Re: Les aventures de Derek Trucks

[Ayler]

ok j'avais compris mais Bungey c'est un critique connu, qui fait foi, comme on dit ?

Parce qu'un critique connu a plus de poids ? Tu penses à Philippe Manœuvre ?

[Francky]

Y'a Charlebois qui chantait :
"J'me fouts pas mal des critiques,
C'est des ratés bien sympatiques "

Ceci dit j'ai eu le Mc Coy Tyner en main et j'ai pas décidé de l'acheter.
J'attends des avis.

[Ayler]

Je parle plus haut du DVD inclu (le 19.10.08 12:54). A mon avis, c'est un disque hautement recommandable, mais peut-être pas tant pour Derek Trucks que pour les autres guitaristes. Ribot, Frisell et Scofield tirent vraiment bien leur épingle du jeu.

Sinon, en plus accessible pour un public blues-rock, il y a l'album suivant :



... quand les aventures de Derek Trucks croisent celles de Warren Haynes !

[Francky]

Je parle plus haut du DVD inclu (le 19.10.08 12:54). A mon avis, c'est un disque hautement recommandable, mais peut-être pas tant pour Derek Trucks que pour les autres guitaristes. Ribot, Frisell et Scofield tirent vraiment bien leur épingle du jeu. (...)

J'avais vu. Après le topic est un peu parti en couille. Mais j'aime bien Tyner, Carter (beaucoup), Scofield (que j'ai d'ailleurs vu avec Miles au Palais des Congrès).
Je vais me l'acheter.

[Francky]

... quand les aventures de Derek Trucks croisent celles de Warren Haynes !....

C'est souvent ! Heureusement.

[Francky]

Sinon, en plus accessible pour un public blues-rock, il y a l'album suivant :

Putain 10,65 euros livré dans ma boîte aux lettres chez caïman ! Là je vais pas hésiter longtemps !

[Francky]

Derek prend du galon : il joue sur deux titres du nouvel album de McCoy Tyner.

Renowned slide-guitar prodigy Derek Trucks of Allman Brothers fame reveals gritty blues intensity and a soulful tone on “Slapback Blues” and a passionate rendition of “Greensleeves.”

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=30638

Tiens je retrouve ta première mention du disque. La version de Greensleeves est "passionate", et ton critique la trouve "listless", soit "apathique" ! comme quoi !

[Ayler]

Quand je cite des critiques, ça n'implique nullement que je cautionne les critiques en question. Mais il me semble intéressant d'avoir différents sons de cloche.

[kjp]

Et un peu de lecture : http://www.bestofwny.com/nightlife/

[Ayler]

Ceci dit j'ai eu le Mc Coy Tyner en main et j'ai pas décidé de l'acheter.
J'attends des avis.

Il est disque du mois ici :

http://www.stereophile.com/recordingofthemonth/1108rotm/

[Ayler]

[eddie]

J'aime beaucoup cet album d'Elvin Bishop!

[Michel]

J'aime beaucoup cet album d'Elvin Bishop!

+1

Même si la grande mode est d'avoir des guitaristes en guests (et surtout Warren Haynes et Derek Trucks !), ce CD est superbe !

[Ayler]

The Derek Trucks Band : Already Free (2009)

1. Down In The Flood
2. Something To Make You Happy
3. Maybe This Time
4. Sweet Inspiration
5. Don't Miss Me
6. Get What You Deserve
7. Our Love
8. Down Don't Bother Me
9. Days Is Almost Gone
10. Back Where I Started
11. I Know
12. Already Free

[Jungleland]

et donc voici la pochette d'Already Free :




un titre est en écoute sur son myspace et une video making-of est visible ici : http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=20728238&blogID=449782446

[Francky]

Bon, j'ai pas été là beaucoup, et à mon retour j'avais le McCoy Tyner et l'Elvin Bishop dans ma boîte.
J'adore le Mc Coy, avec mention spéciale pour Bela Fleck. C'est pas de la musique qu'on entend tout les jours. Et le fameux Greensleeve avec Derek est très intéressant. Bien sûr il met pas le feu à la barraque mais y'a pas que Rockin' Horse dans la vie.
Et le dvd est très cool.

Par contre le Bishop, je le trouve limite inutile. Vu et revu, et les hommages à n'en plus finir sont un peu gavants.

[Francky]

Quand je cite des critiques, ça n'implique nullement que je cautionne les critiques en question. Mais il me semble intéressant d'avoir différents sons de cloche.

J'avais pas répondu à ça mais je suis bien sûr d'accord à 100%. On est pas au Congrès du PCUS de 1949 !
Et donc ce mec qui qualifie Derek d'pathique sur Greensleeves a rien compris.

[eddie]

Le Derek Trucks Band sera en France le 30 avril 2009, hélas juste à Paris apparemment (Alhambra).
J'y serai!

[Michel]

Moi aussi

[kjp]

Merci de l'info. J'y serais probablement. Son disque sort le 19, je crois ???

[Ayler]

Peace, Love and Slide Guitar: The Soul of Derek Trucks
Slide guitarist Derek Trucks offers music of affirmation and inclusion as an antidote for a violent age.
By Brad Buchholz

Sometimes, I hear starlight - or the pulse of ecstasy. Sometimes, I hear the Delta. Other times, the rhythms of a desert caravan. I hear Persia, Pakistan, India. I hear the church. So many times, I hear the no-tomorrow urgency of Duane Allman. I hear a gospel shout, the commandment to stand. I hear affirmation.

Young Derek Trucks summons a lot of exotic, visceral energy through his electric slide guitar. Over the span of a concert or an album - and man, sometimes in the course of a single guitar solo - Trucks spins you 'round a globe of sensations. He draws from roots and ragas, nods at ancient wisdoms, winks at John Coltrane, calls out to us in a voice of youthful exaltation.

Think of Trucks as a 21st-century guitar slinger with a PG-13 lifestyle and 100 percent devotion to craft. His musical approach is humble and heady, retro and modern, deeply spiritual and kick-ass urgent. It's grounded in a life of reading and reflection and curiosity. Best of all: The guy's 29 years old. There's a clear sense his musical journey is just beginning.

"Derek has what my mother, a gospel singer, likes to call an anointed voice," says his friend Yonrico Scott, who plays drums for the Derek Trucks Band. "The first time I heard him play slide guitar - he was only 13, 14 at the time - I had chills. The kind of chills I had the first time I heard `Precious Lord, Take My Hand' in church. I knew he was speaking through his instrument. It's all about the art with him. That's all that matters."

For a guy who'd rather talk about Indian classical music than the Billboard charts, Trucks (who plays Wednesday at La Zona Rosa) is pretty close to hitting the mainstream. He started making waves about six or seven years ago as the reviving light of the Allman Brothers Band, the spiritual heir to brother Duane's slide guitar legacy. Trucks' star grew brighter in 2007, when he joined Eric Clapton's touring band for the "Layla" revival tour. During the past two years, he's posed for the cover of Rolling Stone, recorded with jazz legend McCoy Tyner and toured extensively with his wife, the blues singer and guitarist Susan Tedeschi.

Yet Trucks pushes musical boundaries most joyfully in his own group, the Derek Trucks Band. His creative mission: To honor the slide guitar's roots in the blues idiom while at the same time launching it into 10 different universes. As a bandleader, Trucks lets his claret-red 1961 Gibson SG sing in the houses of jazz and funk, salsa and soul, reggae and qawwali. The overarching message, musically and socially, is all about unity and inclusiveness and empowerment.

On the jacket of his brand-new album "Already Free," Trucks quotes Indian sarod master Ali Akbar Khan - as if giving human language to the slippery, soaring glissando of his slide guitar: "Music is like a river or stream that has come down to us through time. From the past masters, this music flowed to my father and through him to me. I want to keep this stream flowing. I don't want it to die. It must spread all over the world."


Derek Trucks is in fact named for Derek and the Dominos, the Clapton-Allman guitar band that flashed like a comet across the rock 'n' roll sky in 1970. Trucks' uncle is drummer Butch Trucks, one of the founding members of the Allman Brothers Band. Derek's parents loved the music of the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as its implicit message of peace, love and community. They discreetly conveyed to their son the idea that music contained a kind of spiritual power.

"My dad has never been openly religious," says Trucks, talking over the telephone while on tour in New York earlier this month. "But I could tell when he was listening to music, talking about music, that's always where he got that off his chest. I don't think he even knows it, you know?"

