Kenny Wayne Shepherd Shares Previously-Unreleased Blues-Laden ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’ Cover

Blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd released a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad Of A Thin Man.” The track is set to appear on the 25th anniversary edition, Trouble Is…25, of Shepherd’s 1997 sophomore album Trouble Is…, due out on December 2 via Provogue Records/Mascot Label Group.

“Ballad Of A Thin Man” tells the tale of the tragically unhip and unaware Mr. Jones. The song appears on Dylan’s landmark 1965 LP, Highway 61 Revisited. Shepperd told the story of how “Ballad Of A Thin Man” came to be cut from his original Trouble Is… album:

“I wanted to do Bob Dylan’s ‘Everything Is Broken’ because I had just been on tour with him and he was so good to me and such an inspiration. Our producer, Jerry Harrison, had suggested another Dylan song, ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man.’ But I was concerned that might be too much of a step outside the box for the fanbase, and ‘Everything Is Broken’ was closer to an actual blues song. Jerry was fighting hard for ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’ so we butted heads, had a miniature battle over those songs. Ultimately, I prevailed and although we recorded ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man,’ it was ‘Everything Is Broken’ that went on the record. But what’s really cool is that for this new recording of ‘Trouble Is…,’ we went in and very faithfully re-recreated that version of ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’ from 1997, and included it on this boxset.”

Listen to Kenny Wayne Shepherd on “Ballad Of A Thin Man” below: