Champaign, IL – The Champaign Park District is presenting award-winning blues and rock guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd at the historic Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, at 7:30 P.M. Reserved seating tickets are $49.50/$59.50/$69.50/$89.50 plus an additional per-ticket fee of $5-$9. Tickets go on sale Friday, October 3, 2025, at 10:00 A.M. at the Virginia Theatre Box Office, online at thevirginia.org, or charge by phone at 217-356-9063.
About Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Thirty years ago, a Fender Strat-wielding teenager from Shreveport, Louisiana by the name of Kenny Wayne Shepherd brought the blues back to the mainstream. It was 1995, the era of furrow-browed grungesters, when a sandy-haired guitar prodigy unapologetically celebrated a genre often pushed to the margins. With his fiery fretwork, pop-rock hooks, and reverence for the blues, Shepherd’s arrival was a much-needed palette-cleanser from the existential dread of the times.
Now, three decades later, Shepherd is as vital as ever. No longer the child prodigy, he has ascended to master. Still touring, recording, collaborating, and evolving, he’s returned to where it all began. Shepherd and his band will be hitting the road for the Ledbetter Heights 30th Anniversary Tour. The shows will include a performance of the full 12-track album, along with another set featuring highlights from his 30-year career.
“This is the album that put me on the map, and I still enjoy listening to it because my goal has always been to make music I want to listen to – Unfiltered and straight from the heart.” Shepherd reflects. “I’m so grateful for this album – it gave me everything.”
Shepherd’s longevity is rare for an artist who broke through so young, rooted in a niche genre such as the blues. That could be because of Shepherd’s refusal to stand still. He’s a restless creative who has always had one foot firmly planted in the blues tradition and the other roaming the vast rock n’ roll landscape.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Chelsea Norton
Director of Marketing & Development
Champaign Park District
chelsea.norton@champaignparks.org
217-273-3943
