This guitar is "THE ONE". Every guitar player dreams of finding that one guitar that they pick up one day and it fits like a glove. This is that guitar for KWS. Kenny describes it as an extension of his own body. He loves all of his guitars, but they all take a back seat to this one.
Kenny received this custom guitar as a birthday present from his Dad. Fender made just over 200 of these beautiful guitars making them highly collectible. It is a replica of the guitar that Jimi Hendrix played and burned on stage at the Monterey Pop Festival. When Kenny got the guitar he immediately had Fender make him a custom neck with jumbo frets and a backwards headstock. Also added were the GraphTech saddles. Since then Kenny has played this guitar all over the world, ending each show by tearing down the house with his version of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child".
Kenny and Todd Krause completed this two-year project together in 2015. This relic Stratocaster features custom painted highway markers from famed highways 49 and 61 on it. This legendary crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi is widely believed to be the site that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for fame and fortune. This guitar's fictional story follows a similar mystical path as a man who gained musical ability from a deal with the devil, abandoned the guitar in a ditch at a crossroads. The guitar has an alder wood body, rosewood finger board, Graphtech saddles, black knobs and pickup covers, an aged pickguard and Fender Custom Shop pickups.
Kenny, being a friend and admirer of Wayne Kramer (MC5), had to have one of Wayne's Signature Stratocasters as soon as they became available. The only modification made to this guitar for Kenny was to replace the original Wayne Kramer spec neck with a KWS Signature Series from one of Kenny's own Signature Stratocasters.
An accurate replica of the starred-and-striped Stratocaster guitar that infamous MC5 guitarist and Detroit proto-punk Wayne Kramer used back in the late 1960s
and early 1970s. It bears his distinctive U.S. flag finish, with a red-and-white striped body and white-stars-on-blue-background pickguard.
Special features include a roaring Seymour Duncan '59 humbucking middle pickup and a commemorative neck plate engraved with "This Tool Kills Hate." Other features include an alder body, lacquer body finish, vintage-style single-coil Stratocaster neck and bridge pickups, American Vintage hard-tail string-through-body bridge, Fender vintage-style tuners and chrome hardware.
Kenny received this guitar as a gift from Fender guitars in celebration of his endorsement deal as a Fender artist. This guitar is the prototype of the Fender Stratocaster Relic guitars. It was originally played by Keith Richards on the Stone's Voodoo Lounge tour. Before Kenny received the guitar he asked that Fender add the left handed tremolo, GraphTech saddles, and jumbo frets to the instrument. Kenny has played this guitar ever since on almost every tour he's ever done and it was used for a very long time as the guitar he ended the show with while playing "Voodoo Child" during the encore.
This guitar was built for Kenny by Master Builder J.W. Black at the Fender Custom Shop in 1997. Mr. Black built this guitar as a gift to Kenny for his birthday. This guitar's intended purpose was to be an alternate, or even possibly a replacement, for Kenny's beloved 1961 Fender Stratocaster in the event that Kenny ever chose not to take his '61 on tour. This particular guitar has several unique features, one of the most noteworthy being it's experimental one-of-a-kind finish that was designed to age very rapidly and develop a characteristic known as "checking", which usually only happens after many years of natural aging, curing and temperature fluctuations. With this experimental finish applied to the body of the guitar combined with Kenny's aggressive playing style, this guitar would allow Kenny to naturally develop the same wear and tear associated with his original 1961 Stratocaster at a much faster rate than usual and eventually achieve the same road worn, broken-in appearance of his original 1961 Stratocaster, which took many years of playing to create on this new guitar in a very short amount of time. It is believed that this is the only guitar Fender ever built using this particular finish. Other notable features are a left-handed bridge and tremolo system, rosewood slab fingerboard, custom tapered neck profile, custom wound single coil pickups and staggered vintage tuners. All of these unique features combined with the classic 3-tone Sunburst gives this guitar a striking appearance and a powerful sound.
This particular version of the KWS Signature Series Stratocaster is a one of a kind. The body and electronics feature all the same components found on one of Kenny’s production guitars, but the stand out feature on this unique guitar is its prototype neck. Featured exclusively on this guitar, this neck was developed by Kenny and Fender CEO at the time, Larry Thomas. Larry and Kenny collaborated on several projects and tossed around many ideas during Larry’s tenure as CEO of Fender and this prototype neck is just one of those ideas that was made in very limited quantities for road testing by KWS. This neck features Fender’s latest Channel-bound neck and fingerboard technology, but in an unusual but visually striking application of a rosewood neck with an inlaid birdseye maple fingerboard. Only four of these necks are known two exist and Kenny has two of them. Of the two that KWS has, one has a standard 9.5 radius and the other has a compound radius that goes all the way from 9.5 to a very flat 14 up top. They are fitted with jumbo 6100 frets per Kenny’s spec and have a beautiful oil based finish on both front and back.
