Renowned blues and rock guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd – along with a film crew, a portable recording studio and producer Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads) – embarked on a ten-day journey into the heart of the American South, documenting and recording an impressive lineup of blues veterans. Warner Bros./Reprise Records releases the resulting documentary and accompanying live CD Ten Days Out (Blues From The Backroads) in January, 2007.

Directed by Noble Jones, Ten Days Out captures the stories and music of some of America’s best-known blues artists including B.B. King, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and Honeyboy Edwards as well as some of the genre’s lesser-known rare talents. Shepherd is joined by longtime collaborator and vocalist Noah Hunt as well as friends Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon who make up the esteemed rhythm section Double Trouble (Stevie Ray Vaughan’s longtime band). Immersing themselves in the environments which shaped these essential blues musicians, they recorded and performed in kitchens, living rooms, front porches and local clubs. The goal was to produce intimate recordings in intimate settings and to maintain authenticity: no overdubs were used. “What happened is what you hear,” says Shepherd, “We kept it as real as possible.” This historic trip culminated in a once in a life time performance at a church in Salina, Kansas where Shepherd and friends were joined by the remaining members of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters’ bands at the aptly named Church at Blue Heaven Studios.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd sat down with Rock Confidential to discuss Ten Days Out and it’s impressive lineup of legendary special guests.

Kenny, I’m just going to jump right into this, man. The Ten Days Out project seems monstrous. Who came up with the idea to do something like this?

In the very beginning, the idea came about when I was recording my third album. That was probably six or seven years ago. Jerry Harrison, who produced my second and third albums, was thinking out loud when we were in between songs in the studio. We had been brainstorming about future projects. He thought it would be cool to go down south and take some recording gear and find some old blues guys – some authentic blues cats – who were playing the music. Just go down and record with them in their environment and see what comes of it. We didn’t know if it would produce an album or not but we thought it would be a cool idea. It would be worth pursuing if we got an album out of it or not. For the next few years the idea was put on the back-burner. When I went in the studio to work on my fourth album, The Place You’re In, the more that album took shape the more we realized that was moreless a rock album. It didn’t really have a whole lot of blues content on it. I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to pursue this blues project so we would follow up the rock album with a traditional blues album. I have such a large blues fanbase.

There are a ton of big names on this record and a few that people may have never heard of before. How long did it take to get them all involved so you could set this up and just go out and do it?

To be honest, it wall all put together in record time. We started to actually get the ball rolling in March when we started making the first phone calls. By the first week in June everybody was heading down to New Orleans to begin the project. That includes getting the budget together, projecting how much it’s going to cost, airfares, hotel accomodations, transportation, crew members, a film crew, recording gear, a recording crew, band members, all of their accomodations. We had to draw up a budget, get it approved by the record company and execute it. We did that in a record amount of time I think.

It had to be exciting for you to be involved in a documentary of this calibur and to work with those blues legends.

It was really amazing. It was my first experience with a full-length film and doing something to this extent. I have to say though that since it was my project and I was so involved in so many aspects of it that it was hard to take a step back and realize what was going on around me. I was so consumed with trying to make sure that everything was going as planned and that we got the right performance out of each musician. It was after the fact when we started the editing process that I was watching the film and I’m seeing myself realize several of my childhood dreams – standing on stage and playing with Muddy Water’s band members and Howlin’ Wolf’s band members. I got to record myself on stage with B.B. King in his hometown. That’s when the reality set in.

I know you said you were preoccupied with making sure everything went smoothly, but did anything happen that instantly made you step back and realize what was going on?

There are excerpts throughout the film that keep flashing back to the setting up of the documentary for the final scene of all of us jamming at the church. There’s footage of us having dinner. All of us got there a day early. We all met up at the church and had a big barbeque dinner so everybody got to know everybody. We had a little jam session soundcheck. The day before when we were all sitting there around a table talking, I’m looking around and there’s Pinetop Perkins and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and Hubert Sumlin and Henry Gray and all these legends. I used to play guitar to their music and I used to wish I was part of their band. I looked around and realized that I’m getting ready to play music with these guys. The reality of it set in and I just got really thrilled, man. When I was a kid, every day on the way to middle school, I would listen to the Muddy Waters record that Johnny Winter produced called Hard Again. It’s one of my favorite blues albums of all time. I used to wish I was the white dude playing guitar instead of Johnny Winter! I actually was that night and it was amazing.

