Photos from Kingfish Ingram, Buddy Guy and Kenny Wayne Shepherd Concert at Artpark
The Concert opened with Kingfish Ingram –a 23 year old blues guitarist and singer from Mississippi and someone we had never heard of. His album 662 won the Grammy award for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2022. He and his band were the most engaging of the evening as the music reached your inner self. He has asperger’s though it wasn’t apparent. His Mom died in 2019 at age 49. We bought the CD as he is amazing.
Buddy Guy at 86 was the ultimate performer and despite arthritic hands could still play well. He engages and talks with the audience so you end up liking him as a person, not just a performer. And, he keeps you interested with playing the guitar with his shirt, a drum stick, in various positions. He dedicated his life to blues which he said never made main stream and got media coverage either on TV or radio…to this day. Think about it- when have you listened to blues on FM radio, a “blues” oldie goldies concert (like Hit N’ Run, Nerds, etc), TV. At least they can make some money today on Youtube. But, even then not the exposure as other music genres.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd is from Louisiana and his style is more like Steve Ray Vaughan. From 1995 on, Shepherd took seven singles into the Top 10, and holds the record for the longest-running album on the Billboard Blues Charts. He is married to Hannah Gibson, oldest daughter of Mel Gibson and they have five children. He is 45. Shepherd is a great guitarist and his lead singer who is terrific, Noah Hunt, really makes the band.
So the evening was interesting with three different aged performers and three different performance styles.
