What do you get when you combine one of the coolest blues vocalists of our time with one of the best guitarists in the world?
You get the Grammy-winning band Tedeschi Trucks, pairing Susan Tedeschi with Derek Trucks to wrap a weeklong stint at Warner Theatre this Friday and Saturday.
“I have a good feeling about the Warner,” Trucks told WTOP. “There’s enough good music in everyone’s catalogs at this point where we can dig pretty deep and change it up. It keeps it fresh for everybody. … This year has been off to a really good start.”
Born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1979, he wasn’t quite born in the back seat of a Greyhound Bus rolling down Highway 41, but he was the nephew of Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks.
“It was always in the house,” Trucks said. “It’s the first stuff I remember hearing, so it was never not there. My dad was a huge fan of that music. He always went up to those Fillmore shows and it meant a lot to them, so it always felt unique and special.”
He’s even named after Eric Clapton’s post-Cream band Derek and the Dominos.
“The spelling came from that,” Trucks said. “That was the other record that was in heavy rotation in the house when I was born and growing up, so that factored in, too.”
He got his hands on his first guitar at a yard sale at age 8.
“My mom, on the way home from school, if she’d see a garage sale we’d stop in from time to time,” Trucks said. “I think I had five bucks in my pocket and there was a really crappy guitar. … I didn’t really have a huge drive to play at that point. It was nothing for an 8-year-old, other than a guitar with four strings on it.”
He didn’t take it seriously until he met his uncle’s bandmate, Jim Graves.
“He was the first guy that came over and taught me what the strings were, what the notes were and just how to play cowboy chords,” Trucks said. “I started sitting here with him at local clubs and that’s kind of how it got rolling.”
Quickly, Trucks was deemed a child prodigy, which he credits to an innate gift.
“It’s different for everyone,” Trucks said. “I wasn’t somebody that practiced a ton, but once I started playing, it was always there and I always played, so I logged the hours. But I know people that didn’t seem to have it in the beginning and they just worked until they did. I think you can come at it in any way. Really it’s about staying with it.”
At such a young age, he used a slide to make the guitar fit his small hands.
“I think I was 9 or 10 when I first started playing slide,” Trucks said. “All that Duane Allman slide stuff, it all of a sudden made sense to me. … It was definitely easier for me to play slide at that point than straight guitar.”
By age 11, he booked his first paid gig. By age 13, he was playing across Buddy Guy.
“Buddy was amazing,” Trucks said. “He takes young musicians under his wing and shows you the ropes. I learned a lot from being on stage with him. He would bring a band down to a whisper. … Those are lessons that you’re really fortunate to get.”
By age 24, he had played with the likes of Bob Dylan, Joe Walsh and Stephen Stills.
“Dylan, all those guys, a lot of these people wrote the book,” Trucks said. “I’ve gotten some good advice. … When people tell you not to mess around with heroin and other things, and they show you their track marks, that’s a pretty good lesson, too.”
In 1994, he finally formed his own band, the Derek Trucks Band, alongside Todd Smallie, Mike Mattison, Count M’Butu, Kofi Burbridge and Yonrico Scott.
He also toured with the Allman Brothers Band before officially joining them in 1999.
“The call to join the Allman Brothers was something I never thought would happen,” Trucks said. “I had to find a way to do both. It was incredible to go back and forth, playing small clubs with our guys … so you could get gas money for the next gig, then hop on tour with the Allman Brothers, which was just a total different level of traveling.”
Does he have a favorite Allman Brothers song?
“I mean, that ‘Fillmore East’ record and ‘Eat a Peach’ were the ones that I always loved hearing and still do,” Trucks said. “There’s a handful of great ones. That studio version of ‘Blue Sky’ is pretty hard to beat.”
Suddenly, his life changed when he met Susan Tedeschi, who he married in 2001.
“She was on tour opening for the Allman Brothers that first year I was in the band,” Trucks said. “That’s when we really connected, out on the road for months at a time and seeing her do her thing. You don’t meet many people that have that going on. Not many women know who Howlin’ Wolf is and Wayne Shorter, so that helps.”
Soon, they formed Soul Stew Revival before switching to Tedeschi Trucks Band.
“When we did Soul Stew, we were just kind of dipping our toes in,” Trucks said. “I didn’t want to keep both of our solo bands going as a backup plan. I knew it had to be all or nothing. … Just making a clean break and starting something without a safety net.”
Their debut album “Revelator” (2011) won the Grammy for Best Blues Album.
“You never expect those things, but I felt like we were hitting it,” Trucks said. “It was a special time. … We were working with [producer] Jim Scott for the first time. We were all learning and growing quite a bit and the band was fully focused on the task. There were great songs on that record. A lot of those tunes we play almost every night still.”
They followed up with three more studio albums — “Made Up Mind” (2013), “Let Me Get By” (2016) and “Signs” (2019) — as well as two live albums, “Everybody’s Talkin'” (2012) and “Live from the Fox Oakland” (2017).
“The band has gotten better every year somehow,” Trucks said. “There’s been an ebb and flow, some tours are better than others, and there’s definitely been times where I felt like we had to search for it again, but somehow it just keeps rolling.”
Of all the gigs, he has particular fondness for Clapton’s Crossroads Festival in 2007.
“That was great timing,” Trucks said. “The Allman Brothers were originally supposed to do it. Then Gregg got sick and I think a liver [transplant] was available, so we filled in last minute. … It really did propel this thing forward, so sometimes you just gotta be ready when the ball’s hit to you.”
He will also never forget performing at the White House to salute B.B. King in 2012.
“There was actual real music in that place for a while!” Trucks said. “I was on stage with Buddy Guy and B.B. King and there was the president, first lady and people in the room that actually understood what that meant.”
In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him No. 16 on its Greatest Guitarists of All Time list, ahead of titans like Les Paul, Carlos Santana, Chet Atkins and Angus Young.
But more than any ranking, Trucks prefers approval from his idols, like B.B. King saying, “That’s as good as I’ve ever heard it” at their Hollywood Bowl jam in 2012.
“The Rolling Stone thing, you don’t really know what to make of that, but when B.B. pays you a compliment, that feels different,” Trucks said. “You don’t really care what other people think if B.B. likes it or Little Milton or John Lee Hooker. Those are my people.”
Hear our full conversation with Derek Trucks below:
