DIRTY DEEDS

Looking for fresh musical inspiration, Kenny Wayne Shepherd left Nashville for Alabama's FAME Studios. The result is Dirt on My Diamonds, Vol. 1, the first half of a new album project that continues his blues-rock evolution.

- KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD

HOME IS CERTAINLY where Kenny Wayne Shepherd's heart is and where his body is at the moment, which, given his heavy touring schedule, is not always the case.

But today we find the guitarist and bandleader in the confines of his abode, south of Nashville, where, with six children, Shepherd says it's even more "nonstop" than any given day in his prodigious touring schedule. "There's lots of school, dropping kids off, trying to keep up with where everybody needs to be, what they're doing," Shepherd says with a chuckle. "And we've been renovating this place since we bought it a few years ago, so I'm helping out with that kind of stuff." Domesticity does not delay the music, however. Shepherd - a one-time teen prodigy from Louisiana who's now 46, with 10 studio albums behind him (plus two with the Rides, his all-star band with Stephen Stills and Barry spent much of the past Goldberg) year and a half celebrating the 25th anniversary of Trouble Is..., his Platinum certified sophomore album that topped Billboard's Blues Albums chart and spawned a number one Mainstream Rock hit in "Blue on Black." He even re-recorded he set as Trouble Is... 25, chronicling the growth and depth he's attained as a player and singer during the past quarter-century.

Waiting in the wings, meanwhile, has been Dirt on My Diamonds Vol. 1, perhaps the most ambitious outing of Shepherd's career to date. It began with writing sessions he conducted with producer Marshall Altman and others at historic FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where a who's-who of blues, soul, rock, and roots artists left their musical DNA in the walls and carpets.

The Shepherd gang came up with a batch of songs there, from which eight were assigned to volume one. And, yes, there will be a volume two to follow.