Blues Legend Bobby Rush Teams With Kenny Wayne Shepherd For Album, Tour

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Bobby Rush and Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Three-time Grammy® Award-winning blues legend Bobby Rush and five-time Grammy® nominated singer/songwriter/guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd, have united for a collection of new blues songs that the two artists wrote and recorded together. Young Fashioned Ways was released on March 21, 2025. The album is available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. The two artists will embark on a 24-city U.S. tour starting April 25, with additional dates to be announced. Tickets are available here.

The pair named the album based on their mutual admiration of blues legend Muddy Waters, and the youthfulness of their pairing despite their wide age gap. The two artists also wrote a new version of Waters’ “Young Fashioned Ways” based on Willie Dixon’s original, re-titled the song “Young Ways,” and included it on the album.

Watch the album trailer

Born about 44 years apart, Rush and Shepherd joined forces at Royal Studios in Memphis, Tenn., for the sessions that led to Young Fashioned Ways which includes 10 tracks featuring Shepherd’s trademark guitar work and Rush’s soulful vocals, rhythm guitar and harmonica. The 91-year old Rush is a 16-time Blues Music Awards winner (with 56 career nominations), and has been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame and Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.

Shepherd, 47, has received two Billboard Music Awards, two Orville H. Gibson Awards which honors the world’s greatest guitarists, and a Blues Music Award. He’s also scored eight Top 10 singles on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, sharing the record with B.B. King and Eric Clapton for the longest running albums on the Billboard Blues chart with his album, Trouble Is…

The first single, “Who Was That,” was featured in the recent film, Flight Risk, starring Mark Wahlberg.

Says Shepherd, “With me and Bobby collaborating on a project, our age difference is of course going to be part of the initial conversation and makes for good headlines, but at the end of the day, he’s an incredibly talented musician and amazing human being who loves the same kind of music I do. We start playing together and all of a sudden, age has nothing to do with us. We were speaking the same language and there was a level of acceptance about truly joining together on the same page with the blues, coming from the same place, spiritually, musically and of course, geographically.”

Adds Rush, “As an older man who has spent many years trying to keep up with trends, I so appreciated [Kenny] letting me in this door to do what I knew I could do. Just as music keeps me young, so does learning something new every day. It’s like he (Kenny) said, this kind of album is a rare thing.”

Bobby Rush and Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band 2025 Tour (Tickets are available here)
Apr 25 – Uptown Theatre – Kansas City, MO
Apr 26 – Civic Theatre – Peoria, IL
May 01 – TempleLive – Ft. Smith, AR
May 03 – Jazz Fest – New Orleans, LA
May 04 – House of Blues – Houston, TX
May 06 – Gillioz Theatre – Springfield, MO
May 07 – Astro – Omaha, NE
May 08 – TempleLive – Wichita, KS
May 09 – Paramount – Denver, CO
May 11 – Cheyenne Civic Center – Cheyenne, WY
May 13 – Avalon Theatre – Grand Junction, CO
May 14 – Capitol Theatre – Salt Lake City, UT
May 16 – Memorial Hall – Pueblo, CO
May 17 – Buffalo Thunder Casino – Santa Fe, NM
May 18 – Wild Horse Casino – Chandler AZ
Jun 06 – Majestic Theatre – Dallas, TX
Jun 07 – River Spirit Casino – Tulsa, OK
Aug 15 – Hollywood Casino – Lawrenceburg, IN
Aug 16 – Fox City PAC – Appleton, WI
Aug 17 – Pantages Theatre – Minneapolis, MN
Aug 19 – Mayo Civic Center – Rochester, MN
Aug 21 – Sweetwater Pavilion – Fort Wayne, IN
Aug 22 – Four Winds Casino – New Buffalo, MI
Aug 23 – Lincoln State Park Amp – Lincoln City, IN