a pretty compelling story in itself, Shepherd said.

That’s because “Trouble Is …” is pretty special. It’s been the longestrunning album on the Billboard Blues charts, was the first to be released as Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band, and the first with Noah Hunt on vocals.

The album features the No.1 mainstream rock hit “Blue on Black,” which also reached No. 78 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also includes the three rock hits “Slow Ride,” “Somehow, Somewhere, Someway” and the Bob Dylan cover “Everything is Broken.” It was certified gold in 1998 by the Recording Industry Association of America, then certified platinum a year later.

With the re-release of “Trouble Is …,” Shepherd said it was a time of reflecting.

“At my core, my music still comes from the same place. I feel like I’ve just gotten a little more refined and skilled in my craft,” he said. “But the real realization is to look back on this and go, this is 25 years ago. I was 18 years old when I wrote this stuff. Just going, wow, this music still stands on its own today. It still holds up. To me, that’s mission accomplished, because I always — even at a young age — wanted to write timeless music.

I wanted to write songs that people would be listening to after I’m dead. And I think that this album just really represents that.”

“Trouble Is …” also marked the first time Shepherd and producer Jerry Harrison, who himself was a member of the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame band Talking Heads.

“We have a long-standing relationship, and we’re still working together in various capacities today,” Shepherd said, noting they were in the studio recently working on the next record. “So it was the beginning of a very long and very fruitful collaboration between us. And I learned a lot. I mean, he’s such a gifted musician and producer, and I was still pretty young. I was just on my second album, so I was still absorbing so much, and he was just an incredible example for me.”

Those browsing kennywayneshepherd.net might notice that music isn’t Shepherd’s only passion. He has dedicated an entire page of his website to cars.

“My three passions in my life are my family and my cars and my guitars, as far back as when I was a little kid,” he said. “Even before I had guitars. I had little Hot Wheels cars in every pocket of my outfit.”

When people used to ask him what he’d do if a career in music didn’t pan out, he would always say he’s race cars. Because his music career worked out, it afforded him the opportunity to also pursue my passion with cars. He builds custom vehicles as a side hobby. Right now, for instance, a 1970 Barracuda convertible is in his garage.

His next project is the release of a Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band studio album. They recorded it right before the COVID shutdown, and it was shelved during the pandemic.

“It didn’t make sense to me to put out a studio record in the midst of all that,” he said.

The project is still untitled, and Shepherd said they expect to release it sometime later this year.

In the meantime, he’ll be on tour for the fans.

“We’re known for high-energy American music that’s heavily steeped in blues, but we like to rock ‘n’ roll too,” he said.

For the “Trouble Is …” anniversary tour, the band will perform the album in its entirely for the first time ever.

“Then … we play a whole second set of music, which is a collection of songs that we’ve put out over the 25 years since ‘Trouble Is …’ came out.”

Crystal Schelle is a journalist whose work has been published locally, regionally and nationally. She enjoys trivia, cats and streaming movies.

Jazz Inside Out will feature guest artists Akua Dixon and Dave Douglas

Drummer Jeff Cosgrove is rolling into the second concert of his limited jazz series called Jazz Inside Out on March 25 at the Y Arts Center in downtown Frederick.

The musicians for this concert will be Jeff Cosgrove on drums, Akua Dixon on cello and Dave Douglas on trumpet.

Cellist, composer, conductor and educator Akua Dixon has been at the forefront of improvising string players since 1973. She is the first cellist to win the Downbeat Critics Poll. She has toured the world performing with her Grammy Award-winning string quartet, Quartette Indigo. Dixon’s string arrangements can be heard on the fivetime Grammy Award-winning album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” and Aretha Franklin’s Grammy-nominated “A Rose is Still A Rose.” She has performed with Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, Marvin Gaye and James Brown, to name a few.

Dave Douglas is a prolific trumpeter, composer and educator from New York City, known for the stylistic breadth of

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