A slew of top-notch vintage and custom Strats, a 1960 Les Paul, and a wall of Dumbles keep the blues-rocker rolling.
It’s been 11 years since Kenny Wayne Shepherd filmed his previous Rig Rundown. PG’s John Bohlinger caught up with the blues-rocker before his recent sold-out show at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium to hear some killer playing and see some untouchable—by anyone but Kenny and his tech—gear.
The tour stop was supporting the December 2022 release of Trouble Is … 25, a re-recording of his 1997 breakthrough album, which had four top 10 hits when it was originally issued: “Slow Ride,” “Somehow, Somewhere, Someway,” “Everything is Broken,” and “Blue on Black.” There have been seven other studio recordings since then, and while he’s still mostly a Strat player, some other instruments have joined his armada, too. And Dumbles … he has lots of Dumbles.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
Old No-Paint
This 1961 Fender Stratocaster has been Shepherd’s No. 1 since he bought it right as his career began to take off. Like all of his electrics, it stays strung with Ernie Balls—.011, .014, .018, .038, .048, and .058.—and is played with Dunlop heavy picks.
Tone Twin
Fender built Shepherda nearly identical version of his 1961 to save wear and tear on the original. Pretty exacting custom relic work!
Jimi's Jammer
Here’s a Fender Jimi Hendrix Monterey Strat. The Fullerton giant made just more than 200 replicas of the guitar that Jimi played and burned onstage at the Monterey Pop Festival, in 1967. When Shepherd got the guitar he immediately had Fender make him a custom neck with jumbo frets and a backwards headstock. Graph Tech saddles were also added to this work of art.
Down to the Crossroads
Inspired by the famed Mississippi Delta intersection where Robert Johnson, by fable, cut his deal with the devil, this Strat with the Highway 61 and Highway 49 signs was created by Shepherd and Fender Custom Shop master builder Todd Krause over two years, and completed in 2015. This distinctive relic’d instrument has an alder body, a rosewood fretboard, Graph Tech saddles, and black knobs and pickup covers.
Sunny ’60 Shop
The only thing that’s been changed on this 1960 sunburst Gibson Les Paul is the jack plate and toggle surround. The rest is all original, including the frets.
Shut the Front Door (Or the Cows Will Get Out)
This limited edition reclaimed pinewood Strat’s body came from a barn built in the 1800s in Lake Odessa, Michigan. It has a rosewood neck with a hand-rubbed oil finish and a comfortable, modern C neck profile. Other features include a 9.5"-radius, 25.5" scale rosewood fretboard with 22 medium jumbo frets, three Fender Custom Shop Fat ’50s single-coil Stratocaster pickups with 5-way switching, an unbuffed single-ply black pickguard, a two-point synchronized tremolo bridge with vintage-style stamped steel saddles, Micro-Tilt neck adjustment, and a laser-etched headstock logo.
Sig to Dig
This new Kenny Wayne Shepherd Signature Stratocaster features a chambered ash body, a translucent faded sonic blue lacquer finish, an early ’60s inspired C-shaped maple neck, and a bound rosewood fretboard with a 7.25" radius and block inlay. The neck is “the ultimate copy of the neck on my ’61 Strat,” Shepherd says.
Blue Moves
Here’s Shepherd’s Martin acoustic signature model JC-16KWS. It’s got a maple back and sides, a Sitka spruce top, Martin’s A-frame X scalloped bracing, and a mahogany neck with a low oval profile.
Billy Gibbons Wants This Guitar
The good Rev. Gibbons’ eyes popped out when Shepherd unveiled this one on an earlier Ryman gig, and BFG named it “Copperboy.” It’s another Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt Stratocaster by Todd Krause, with lipstick pickup covers and a reverse position for the bridge pickup.
Old Tones, New Tools
Except for that genuine Roger Mayer Octavia, KWS gets his blues-rock tones using some contemporary tools. There’s a modded Venus Witch Wah by Steve Monk, a Sir Henry Vibe by Tinsley Audio, a Boss TU-3, an Analog Man King of Tone and Bi-Chorus, a gen II Klon KTR, and a Free The Tone Future Factory and Ambi Space Digital Reverb. All pedals are routed through a Voodoo Labs PX-8 Plus programable switcher. A Radial JD7 routes the signal to his three amps, and two Voodoo Lab Pedal Power X4s supply the juice.
Rumbles with Dumbles
For this tour, Shepherd uses a trio of white Fender amps and cabs hot-rodded by the late Alexander “Howard” Dumble—just a few of the 11 Dumbles in his collection. These are a Pro Reverb (called the Ultra/Rockphonix), a Bassman (called the Slidewinder), and a Band Master (called the AC763).
Dialing in Dumbles
Here are close-ups of the settings Shepherd applies to his three Dumble-built amps.
