Kenny Wayne Shepherd

After wowing blues fans hungry for fresh talent in the ’90s, young guitar-wiz Kenny Wayne Shepherd struggled to find his voice, turning briefly to nondescript blues-rock before he re-invented himself more successfully as a true bluesman, a defender of a dying art. For his 2007 album, 10 Days Out: Blues From the Backroads, Shepherd hunted down and recorded with aging, unheralded blues greats, and, fittingly, for his latest tour, which stops at the Pabst Theater tonight at 8 p.m., he’s sharing the stage with some of them. Hubert Sumlin and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith will trade sets with Shepherd.