Bought in 2010 from a long-time friend named Sherman at the vintage room in Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, this 3-tone sunburst Strat is similar to Van Halen's, except for the neck, which was replaced with a brown one made by Krause at the Fender Custom Shop. This guitar also has graph tech saddles, and it has a hardtail 3-tone sunburst.
Built while experimenting with different stripes and paint colors, the KWS Series Stratocaster prototype displays sleek racing stripes, a bright finish on the neck and a gloss finish on the front and back. A black anodized aluminum pick guard and prototype KWS single pickups complete the model. The final production models differ in that they bear racing stripes of a brighter silver and gloss finish on the front of the headstock only.
Kenny's grandfather, Charles Shepherd, originally owned this Les Paul guitar. After it sat around collecting dust for a few years, he gave it to Kenny to put to good use. Kenny has used it on and off stage and in the studio.
This guitar was given to Kenny by Guild when he signed an endorsement with Guild Guitars in the 1990s. He used it on the Trouble Is... Tour through the Live On Tour. Guild later created an ad featuring Kenny and the guitar.
Kenny purchased this guitar for the Ledbetter Heights tour. Kenny used this guitar to play "Aberdeen" on stage. It combines the sound of an acoustic dobro with the benefits of an electric guitar with single-coil pickup. With this combination, Kenny could recreate the sounds necessary for a live performance of his hit single Aberdeen.
Kenny received this guitar during the "How I Go" album production and uses it to play around the house. It was made with 3,000 year-old wood found at the bottom of a lake in Chile and the uniqueness of the wood gives this nylon-string guitar an incredible sound. L. Benito does not make guitars any longer, but Kenny considers it the most incredible sounding nylon-string guitar he has ever played.
Kenny bought this guitar during the "How I Go" album production and uses it to play around the house. It was made with 3,000-year-old wood found at the bottom of a lake in Chile.
This guitar model was sent to Kenny prior to the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Signature Model's design and release. It was to be used for R&D purposes for Kenny to see if the liked the size and feel of the Martin cutaway guitar. After the series was released in 2001, Noah Hunt used this Martin model at onstage and radio performances.
This guitar is a custom shop guitar Kenny acquired in 2005 and uses around the house.
Given to Kenny in 1989, this candy apple red, American-made Stratocaster bears the signature of one of Kenny’s heroes and his first inspiration to play the guitar: Stevie Ray Vaughan. An original photograph of a young Kenny Wayne, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Kenny’s father, Ken Shepherd marks the moment when it was autographed in Dallas, TX. This was Kenny’s first Strat and was a gift from Kenny's parents. Over the next year as a result of Kenny’s playing the original signature from SRV began to fade. Kenny, being very young and dismayed at the idea of losing the signature, took a sharpie to the guitar and tried to trace over the original SRV signature in the areas where it was fading to bring it back. The end result is a hybrid of SRV’s original signature and a young Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s attempt to preserve his hero’s signature.
This Les Paul guitar was given to Kenny as a Christmas gift by one of his good friends, Johnny Hunkins, who is the editor of Popular Hot Rodding Magazine. It was used on the "First Rides" album and also on the new, yet-to-be-released "Rides" album.
In recent years Kenny and famed Fender Custom Shop Master-Builder Todd Krause have teamed up to design and build some one-of-a-kind and both strikingly beautiful and functional guitars for stage duty on Kenny’s tours. This particular guitar is the product of a couple of years worth of collaboration between Kenny and Todd and the results are spectacular to say the least.
Kenny bought this guitar at Shreveport Music after signing his first recording contract at only 16 years old. It is the first model that Fender Custom Shop master builder J.W. Black modified for Kenny. The original flamed maple neck and small vintage style frets were replaced with a custom rosewood neck and jumbo frets. Blues greats Bo Diddley and Jimmie Vaughn left their mark on this guitar by signing the back of the guitar when Kenny was a young boy. Bo signed the guitar when he was on tour with Kenny at age 16, and Jimmie did the same when he did a show with Kenny later that same year.