So when you’d listen to those records on your way to school what did your friends listen to?

(laughs) Well, that was when Metallica started to get huge. It was right after the wave of hair metal when the heavier stuff started coming in. That’s what everybody was rockin’ out to. I would listen to that stuff, too. If it was up to me and I was choosing, you’d usually hear Johnny Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

One thing I’ve picked up on is that all the artists involved seem to have these incredible words of wisdom. What did you bring back from working with them?

Every experience was unique in it’s own right. I took away something from each experience with those artists. Everybody has their own unique style. I had to fit myself as musician around their style of playing. That is the best experience that you can get. In some cases, like with John Dee Holeman, he was playing some Delta style licks that I didn’t know. I asked him to stop and show me how to play those licks. He showed me exactly how to play his licks and that was extremely fascinating for me.

One thing I love about those original blues guys is that they’re not the most technical players out there but they know what’s going on. They don’t play a lick because they learned it in school somewhere – they play what they feel.

They taught themselves how to play. They didn’t go to school for music. I grew up the same way. I taught myself how to play the instrument. I can’t read music. I just feel the music and I go where my heart tells me to go. I thing that’s one of the most important aspects of playing the blues.

I think it’s cool how you recorded the songs. Tell me more about that.

It was pretty fascinating. The people that we were recording with – people that are 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 years old. We’re doing this style of music that’s almost 100 years old. We were actually recording it with state of the art equipment. Our approach to the music was old-fashioned. We did everything live. There were no overdubs. We didn’t go back and fix anything. Everything you hear is exactly how it went down. We approached it in an old-fashioned way but we captured it with modern technology. We were able to load up the back lounge of a tour bus with a bunch of recording gear and we were able to set up and record wherever we parked the bus.

Tell me about the locations. You recorded in somebody’s kitchen, right?

Yeah. Everything from night clubs, to somebody’s kitchen, to their living room, to the back yard. Every situation was different. It was a big challenge to the audio guys. Every situation was very unique.

This is one of the records where I instantly create a visual in my mind of who’s playing the song and what it’s like to be there with them. Not many records can pull that off. How important is stuff like that to you?

I think it’s definitely important. One of the main things about music is getting the imagination going and connecting with people. If any record or song does that then it’s doing it’s job. One of the amazing things about this record is that I went through these people’s material and I listened a lot. I hand-picked every artist that we used on this project. I based my decisions on the uniquness of their talent, their styles and their material. We made a decision that we were going in to record their music so you could get to know them as an artist and see what they have to say as a songwriter. I also wanted them to reap the benefits of the publishing royaltie as well. I wanted these guys to get paid and benefit from this project.

A lot of those guys and other artists from that time really got ripped off when it came to royalties.

To a certain degree, we know about that. Everybody knows that that has happened in the past. A lot of musicians got taken advantage of. We made an effort to try and do a little bit on our behalf to right some of those wrongs. We paid these people well. We recorded their songs and we made sure that they retained the publishing rights to their songs. There’s a donation being made for every album sold to the Music Maker’s Relief Foundation that helps less fortunate blues musicians to pay their medical bills and keep a roof over their heads.

Have some of the artists passed away since the project was recorded?

Yeah. Six have passed away. It just really makes it that much more important that people find out about this project. For six of these people it’s probably the last recordings that they did and the last video footage of them. It’s important to me because this project isn’t so much about me as it is about these musicians. This isn’t your typical Kenny Wayne Shepherd record. These musicians really deserve this project to be successful.

I wish you nothing but the best with this! What would you like to say to your fans in closing?

I really want people to check out this project. I know they will be enlightened and satisfied with their purchase. Every time you buy a record from this project a donation is made to help these guys out. It’s an amazing piece and there’s nothing else out there like it.