In 1998 Kenny Wayne Shepherd was touring Europe for the second time, following the success of his second album “Trouble is …” issued in 1997. His first record “Ledbetter Heights”, issued in 1995 was the work of an 18-year old guitar prodigy eager to show his technical prowess and confidence, with long guitar solos, aggressive Stratocaster tones, wah-wah effects, bent notes, fast pentatonic runs, and strong blues-rock riffs. But the album included memorable songs with a catchy melody like “Born with a Broken Heart”, “Deja Voodoo” or “Shame, shame, shame”. “Trouble is …” starts with “Blue on Black”, which became his signature song and employed the soulful, deeper voice and the acoustic guitar of a new vocalist, Noah Hunt. The guitar is not that exuberant like on the first record but all songs – among them two Dylan and a Hendrix cover – have their fair share of guitar work. I was lucky to see and photograph him in 1998 in Munich and I remember vividly the “Voodoo Chile” version that he closed the concert with; an over 10-minute long explosion of pyrotechnics while the guitarist was writhing and rolling on the scene. At Brezoi 2026 he was the main attraction and the headliner of the last day. 49 now, he didn’t roll over the stage any more but that didn’t dent even a little bit of his showmanship.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s set at Brezoi was not a straightforward celebration of his early albums, but a carefully balanced journey through three decades of blues-rock. He opened with “Born With a Broken Heart,” immediately reaching back to Ledbetter Heights, the 1995 debut that first established him as one of the most exciting young guitarists of his generation. The song’s dark, dramatic riff set the tone for an evening in which Shepherd moved freely between the different stages of his career, combining early classics with more recent material, traditional blues, and songs that reflected the musicians who shaped his sound.
The set soon shifted toward newer territory with “Dirt on My Diamonds,” “I Got a Woman,” and “Watch You Go,” before returning to the raw energy of the debut album with “Déjà Voodoo” and “Shame, Shame, Shame.” The former, driven by wah-wah guitar and unmistakably indebted to Jimi Hendrix, brought a burst of psychedelic blues-rock, while “Shame, Shame, Shame” added a heavier, more swaggering groove.
Shepherd also paid tribute to the foundations of the blues. Elmore James’s “Talk to Me Baby” brought a more traditional electric-blues feel, while “I’m a King Bee,” the Slim Harpo classic, connected the performance to the swamp-blues roots that have always been present in Shepherd’s music. During “Dark Side of Love,” he briefly quoted “Chitlins Con Carne,” recalling the interpretation made famous by Stevie Ray Vaughan and offering a subtle nod to one of his most important guitar influences.
The ballad “While We Cry” is perhaps Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s most heartfelt tribute to Jimi Hendrix. Its introduction immediately evokes the atmosphere of “Little Wing”, with harmonies built around major seventh, sixth, and suspended chords, woven together with phrases drawn from the major pentatonic scale—hallmarks of Hendrix’s distinctive musical language. Although the influence is unmistakable, the piece soon develops its own identity, transforming a respectful homage into an authentic expression of Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s lyrical voice.
The final part of the concert brought together several generations of blues and rock. Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” provided a powerful bridge to the British blues boom of the ‘60s, but it also produced one of the evening’s most unexpected and memorable moments. In the middle of his guitar improvisation, Shepherd suddenly slipped a few unmistakable notes of “Ciocârlia”, the 19th century composition by Anghelus Dinicu, into the solo.
The quotation was brief, but it was more than a musical curiosity. It felt like a spontaneous gesture of respect toward the country and the audience that had welcomed him—a small effort to adapt an international blues-rock set to its Romanian setting. By weaving a fragment of one of Romania’s best-known folk melodies into “Oh Well,” Shepherd created a fleeting but genuine connection between his own musical language and the cultural identity of the audience before him. It was a subtle touch, yet one that gave the concert a distinctly local character and made the performance feel less like a standard stop on an international tour.
“Blue on Black,” Shepherd’s most enduring and widely recognized song, followed before the concert ended with Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” an explosive finale that allowed Shepherd to stretch out on the guitar and return, in a sense, to one of the central sources of his musical language.
Although the set included only three songs from Ledbetter Heights—“Born With a Broken Heart,” “Déjà Voodoo,” and “Shame, Shame, Shame”—it offered something broader than a nostalgic anniversary performance. It was a compact portrait of Kenny Wayne Shepherd as a musician: rooted in the blues, shaped by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, and still capable of connecting his early guitar-driven sound with the more mature, song-oriented music of his later career. The brief appearance of “Ciocârlia” added a personal, distinctly Romanian note to that portrait—and became one of those small, unexpected moments that audiences often remember long after the final encore.
Watching Taj Farrant and Kenny Wayne Shepherd at Brezoi was like witnessing two chapters of the same story. Both are extraordinary guitarists who grew up under the long shadows of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, yet they stand at opposite ends of a musical journey.
At just seventeen, Taj Farrant is still in the exhilarating phase of discovery. His concert was a declaration of love for the guitar heroes who shaped him. The setlist moved effortlessly between his own songs and classics by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Elmore James, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, Jeff Beck and others, revealing both the breadth of his influences and his remarkable technical command. His playing is fearless, overflowing with energy, speed and confidence. There is a youthful desire to demonstrate everything he can do, and the audience cannot help but be swept along by that enthusiasm. Reviews from his recent European tour have highlighted exactly these qualities: astonishing technique, a charismatic stage presence, and the sense that audiences are watching the emergence of a major talent.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd, by contrast, no longer has anything to prove. Three decades after Ledbetter Heights announced the arrival of an eighteen-year-old guitar prodigy, his playing has acquired a different kind of authority. The fireworks are still there when the music calls for them, but they are now in the service of the songs rather than the other way around. His Brezoi set reflected that maturity. Instead of building the evening around extended displays of virtuosity, Shepherd constructed a balanced journey through his career, blending early classics, recent material and carefully chosen blues standards into a coherent whole.
The contrast was equally apparent in their choice of covers. Taj’s interpretations often functioned as open tributes, inviting the audience to share his admiration for the musicians who inspired him. Shepherd’s covers felt different. Elmore James, Slim Harpo, Fleetwood Mac and Jimi Hendrix have long since become part of his own musical vocabulary. Rather than paying homage, he seemed to converse with them as peers across generations of blues and rock.
There was also a subtle difference in how each guitarist connected with the audience. Taj’s bond came through the sheer excitement of performance—his enthusiasm was infectious, and every solo – that never seemed to end – carried the sense that anything might happen. Shepherd’s connection was quieter and more deliberate, like the few notes of “Ciocârlia”.
If Taj Farrant represents the promise of blues-rock’s future, Kenny Wayne Shepherd embodies its enduring present. One is still writing the opening chapters of his career, eager to absorb every influence and test every possibility. The other has reached the point where influences have been distilled into a distinctive personal voice. Seen together, the two performances formed an unexpected dialogue across generations—a reminder that the blues is not preserved by imitation alone, but by each new guitarist finding a way to carry the tradition forward in his own language.
PS Kenny Wayne Shepherd has already become a living classic, see Toby Lee’s Icons, Vol. 1 (2022), where the latter, also present at Brezoi Blues 2026, plays Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s “Blue on Black”.