Artist: The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band

Album: How I Go

Label: Roadrunner

In rising to the top of the blues charts over the past decade, Louisiana native Kenny Wayne Shepherd has built his success not as much on a singular revolutionary playing style as in a remarkable versatility.

On How I Go, Shepherd's latest album, he slips in and out of genres effortlessly, allowing the album to become a trip up and down the Mississippi, as it were, surveying various eras and iterations of blues rock and whipping these parts into a strikingly enjoyable whole.

How I Go is crammed full of layers upon layers of guitars, expertly played and arranged. Perhaps its most striking feature, though, is that there actually songs here, with melodies, not just jams pieced together and given lyrics.

It seems as though Shepherd and his co-writers - usually the accomplished duo of Tia Sillers and Mark Selby - have made an attempt to create a collection of songs, which is to Shepherd's credit. This will likely make the album appeal to a wider group of fans than just hardcore blues nuts.

That's not to say the playing on How I Go isn't first-rate. Shepherd's style is flashy, and his virtuosity is obvious, but he rarely resorts to the kind of pyrotechnics one might expect from a guitar king. "Never Lookin' Back" kicks off the album in classic blues-rock style, with a crunching bed of rhythm guitar pierced by several tracks of lead guitar.

Lead vocalist Noah Hunt has a full-throated Chris Daughtry-type voice, and Shepherd's backing band of Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon, and Riley Osbourn is consistently solid. "Cold" is more country rock, while Shepherd's take on the blues standard "Oh, Pretty Woman" is full of muscular blues licks and a tasty horn section stepping in to spice things up. A rendition of the Beatles' "Yer Blues" is also nicely done.  

Since his label debut at the age of 18, Shepherd has established himself as one of the headliners of a new generation of blues heavyweights. With How I Go, Shepherd reveals enough range to satisfy fans of the classic blues, as well as country rock like the Derek Trucks Band, or American rock and roll like John Mellencamp. That's no small feat.

*This article first published 8/12/2011