As a boy in the 1980s, Trucks loved his parents' vintage Allman Brothers albums; he went to sleep at night listening to "Eat A Peach," "At Fillmore East" and "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs." What captured his imagination in the beginning wasn't so much the beauty of the slide guitar as the man who played it on those records.

"Duane Allman was the first connection for me. I think it was his force, his force as a musician," he says of Allman, who died at age 24 in 1971, eight years before Trucks was born. "It was Duane, and it was Elmore James. With both of them, there was so much fire in their playing, so wide open it demanded your attention if you were listening at all.

"My uncle tells a story about playing with Duane early on in the Allman Brothers Band. My uncle Butch was having an off night; something wasn't going on with him; he wasn't playing full out. So Duane stopped midtune, came back to him (at the drums) and basically threatened him: `Never (expletive) give me less than a hundred percent, or I will come back here and kick your ass. While we're up here, I don't care what's going on in your life: You are going to leave it on stage.'

"You can hear that in Duane's playing, every solo he took, on a live record, on a recording, it would be fine if it was the last thing he played. There would be nothing to be embarrassed of. ? Later, hearing Howlin' Wolf or Little Walter, I got the same impression. It's just so wide open. The foot is all the way to the floor."

From his days as a pre-teen guitar prodigy, Trucks embraced Duane's legacy - that one must come to the music genuinely, draw from it sincerely, invest in it completely. These are the lines that drew him to his two other heroes: jazz saxophone master John Coltrane and Indian sarod master Ali Akbar Khan. Trucks saw in the three of these musicians a blend of daring, dignity, focus and spiritual energy that he aspired to honor in his own music.

As a teenager, Trucks studied tape of Coltrane, noted how he carried himself on stage. There was no "Hollywood" in 'Trane at all; the intent was all about the music. Same with Duane. Same with Akbar Khan. Like his heroes, Derek Trucks does not grimace or ape during a solo; he does not dance, pose ? or even talk to the audience.

When Trucks and his band opened their set at the 2008 New Orleans Jazz Festival with Rashaan Roland Kirk's "Volunteered Slavery," the man sitting beside me in the Blues Tent asked, "Hey! Which one is Derek Trucks?" Trucks is the rare front man of a band who doesn't sing, nor does he write most of the music. What's more, his posture is so understated, his attention so clearly on the collective effort, that he exudes no "guitar god" ego at all.

"I'm glad that Derek introduces the band these days. But shoot, for years, he didn't say nothin' (to the audience, on stage), " says Scott, who has played drums behind jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and singer Stevie Wonder. "Man, I used to talk. I used to go, like, `The next song is dedicated to the ladies.' One day, Derek just looked at me and he said, `Don't. Talk.' As a matter of fact, the band gave me a CD called `Rico's Final Words.' It's all this (silly) talking I did on stage. I totally get it now."

Derek Trucks projects something else, too: a clear-eyed, sharp-minded, down-to-earth elegance. Imagine Wynton Marsalis in blue jeans with his shirt-tail out. He's a cheerful guy who laughs a lot, a father of two kids, one named Charlie Khalil (for Charlie Christain, Charlie Parker, and Khalil Gibran), another named Sophia Naima (a nod to a Coltrane ballad). Everything about his demeanor, off stage and on, rejects the romanticized notion of "live fast, die young" in the manner of James Dean, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix ? or Duane Allman.

"It's one thing to go down a martyr. It's another thing to destroy yourself," says Trucks, with a soft accent that suggests his Florida-Georgia roots. "It sends the wrong message. I'd think about that sometimes, on the road with Eric Clapton, listening to him tell stories, thinking about his running partners: John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Duane. All those guys went down, as well as guys in his band.

"Eric definitely abused himself (when he was young) and pulled out in time because he had the foresight to go `You know what? It's all or nothing. And I can't do it.' There's something to be said for longevity, something to be around, raising your children and being there for your family."


Throughout a confused and violent decade, Derek Trucks and his band have been playing music and producing records that champion empowerment, harmony, community, imagination, freedom. Duane Allman once said "Eat a peach for peace." Derek Trucks answers, in his music, "Who you are is the path you take."

Trucks and his band address the turmoil of the new millennium without making specific political statements in their music. Instead, they pick songs ­- either covers or group compositions - that accentuate an affirming "get up, stand up" outlook. They're interested in the interior world, the personal world, the global context.

"My wife Susan and I come from pretty much the same (political) mind-set," Trucks says. "And sometimes, she says, `Why don't we just say it (directly)?' But I think it's more important to maybe not tell people where you're coming from - but to show them where you're coming from. Look at guys like Bob Dylan, the voice of a generation. Dylan never spoke overtly in a political sense; it was the underlying message. I think it's getting through to people that's important, first. And then having a little medicine in there, to hide it."

Trucks' band reflects the very ideas of community and diversity. On the latest album, music producer John Snyder documents what he observes to be the band's "Seven Creative Virtues" on the liner notes: "personal exploration, community participation, honoring your talent, humility, honesty in life and in music, purpose driven life, and love of family."

Trucks feels a clear affinity for Eastern culture, Eastern thinking. He was a huge admirer of the late Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain. As a teenager, he was influenced by the India-born philosopher Jiddu Krishamirti, who championed the idea of a life devoted to setting mankind free from cages - cages of fear, cages of conformity, cages of dogma and religion.

Derek Trucks' set lists and albums further the idea of "the more flavors, the better the stew." In a typical live set, he'll cover everything from Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" or "Greensleeves" to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's "Sahib Teri Bandi/Maki Madni" and then tip his hat to the blues with "Key to Highway" or launch into the 1960s Stax soul-shaker "Sweet Inspiration" (a tune suggested to them, in admiration, by Carlos Santana).

Trucks remains open to anything. Texas guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, the man who introduced Trucks to Clapton two years ago, dropped in to the studio to write and sing and play on several west-meets-east songs on the band's new album. On "Back Where I Started," Susan Tedeschi takes a lead vocal, letting her voice emulate the elegant slide of her husband's guitar while Trucks plays a nuanced backing part on an Indian sarod.

What's next? "I can see him touring with an orchestra," says Yonrico Scott. "I can see him playing just straight bebop for a while. Or I can see him sitting in a lotus position, just playing sarood, taking six months off to study with Indian classical musicians. That's the beautiful thing about him. He's still stretching."


Every once in a while, the Allman Brothers Band will cover the song "Layla" in concert - and Derek Trucks will step forward and play slide guitar on one of the liveliest, loveliest songs in the rock 'n' roll canon. The way he plays it, the way he treats it, tells you a lot about the man.

Look at his fret hand!

Like Duane Allman, Trucks can play with emotional abandon, make the guitar sing like a human voice. He even uses Duane's choice of slide, a Coricidan medicine bottle. But you also notice, right away, that Trucks' slidework is extraordinarily precise and tight and refined, which is hard to do without creating "noise" on the neck.

Trucks can glide that slide like silk over string to evoke a sound as sweet as honey. And then, just to show you his rough side, he'll push that glass toward the top of the guitar neck and make that bottom string sound as thick and rough and industrial as the cables holding the Golden Gate Bridge.

Derek Trucks grew up with "Layla." He knows it as Clapton's song, Duane's song, his song. On the first big solo, before the piano break, Trucks pays respects to the tormented backstory of "Layla." He plays jaggedly, outrageously. He cries to the night. But he's even more impressive in the lovely coda following the vocals, taking on the (piano's) melody line and lead guitar line simultaneously. You know what I hear? Love. Love of the song, love of tradition, love for his mentor. A love that transcends, a love that endures.

"I hear light. I hear smiling," says Yonrico Scott, talking about what he hears in his friend's guitar. "I feel something new and something old. I hear an energy, taking over. I see reds and yellows and blues and greens. Not much black. Derek hates black. He won't even wear black. But I do see brown. I see earth. A lot of earth."

Source : http://www.austin360.com/xl/content/music/stories/xl/2009/02/0226xlcover.html

[eddie]

Super article... Je comprends mieux pourquoi j'aime Derek Trucks et sa musique, mais aussi pourquoi son album actuel m'ennuie terriblement (toutes ces bonnes intentions et ce 'politiquement correct'...). Dilemme.

[Ayler]

Un entretien passionnant !

Thèmes abordés :
- Already Free, His Band and Recording Studio
- Eric Clapton
- Branford and Wynton Marsalis
- Carlos Santana
- McCoy Tyner and John Synder
- Crossroads: Tal Wilkenfeld and Johnny Winter
- The Allman Brothers, Chuck Leavell and Barbara Dennerlein
- Meeting President Obama
- What if?


Already Free, His Band and Recording Studio

All About Jazz: On your latest release, Already Free (Columbia, 2009), you made your debut as producer, and this is arguably more of a group recording than anything you've ever done. Although there's plenty of guitar on this album, it's very much an album of vocals. It seems like you were able to step back and almost see yourself as a session player, is there any truth to that?

Derek Trucks: Yeah I really enjoyed the whole process of having the studio in the back yard. Going out there with no preconceived notions of what we were going to do, writing songs every day and just starting from nothing and ending up with a fresh tune that evening—and you know trying to serve the tune. That was the idea when we started working on this record, and I've got to say it's been much more rewarding than anything I've been a part of.

I felt the attention to detail was so much more prevalent, it felt really good, and this was the first time I've ever been able to listen to a record, two, three of four months after it's finished and I've still felt like there's not a lot I would change on it. Every other record, especially the ones we would do live in the studio in one take, it would always feel good goin' down, and I'd go back and there was always stuff I'd want to go back and re-hit before the record was released. But with this one, I felt more comfortable with it because we did take our time and live with it a little while before we settled on it. It's a little bit of a departure from what we've done before, but to me it's just more of a natural evolution of the band and getting more and more comfortable in the studio with the whole recording process.

AAJ: Already Free reminds me very much of the golden years of rock in the late '60s and early '70s, when label presidents like Clive Davis allowed artists to take full advantage of the studio and develop their artist vision. The material has such a cohesive vibe and so many layers of sound. It's the first one of yours where I've had the impulse to listen to it four or five times in a row, and with each play I discovered some new detail. Were you inspired by that era when planning and producing this CD?

DT: Definitely, you know when we built the studio we started acquiring old vintage gear, the got the recording console from The Kinks' studio that was in London for 25 or 30 years, so we were very much thinking of that era of recording when people really did take time to make records. They were making albums and focusing all the way in it, it wasn't overly compressed to fit the radio, and people were really striving to make lasting records. I was listening to a lot of the Sly Stone records, you know, his first three or four records, different Beatles records, different Hendrix records, even The Allman Brothers' Eat a Peach (Capricorn, 1972) and thinking more about how those records felt. That was kind of the mind set when we were making this album.

AAJ: Doyle (Bramhall II) is such an excellent fit with your band and his presence takes things in a new and interesting direction. His tracks remind me of that coming together of talent in groups like Moby Grape, Blind Faith, and Buffalo Springfield. I get the sense you two are very compatible musically, it seems like in another era you guys might have joined forces?

DT: You know we've actually talked about it. We have that band with my wife, Soul Stew Revival, and we talked about just makin' that band crazy over the top, just bringing people out, and I would love to have Doyle on the road with that band.

AAJ: Kind of like Delaney and Bonnie of the new millennium.

DT: Exactly, or Mad Dogs and Englishmen, you know, one of those over the top touring groups and you know having three great singers, Mike (Mattison), Susan (Tedeschi) and Doyle would be pretty unstoppable I think. We have a horn section in that band and I think it would be fun to get one or two strong background vocalists. I don't think those things have really been done in a while and I think it's time for it.

AAJ: That's an exciting thought, and I think that would allow you to better recreate on stage what you're doing in the studio.

DT: Yeah that's for sure, and you know the other thing we've been thinking about is how enjoyable it was to make this record. And I don't want to say easy, because there was a lot of time and energy put into it, but there weren't a lot of roadblocks once we started making it. It all happened very naturally and you know it just felt good doing it and we're all excited to get back in and just kind of continue it.

Whether it's writing tunes for Susan's record, Mike Mattison's record, Doyle's or ours, or some combination of all of them, I think when you have a studio like that it doesn't really matter, you just head out there and start throwing stuff against the wall. I think about the Muscle Shoals model, and Stax and Motown and all these old record houses where they were just a group of musicians who knew each other very well. They knew the sounds and they would just turn stuff out, and I'd like to almost get in that mindset. Not with the intention of releasing everything, but piling stuff up. When you do that, mediocre songs that would normally make it to a record get weeded out, and all the good stuff floats to the top.

