A Teenager Who's Already Got The Blues -- Kenny Wayne Shepherd Plays For All Ages

----------------------------------------------------------------- Concert preview Kenny Wayne Shepherd and the Bottle Rockets, 8 p.m. Saturday, Moore Theatre; sold out. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Kenny Wayne Shepherd is on a mission.

The 18-year-old from Shreveport, La., wants to make today's young people aware of the blues.

He's well on his way. A brilliant blues guitarist with chops beyond his years, he's enjoyed great success with his first album, "Ledbetter Heights." It's been the No. 1 blues album on the Billboard chart for seven weeks, and has yielded several hit singles, including the Hendrix-influenced "Deja Voodoo" and the current hit, "Born With a Broken Heart."

"It does seem like I'm the guy who's kinda leading the thing, and I think that's cool," Shepherd said from a tour stop in Palo Alto, Calif. "And I'm excited about it, seeing people my age into the music and stuff. There's a lot of them that come out to the shows. It's encouraging for me."

Shepherd is following in the footsteps of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, one of his idols. Like Vaughan, Shepherd is a dynamic, showy guitarist whose blues style has a lot of rock in it. One of the keys to his success is that rock radio stations have picked up on the album and heavily programmed the more rock-oriented tunes.

We talked a day after Shepherd and his band played the House of Blues in Los Angeles.

"It was very cool," Shepherd said. "Slash came and jammed during the second set."

Shepherd's remarkable command of the blues - not only as a guitarist but as a songwriter - is rare in one so young. It's as if he's one of those people with, as they say, an old soul.

"Yeah, I think so," Shepherd agreed. "A lot of people have told me that. I don't know, maybe I'm starting to believe it because I hear it so much."

He said he didn't take age into consideration when recruiting members of his band. They range from 23 to 40. His lead singer, Corey Sterling, who also has a mature understanding of the blues, is 25.

Shepherd said one of the best things about his shows is that they attract such a wide range of fans. Most are around his own age, but there are also a lot of blues old-timers among his fans.

While he may be an old blues soul, he's still a young man in some ways. For one thing, he can't wait to see his girlfriend again, after months on the road.

"As soon as I leave Seattle I'm flying to Memphis to see her," he said with boyish enthusiasm.

Opening is the Bottle Rockets, a bluesy, hard-driving rock band from Missouri with an impressive album called "The Brooklyn Side."