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Ten Days Out: Blues From The Backroad
Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Reprise, 2007
http://www.kennywayneshepherd.com
REVIEW BY: Benjamin Ray
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 07/24/2007
Make no mistake -- this is not a Kenny Wayne Shepherd album. It is a history of the blues.
Oh, Shepherd's name may be above the marquee, but that's only a formality. The point of the 10 Days Out CD and DVD project was to discover the blues in its natural habitat, played by mostly unrecognized people who made it famous.
Blues is very much a basis for rock music, yet only purists really know about the importance of those black artists (sure, everyone knows Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson and Sonny Boy Williamson, but how about Henry Townsend, Pinetop Perkins and Etta Baker?). So Shepherd, who has been playing the blues for a little over a decade with some commercial success, took Double Trouble's rhythm section (yes, Stevie Ray Vaughan's former band) with him and sought these venerable artists out.
The result is a cross of studio and live tracks and is consistently electrifying, moving and solid. Those expecting guitar histrionics will not find them; the blues players here take center stage, with Shepherd relegated to the background, and the result is a strong set of songs that live and die by their credibility and their sound.
And what a sound! The pounding acoustic guitar of "Honky Tonk" will turn on both blues and country purists -- once they get past the ramshackle opener "Prison Blues." Those expecting the sort of lengthy guitar solos that white-boy bluesmen like Eric Clapton employed will find them on "The Thrill Is Gone," but the solo is tastefully done, never taking center stage or overshadowing any other element - the way it should be.
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