AAJ: Miles Davis liked to have people in his bands with different vibes, for example, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. That clash of ideas or style often resulted in a spark. Cannonball did something similar with his band by having Yusef Lateef and Joe Zawinul. Who in your band is closest to you in terms of musical tastes, and who pulls you the most in a different direction?

DT: In my group I think the closest in taste would be Mike, and I think the person who probably stretches it the most is probably Kofi Burbridge, or Count M'Buto. I think because Kofi grew up in the classical world, he's got a lot of stuff he listens to that's new to me. All the guys came up in that fusion era too, they're well versed in that music, and it wasn't until later on that I really dug into that. We have a pretty wide variety of eras and backgrounds in this band, let's see, I'm in my twenties and we've got guys in their thirties, forties, fifties and sixties—we've got almost all the decades covered—it's pretty wild.

AAJ: In Dylan's biography he wrote, "There are lots of places I like, but I like New Orleans better." Already Free has a swampy feel of the deep South to it and Dylan's "Down in the Flood" is a perfect fit. Did the shock of Katrina and what happened to New Orleans have an impact on the direction of this CD?

DT: When anything that major happens, especially when it happens to the musical community, I think all musicians who were sensitive to that were pretty shocked and devastated by what happened. On my wife's new record, Back to the River (Verve, 2008), she wrote a few tunes that were about Katrina. "Seven Hundred Houses" which I think is one of the better tunes on that record, is specifically about Katrina. So it was definitely on everybody's mind, so when we started thinking about that track "Down in the Flood," whether it's "Crash on the Levee" or "Down in the Flood," the first image that comes to mind now is New Orleans.

AAJ: It seemed like a full circle moment when I read that you did the final mix of Already Free at Electric Ladyland. One could argue that Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" might have been the greatest Dylan cover of all time. Beyond guitar playing, Jimi Hendrix was so creative in the studio, even Dylan was knocked out by what he did with that song. Putting your producer hat on, what's your take on the opening of "All Along the Watchtower" in particular, and Hendrix in the studio in general?

DT: You know for me, after working with Jay Joyce, the producer on Songlines (Columbia,2006), it really opened up my head to the art of producing and the art of making records, as opposed to playing live which was my sole focus up to that point. So with that hat on, and thinking along those lines, those Hendrix records are all the more impressive to me. He was the one in that generation, I mean there were a few guys making great records, but Hendrix was really the one who took that model, with the experimentation you could do in the studio, and really made it fine art. Some of the shit is really over the top, and he's really stretching the technology as far as it could go, it's hi-fi it's low-fi, it's comic book, it's classic melodies. And with a tune like "All Along the Watchtower" and what he does with a lot of tunes he plays, he takes a great song and he makes it epic. He makes it an anthem.

Our guitar tech, Bobby Tis, was a huge help in building our studio. His father (Bobby Tis Sn.) was the chief engineer at the Electric Lady Studios for 13 years, and he drew up the blueprints and transformed it from a rehearsal room to a world class studio. So it just seemed natural to go to Hendrix's old apartment and old studio and mix it. He's been such an influence, and the fact that Bobby Tis worked at Electric Lady—so from our home studio to his home studio to finish it off, that was definitely part of the thinking—I like when you can tie those loose ends together. And it adds to the myth of a record too.

AAJ: You don't sing on stage, but I'm curious if you find it useful to sing when you are writing songs?

DT: Yeah a little bit. I can do it with a slide and play a melody I'm hearing, but when you're writing lyrics it's definitely helpful to sing it out. With some of these tunes like "Maybe This Time," the track was finished, it was one of the tunes I wrote in the studio, but I couldn't quite settle on a vocal melody so I played the track for Doyle with all of the vocal ideas out of it, just a bare track, and had him just sing down vocal ideas onto the track, and he was just kind of singing phonetically to the song, and I went back and listened to that, and wrote lyrics to his melodies, so there's different ways to do it.

AAJ: When we think of singers like Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, or even Johnny Cash, it's clear that a compelling vocal isn't limited to those born with great range and power, like Susan. Now that you have your own studio where you can experiment in private, is it possible we might someday hear you on a vocal?

DT: [Laughing] You never know, I might do a few records and then wait till I'm gone and then release it.

[Ayler]

Eric Clapton

AAJ: You were out on tour with Eric Clapton for over a year. Growing up as an aspiring guitarist, there must have been some things you had always wanted to ask him. Here's a guy who hung out and played with Carl Perkins, Jimi Hendrix, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and was in the studio with George Martin and The Beatles. Could you share a bit about some of the things you asked, or some of the things he shared with you?

