First published by Midlands Rocks, www.themr.co.uk September 2011
Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mayall, Gary Moore, Walter Trout, Joe Bonamassa and a great many more have all, in their own ways, helped answer one of the burning musical questions of our times: can a white man play the blues? The answer, of course, is ‘yes’. Oh sure, they all have their detractors. You’ll meet the odd anachronism. The blues snobs and white boy purists who insist all attempts to play the blues are doomed unless you were born in a mud shack, in Mississippi and christened Blind Lemon Howling Dog Wolf Man Muddy Johnson King. Or something.
Thankfully, most of us know better and we can enjoy the additions to the canon that recent generations of Caucasians have contributed to that most fundamental strand of contemporary music.
Still, there can be no denying that on a purely technical level, the blues is limited. Given that and the extensive explorations carried out by many of its greatest progenitors, it’s reasonable, perhaps, to roll your eyes when presented with another white bluesman and wonder what could possibly be added that is new to a genre older than electricity?
Shepherd has been doing his best, since 1995, to answer that question. Something of a prodigy, he cut his first album, in 1995, at the age of just eighteen and now, in 2011, here’s album number six.
Opener, ‘Never Lookin’ Back’, owes more to the Rolling Stones’ distillations than it does to its source material and while it’s exactly the sort of blues-rock hybrid that infuriates the snobs, there’s no denying the sheer grin-inducing joy a song like this invokes.
Faithful sideman, Noah Hunt, again takes the lead vocals and his Southern inflections and rock tenor, very much Johnny Van Zant, lend the cut a country tinge that works extremely well. Yes, it’s generic, yes, it’s more rock than blues but it’s a fine track that begs for freeways, open-top Chevrolets and summer days.
The riff in ‘Come On Over’ dons a pair of steel-tipped cowboy boots and stamps all over your personal space with a sleazy back-beat that’d whip up a storm in a Texas pole dancing joint.
Elsewhere, ‘Show Me The Way Back Home’ is the sort of gospel-inspired country power ballad that everyone from Walter Trout to Lone Star has made their own.
Shepherd’s probably more tasteful and restrained on this album than he has been for years with his contributions, in the main, entirely subordinate to the needs of the songs. While that’s admirable, people buy albums of this sort to hear the main man ripping the fuck up and, thankfully, there are just enough such moments to satisfy. Check out Backwater Blues, an Elmore James-style grinder with more solos per verse than you could wish for.
There may be little that’s new in Shepherd’s blend of blues, rock and country, but he’s injected sufficient balls to make this well worth your time.