Kenny Wayne Shepherd: "Once I found out we were going to be playing Comfortably Numb, I was quietly hoping Jim Irsay would ask me to play the Black Strat"

Kenny Wayne Shepherd performs at the Jim Irsay Collection Concert at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on December 10, 2022 in San Francisco, California
(Image credit: Steve Jennings/Getty Images)

As a young blues-breaker, Kenny Wayne Shepherd took the world by storm in the mid-'90s with his stunning debut album, Ledbetter Heights.

The music business is fickle, though, and young artists are often quickly forgotten. With that in mind, Shepherd knew that to sustain that level of success, he would have to match Ledbetter Heights pound for pound, lest he be relegated.

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Andrew Daly

Andrew Daly is an iced-coffee-addicted, oddball Telecaster-playing, alfredo pasta-loving journalist from Long Island, NY, who, in addition to being a contributing writer for Guitar World, scribes for Rock Candy, Bass Player, Total Guitar, and Classic Rock History. Andrew has interviewed favorites like Ace Frehley, Johnny Marr, Vito Bratta, Bruce Kulick, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Rich Robinson, and Paul Stanley, while his all-time favorite (rhythm player), Keith Richards, continues to elude him.