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Stompboxtober is finally here! Enter below for your chance to WIN today's featured pedal from Diamond Pedals! Come back each day during the month of October for more chances to win!
Diamond Pedals Dark Cloud
True to the Diamond design ethos of our dBBD’s hybrid analog architecture, Dark Cloud unlocks a new frontier in delay technology which was once deemed unobtainable by standard BBD circuit.
Powered by an embedded system, the Dark Cloud seamlessly blends input and output signals, crafting Tape, Harmonic, and Reverse delays with the organic warmth of analog companding and the meticulous precision of digital control.
Where analog warmth meets digital precision, the Dark Cloud redefines delay effects to create a pedal like no other
Many listeners and musicians can tell if a bass player is really a guitarist in disguise. Here’s how you can brush up on your bass chops.
Was bass your first instrument, or did you start out on guitar? Some of the world’s best bass players started off as guitar players, sometimes by chance. When Stuart Sutcliffe—originally a guitarist himself—left the Beatles in 1961, bass duties fell to rhythm guitarist Paul McCartney, who fully adopted the role and soon became one of the undeniable bass greats.
Since there are so many more guitarists than bassists—think of it as a supply and demand issue—odds are that if you’re a guitarist, you’ve at least dabbled in bass or have picked up the instrument to fill in or facilitate a home recording.
But there’s a difference between a guitarist who plays bass and one who becomes a bass player. Part of what’s different is how you approach the music, but part of it is attitude.
Many listeners and musicians can tell if a bass player is really a guitarist in disguise. They simply play differently than someone who spends most of their musical time embodying the low end. But if you’re really trying to put down some bass, you don’t want to sound like a bass tourist. Real bassists think differently about the rhythm, the groove, and the harmony happening in each moment.
And who knows … if you, as a guitarist, thoroughly adopt the bassist mindset, you might just find your true calling on the mightiest of instruments. Now, I’m not exactly recruiting, but if you have the interest, the aptitude, and—perhaps most of all—the necessity, here are some ways you can be less like a guitarist who plays bass, and more like a bona fide bass player.
Start by playing fewer notes. Yes, everybody can see that you’ve practiced your scales. But at least until you get locked in rhythmically, use your ears more than your fingers and get a sense of how your bass parts mesh with the other musical elements. You are the glue that holds everything together. Recognize that you’re at the intersection of rhythm and harmony, and you’ll realize foundation beats flash every time.“If Larry Graham, one of the baddest bassists there has ever been, could stick to the same note throughout Sly & the Family Stone’s ‘Everyday People,’ then you too can deliver a repetitive figure when it’s called for.”
Focus on that kick drum. Make sure you’re locked in with the drummer. That doesn’t mean you have to play a note with every kick, but there should be some synchronicity. You and the drummer should be working together to create the rhythmic drive. Laying down a solid bass line is no time for expressive rubato phrasing. Lock it up—and have fun with it.
Don’t sleep on the snare. What does it feel like to leave a perfect hole for the snare drum’s hits on two and four? What if you just leave space for half of them? Try locking the ends of your notes to the snare’s backbeat. This is just one of the ways to create a rhythmic feel together with the drummer, so you produce a pocket that everyone else can groove to.
Relish your newfound harmonic power. Move that major chord root down a third, and now you have a minor 7 chord. Play the fifth under a IV chord and you have a IV/V (“four over five,” which fancy folks sometimes call an 11 chord). The point is to realize that the bottom note defines the harmony. Sting put it like this: “It’s not a C chord until I play a C. You can change harmony very subtly but very effectively as a bass player. That’s one of the great privileges of our role and why I love playing bass. I enjoy the sound of it, I enjoy its harmonic power, and it’s a sort of subtle heroism.”
Embrace the ostinato. If the song calls for playing the same motif over and over, don’t think of it as boring. Think of it as hypnotic, tension-building, relentless, and an exercise in restraint. Countless James Brown songs bear this out, but my current favorite example is the bass line on the Pointer Sisters’ swampy cover of Allen Toussaint “Yes We Can Can,” which was played by Richard Greene of the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils, aka Dexter C. Plates. Think about it: If Larry Graham, one of the baddest bassists there has ever been, could stick to the same note throughout Sly & the Family Stone’s “Everyday People,” then you too can deliver a repetitive figure when it’s called for.
Be supportive. Though you may stretch out from time to time, your main job is to support the song and your fellow musicians. Consider how you can make your bandmates sound better using your phrasing, your dynamics, and note choices. For example, you could gradually raise the energy during guitar solos. Keep that supportive mindset when you’re offstage, too. Some guitarists have an attitude of competitiveness and even scrutiny when checking out other players, but bassists tend to offer mutual support and encouragement. Share those good vibes with enthusiasm.
