Kenny Wayne Shepherd Reflects On 30 Years of Debut Album

On Thursday (April 16), guitar god Kenny Wayne Shepherd joined Loudwire Nights to look back on his debut album, Ledbetter Heights, and what it was like re-recording it for its 30th anniversary.

Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

Get our free mobile app

"Some people are lucky just to get a shot at having a career in music and then some people are really lucky if that opportunity lasts five years," Shepherd shared with Loudwire Nights' Chuck Armstrong.

"This is 30 years and we're still going strong. I think the goal when I started out with this whole thing was, I didn't want to be a pop star. I wasn't following whatever the current trend was, especially because we were in the transition from hair metal to grunge. But I just wanted to write timeless music."

The foundation for that hope began when Shepherd was a teenager and began writing the songs that would eventually be on his debut album, Ledbetter Heights. Produced by the legendary David Rivkin — David Z — Ledbetter Heights was a dream come true for Shepherd.

"Going into a world-class recording studio with David Z and Chris Layton on drums, I mean, incredible stuff that people only dream about," he admitted.

"And just that in and of itself would have been pretty amazing."

The album would go on to sell 500,000 copies in a year and cross the million mark a few years later. To celebrate its legacy and its 30th anniversary, Shepherd went back into the studio to re-record the songs that started his career.

"I was a teenager and when I played guitar, I sounded much older than I was and people were wowed by that, but if I opened my mouth and started singing, I sounded like a kid," he said.

"That's why I had somebody singing for me at least the first three albums in my band. We parted ways with the first guy, [Corey Sterling,] and we started looking or another singer and that's when we met Noah Hunt — and Noah is still with me to this day. A lot of people often wonder what Ledbetter Heights would have sounded like if Noah had been in the band for that record. So now they get a chance to hear that."

Hunt's vocals aren't the only updates to the songs. Shepherd said they changed some of the guitar solos and gave a fresh treatment to the song "Riverside."

"That's the one song I always wish sounded a little different on the record, so we made it different," Shepherd said.

"We brought Ledbetter Heights into 2026 and people get to hear Noah's voice on it — and it kind of completes my catalog."

What Else Did Kenny Wayne Shepherd Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

With his involvement in the Experience Hendrix Tour, who else he thinks deserves similar celebration: "I'm actually surprised nobody's done it for Stevie Ray Vaughan. I've thought about doing it, but at the same time, it's almost predictable to do that, because he had such an impact on me. I mean, literally, if it wasn't for him, I might not be doing what I'm doing today. So Stevie would be a great one. Obviously you need to tap into somebody who's world renowned, they have a big enough fan base so that people are going to want to come to see that, but there are so many artists that would deserve something like that. Freddie King I think is one of the most underrated, he kind of gets lost in the shuffle...he inspired so many of the biggest guitar players on the planet."

How Stevie Ray Vaughan changed his life: "I was already a fan of his music. My dad turned me onto so much because because my dad was a disc jockey, so I grew up around radio stations and music 24-7. I gravitated toward blues and rock and ZZ Top and Allman Brothers and SRV and stuff. One year, my dad did a festival called the Louisiana Music Festival that he promoted and it was a fundraiser for muscular dystrophy. This particular year, he booked Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble as the headline act for the festival. Because my dad's a promoter, I got to go backstage. I got to meet the band, which I did every time a band came through town. I got to meet the band because of my dad, but this time it was just different, man. I got to watch the whole show from the side of the stage, sitting on one of his amp cases, just feet away from him. And I was completely mesmerized, man. I saw him several times after that and every single time he had the same effect on me. It was just like I was completely locked into everything — I was entranced by his playing. And the whole world could have just caught on fire around me and I would have never known. I was locked in. It just changed me, man."

What he's working on right now: "Bobby Rush and I were just in the studio last week working on another blues record together. The man's incredible. He's 92 years old and he doesn't miss a beat. We have a great chemistry between us ... [I also] did this rock and roll cover record for the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band that's probably going to come out sometime this year. I chose a bunch of songs of my childhood, but I wanted them to be kind of thought-provoking, like if you see the titles, you're like, Kenny Wayne Shepherd's doing INXS? Kenny Wayne Shepherd's doing Genesis? Like what? Billy Idol, that kind of stuff, and then you listen to it and it's like, oh yeah dude, this is awesome."