DT: I was fortunate that I knew it was going to be a year long, so I didn't have that moment where I thought, all right I'm going to have a few minutes with him, so I just felt like I could kind of let it unfold. It was great, because without having to ask questions you get a more natural story. It was great when it was just going gig to gig, or hanging out between gigs, just hearing those stories of the things you asked about. Hearing about him going to see Hendrix. You know, I'm hearing these stories that should be in the encyclopedia [laughs], it was pretty amazing stuff.

While we were on the road he was in the process of writing his book too, so he was very much in the process of digging that stuff up. Even to the point where I felt he was trying to get insight into the whole Duane Allman Brothers camp from me, so it would just kind of spark memories and spark his recollection of Duane and that time. I could tell that that time left a big mark on him; I think because he got that close with Duane right before he passed, that was a huge part of his life.

It really is amazing the amount of stuff Eric was there for, just right in the middle. You know there weren't that many guys who made the connection with Capricorn Records, Muscle Shoals, the Deep South, and yet was in there with The Beatles, and Howlin' Wolf. As far as electrified rock music, he had his hands or feet in all of it; it's astounding when you think about it as a whole.

AAJ: There's that story that Tom Dowd told of being at an Allman Brothers show with Eric, and Duane opened his eyes during a solo and saw Eric and stopped playing.

DT: I've heard that same story, and that's when the "Layla" thing happened. Eric came out to see The Allman Brothers and Eric actually mentioned that show and Tom Dowd taking him to see Duane and the band somewhere in South Florida. Eric talked about how impressive it was, those guys -scraggly haired (laughing)—just playin' their asses off with something to prove. When Eric was talking about that very show, you could tell it was a fresh memory, he was reliving it. He actually told me about that show because my uncle (Butch Trucks) was coming out to the Madison Square Garden show we did with Clapton, and I don't think Butch had seen Eric since those days, so it was cool to see that little mini-reunion.

AAJ: I was really moved by the way you and Eric communicated when you started doing "Why Does Love Got to be so Sad" as the tour progressed.

DT: Yeah, yeah, those were some of my favorite moments of the tour.

AAJ: You could just see it, in those moments there was no age difference, no question of fame or icon status, you guys were just so intimate and in the moment. Even as someone in the audience, you could just feel the spirits talking. I'm curious what that's like for the musician, do you get the sense your talking soul to soul in those moments, and does something like that forge a special bond between you?

DT: I think so, definitely, when you're communicating on that level it's total trust. And all of your senses are full on in those moments, you're in a heightened sense of awareness and you're being really sensitive to the other player. You're trying to do your own thing and head down a certain path while also reacting. There were two or three nights when we played that and I felt it really happened. I felt good [laughing], it felt great!

AAJ: I wondered too, you toured extensively in Japan and China, were you ever struck by the sensation that music really is the universal language. You know, when the audience doesn't speak your language and you suddenly realize, we're communicating?

DT: Yes, completely. With The Allman Brothers it's a very American band, and they never really traveled overseas much, maybe one or two tours, but with Eric's thing, I think it has always been a world tour with him. So it was the first time I'd really seen that, almost the same size crowd in every city we went to. The whole world, it was shocking to me, to go to China, which is culturally a pretty clamped down spot, and you could feel the difference in every place we went, but yet there were certain moments in the night when it was pretty much the same across the board, the reaction to certain tunes—it would be the same in Detroit, Michigan as it would be in Stockholm, Sweden (laughs) - it's fascinating, but yes it definitely hit me that there aren't many things on this earth, if anything, that is as universal as music.

AAJ: I think Brian Wilson once said it was the language of God.

DT: Yes, that's pretty much on the mark.


Branford and Wynton Marsalis

AAJ: You've played with both Wynton and Branford Marsalis. I've heard audio of Branford with The Allman Brothers and with your band. He was tearin' up "Joyful Noise" and "Dreams," he seemed to really be into it, playing in your backyard, totally at home there and having a great time.