And finally, give and take criticism with ease. This one’s for all musicians: Humility and a sense of helpfulness can go a long way. Ideally, everyone should be working toward the common goal of what’s good for the song. As the bass player, you might find yourself leading the way.Fuchs Audio introduces the ODH Hybrid amp, featuring a True High Voltage all-tube preamp and Ice Power module for high-powered tones in a compact size. With D-Style overdrive, Spin reverb, and versatile controls, the ODH offers exceptional tone shaping and flexibility at an affordable price point.
Fuchs Audio has introduced their latest amp the ODH © Hybrid. Assembled in USA.
Featuring an ODS-style all-tube preamp, operating at True High Voltage into a fan-cooled Ice power module, the ODH brings high-powered clean and overdrive tones to an extremely compact size and a truly affordable price point.
Like the Fuchs ODS amps, the ODH clean preamp features 3-position brite switch, amid-boost switch, an EQ switch, high, mid and low controls. The clean preamp drives theoverdrive section in D-Style fashion. The OD channel has an input gain and outputmaster with an overdrive tone control. This ensures perfect tuning of both the clean andoverdrive channels. A unique tube limiter circuit controls the Ice Power module input.Any signal clipping is (intentionally) non-linear so it responds just like a real tube amp.
The ODH includes a two-way footswitch for channels and gain boost. A 30-second mute timer ensures the tubes are warmed up before the power amp goes live. The ODH features our lush and warm Spin reverb. A subsonic filter eliminates out-of-band low frequencies which would normally waste amplifier power, which assures tons of clean headroom. The amp also features Accent and Depth controls, allowing contouring of the high and low response of the power amp section, to match speakers, cabinets andenvironments. The ODH features a front panel fully buffered series effects loop and aline out jack, allowing for home recording or feeding a slave amp. A three-position muteswitch mutes the amp, the line out or mute neither.
Built on the same solid steel chassis platform as the Fuchs FB series bass amps, the amps feature a steel chassis and aluminum front and rear panels, Alpha potentiometers, ceramic tube sockets, high-grade circuit boards and Neutrik jacks. The ICE power amp is 150 watts into 8 ohms and 300 watts into 4 ohms, and nearly 500 watts into 2.65 ohms (4 and8 ohms in parallel) and operates on universal AC voltage, so it’s fully globallycompatible. The chassis is fan-cooled to ensure hours of cool operation under any circumstances. The all-tube preamp uses dual-selected 12AX7 tubes and a 6AL5 limiter tube.
MAP: $ 1,299
For more information, please visit fuchsaudiotechnology.com.
Jackson Guitars announces its first female signature artist model, the Pro Series Signature Diamond Rowe guitar.
“I‘m so excited about this new venture with the Jackson family. This is a historic collaboration - as I am the first female in the history of Jackson with a signature guitar and the first female African American signature Jackson artist. I feel so honored to have now joined such an elite group of players that are a part of this club. Many who have inspired me along this journey to get here. It’s truly humbling.” says Diamond.
Diamond Rowe is the co-founder and lead guitarist for the metal/hard rock band Tetrarch. Since co-founding the band in high school, Tetrarch has become one of the most talked about up-and-coming bands in the world - with several press outlets such as Metal Hammer, Kerrang, Revolver, Guitar World and many others boldly naming Diamond Rowe the world’s next guitar hero. Tetrarch has connected with many fans while performing on some of the world's biggest stages garnering spots alongside several of the heavy music world’s biggest names such as Guns N’ Roses, Slipknot, Lamb of God, Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold, Sevendust, Rob Zombie, Trivium, and many many others. The Jackson Pro Series Signature Diamond Rowe DR12MG EVTN6 is based on Jackson’s single-cut Monarkh platform and is a premium guitar designed for progressive metal players seeking precision and accuracy.
Crafted in partnership with Diamond, this model boasts a 25.5 “ scale, Monarkh-styled nyatoh body draped with a gorgeous poplar burl top, three-piece nyatoh set-neck with graphite reinforcement, and 12˝ radius bound ebony fingerboard with 24 jumbo frets. The black chrome-covered active EMG® 81/85 humbucking bridge and neck pickups, three-way toggle switch, single volume control, and tone control provide a range of tonal options. The Evertune® bridge ensures excellent tuning stability, while the Dark Rose finish with a new custom 3+3 color-matched Jackson headstock and black hardware looks simply stunning.
To showcase the Pro Plus Signature Diamond Rowe DR12MG EVTN6, Diamond shares her journey as a guitarist, delving into the inspiration behind her unique design specifications and the influential artists who shaped her sound within a captivating demo video. This video prominently features powerful performances of Tetrarch’s latest release, “Live Not Fantasize,” and “I’m Not Right” showcasing the DR12MG EVTN6’s unparalleled tonal versatility and performance capabilities.
MSRP $1699.99
For more information, please visit jacksonguitars.com.