In an interview with European guitar builder Paul Guy on Kenny's first European tour, Kenny was given this guitar at the conclusion of the interview as a gift from Paul. The guitar was originally built for Buddy Guy, but Paul never got the chance to give it to him so instead he chose to give it to KWS. Kenny was speechless, and felt as though he couldn't simply take the guitar, so they agreed on a $10 exchange. Kenny used this guitar to record “Blue On Black” and took the instrument around the world on the Trouble Is… tour. It has an ebony board, jumbo frets, a hip shot low E tuner, a one-of-a-kind experimental overdrive designed by Roger Mayer incorporated into the tone control and Lipstick pickups.
This extremely limited series of guitars were custom produced by Charley’s Guitar Shop in Dallas, Texas. They were initially produced between 2002 and 2003.
Originally, Charley’s Guitar Shop and Rene Martinez were going to produce 100 guitars. However, production was halted due to a potential infringement on the rights to the shape and likeness of the Fender headstock. Consequently, only 23 guitars were originally produced and Rene then produced another 10 totaling 33 guitars. This particular guitar was custom built specifically by Rene for KWS as indicated by the engraving on the neck plate on the back of the guitar. This guitar is also believed to be the final “Charley” guitar made by Rene. Kenny used this guitar extensively on his 2004 “The Place You’re In” Tour and has since retired the guitar only bringing it out to the stage on rare occasions. Unique specs to this guitar include custom “Flip flop” pearl white with iridescent blue tint depending on the angle of light, ebony slab, hard tail, jumbo frets, Danelectro pick-ups, wired with one tone knob and one volume control.
This prototype guitar was built at the custom shop specifically for Kenny, along with other a couple of other Washburn custom shop guitars in 2004. It was used primarily for radio show appearances on the 2004 The Place You're In Tour.
Designed by KWS and the talented people at Martin guitars. "...Blue on black, tears on a river..." — blues phenomenon Kenny Wayne Shepherd's 1998 hit "Blue On Black" is filled with colorful imagery. Martin draws on that imagery in its new Kenny Wayne Shepherd Limited Edition Signature model JC-16KWS, creating a guitar as distinctive as the musician himself. The Kenny Wayne Shepherd model combines distinctive design and tonewoods with unique appointments. The rich, full tone of the jumbo cutaway shape is enhanced by solid tonewoods throughout; maple back and sides for clarity and projection, Sitka spruce top for warmth. Martin's patented "A-frame X" scalloped bracing enhances this unique voice. The genuine mahogany neck features standard 1-11/16th inch width and modified low oval profile for easy playing.
A distinctively rustic look and elegant charm, with a body fashioned from reclaimed pine originally used in 1868 in the construction of a dairy barn in the small rural community of Lake Odessa, Mich. The knots, gashes, dings, nail holes and other anomalies in the wood are left intact and unconcealed, so that no two guitars in this limited-number issue are identical.
Further emphasizing the guitar’s one-of-a-kind appearance are a dark satin lacquer stain that accentuates the beauty of the body wood, hardware specially treated to appear slightly worn, and a rosewood neck with a hand-rubbed oil finish and comfortable “modern C”-shaped profile. Other features include a 9.5”-radius 25.5-inch scale rosewood fingerboard with 22 medium jumbo frets, three Fender Custom Shop Fat ’50s single-coil Stratocaster pickups with five-way switching, “unbuffed” single-ply black pickguard, two-point synchronized tremolo bridge with vintage-style stamped steel saddles, Micro-Tilt™ neck adjustment, laser-etched headstock logo and more.
Built from spare parts laying around Fender's Custom Shop, this guitar was one of the first black guitars that the Custom shop tried to relic. The Custom Shop was trying out different techniques of aging guitars to make new ones appear old, so this was essentially an experimental guitar that was never meant to be sold. J.W. Black took the pieces, made a neck to Kenny's specifications and sent it to him, but not before trying some different techniques to create some wear marks on the back of the guitar to simulate the wear and tear from musicians belt buckles and other techniques to “age” the front of the guitar as well.
This first year production Stevie Ray Vaughan Signature Series Stratocaster was used by Kenny to record his first album, Ledbetter Heights and also on his first U.S. tour. Like some of his other Strats, J.W. Black made a customized replacement neck per Kenny's specifications and has several other unique features such as the jumbo frets, gold hardware, Texas Special single-coil pickups, Graph Tech saddles and a left-handed tremolo.
This guitar was given to Kenny by Gibson Guitars after the release of The Place You're In to use on tour. Kenny played a Les Paul on several songs on that album, so Gibson sent this guitar to him to use on The Place You're In Tour in 2004.
