"WHEN YOU START WITH A CRAPPY GUITAR IT BEGINS THE CYCLE OF GEAR ADDICTION!"

Blues star Kenny Wayne Shepherd owns some amazing gear bespoke Dumble amps and a pedal that reportedly belonged to Jimi Hendrix. In his new album, he’s still finding new ways to express himself as a player...

- Phil Weller

Kenny Wayne Shepherd penned a chunk of his new album //Dirt On My Diamonds Vol.2// while soaking up the history of Alabama’s FAME Studios, a place where legends such as Etta James and The Rolling Stones cut records in the past. Here, the Lousianaborn bluesman discusses his creative process from writing to recording, and explains how the gear addiction he developed as a young player is still as powerful as it ever was…

Your new album Dirt On My Diamonds Vol.2 is the second instalment of a two-volume epic. What was your thinking behind this?

It really boiled down to me trying to do something different and wanting new ways to engage with my fans. You don’t see many two-volume albums anymore. When I first started recording these songs, I was envisioning two completely separate, unrelated albums. They’re not meant to sound similar, but they were written at the same time. We ended Vol.1 with Ease My Mind, which is the most down song on the whole record. It’s back-alley blues, you know? And then you pick up Vol.2 with I Got A Woman, which is a really uplifting and upbeat song. My goal over the past few records has been to project a really optimistic tone. Music is a powerful thing and I want to affect people in a positive way.

What were the FAME sessions like?

It’s like walking back in time to when all of those legendary albums were recorded back in the day. It’s an incredible facility. One of the things for me was standing in the vocal booth like, ‘This is where Etta James stood when she was singing’ – she’s one of my all time favourite blues singers. But if you walk into it going, ‘Okay, we’re in Muscle Shoals, this has to affect what we’re doing’, then it’s going to sound contrived. I try to let it happen naturally.

When I was writing