DT: Yeah he's an unbelievable player. He and his wife came out to one of our shows in North Carolina, and the first time he said, "I'm just here as an audience member to check it out, my wife wanted to come." [Laughing] So I told him, "Man next time just please bring your horn!" So the next time he came out he sat in and just absolutely destroyed those tunes, it was definitely one of the highlights of our band's musical career. I remember, the show in Charlotte, when he hit the stage and took his first solo, the energy just completely picked up, he made everybody play harder, and it was just a really and truly a magical moment, he's one of those guys that elevates all the players around him, he really does, but in a way in which there is no stress involved. You're not self conscious about it; you just dig in a little bit harder. He's great, I mean, not many people feel comfortable with an orchestra and a rock band.

One thing that struck me, he walked on our tour bus before the show and we were watching a Muddy Waters DVD and he walked in and saw it, and you could tell, he just immediately dug that as much as he dug straight ahead, and that says a lot to me.

AAJ: But with Wynton, it's more like you play in his backyard isn't it, upscale jazz venues?

DT: Right, one time I played with Wynton and his orchestra at the Lincoln Center in New York. Susan and I came out, and they did a version of "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and we did "I Wish I Knew" with Susan singing, and then I played with him in DC the day before the inauguration. It was me and Bela Fleck, and Mark O'Connor, and Wynton, and we did "Sweet Georgia Brown." [Laughing] I'm the only electric instrument of the night, so I'm at a whisper of the tone. So it's definitely being in his backyard, whereas with Branford it was him coming out. But you know, with Wynton, he did come out to an Allman Brothers Beacon show once, and it was great seeing him there. And afterwards I went up to Harlem to a jazz club called St. Nick's with Jaimoe [Johanson] and I went out the back of the room to meet a few people. I heard a trumpet player playin' and there was a ton of musicians there waitin' to sit in, and I heard somebody blowin' and I said, "Who in the hell is that! That's strong, and whoever is playin' drums is swingin' his ass off." So I came around the corner and it was Jaimoe and Wynton. [Laughing] You could have given me 500 guesses and that's not the pairing I was thinking, so it was great hearing both of them in that setting, it was pretty unhinged, it was great, I'd never heard either one of those guys play like that.

AAJ: To my mind Santana's "Soul Sacrifice" was one of the most amazing rock performances ever captured on film.

DT: Oh yeah.

AAJ: So after touring with him, what surprised you most about Carlos as a musician and as a person?

DT: For me, growing up—my Dad saw Duane a bunch, he was at The Fillmore, so for him that was the pinnacle of rock music and guitar playing, and that's the way it always felt in my household. It was Duane and Dickey [Betts] and Eric on the [Derek and the] Dominoes stuff, and really the only other guy he had a huge amount of respect for was Carlos Santana. So Santana was always in that circle, at least that's how I felt about it growing up.

So to get to meet him, and hang out with him, he was so generous with his time and energy, it was pretty overwhelming. When he accepts you, he's incredibly sincere, a true friend, a great guy. And the other thing, early on with my band, not being a singer and having the band named after me, he was kind of the archetype of that. And even the success his band had playing pretty much improvisational music, with maybe a chant vocal, and maybe some strong melodies here and there—I don't really know of any other people who have made that work. So he was a source of inspiration that way too. For our band, we felt like, you know there are examples for what we're doing—it can be done, so don't despair. [Laughing].

AAJ: Just think, Santana did "The Healer" with John Lee Hooker in one take! With that rhythm and sound, I thought that was one of the most innovative things I'd heard in the blues in decades.


Carlos Santana and Derek Trucks

DT: Yeah, man, and it almost seems like that one take resurrected John Lee Hooker's career right before he passed, which is so nice to see somebody actually get his due while he's still alive. (Note: Hooker was 72 when this was released.)

AAJ: And he rocked on that!

DT: (Cracking up) It's funny you mention that tune, because I haven't bought many records in my lifetime that have just been released. But when I heard "The Healer" I knew I had to have that! I burned that record out, it was really that one track that I burnt out, there were other great tracks, but that was magic for sure.


McCoy Tyner and John Snyder

AAJ: Well if working with Santana weren't enough, you got to work with McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter, and Jack DeJohnette? I noticed John Snyder who produced the 1997 debut CD of the Derek Trucks Band also produced this McCoy Tyner project, was he responsible for getting you this opportunity?

DT: Actually it happened through McCoy's manager [Steve Bensusan], who also runs the Blue Note clubs. We had played The Blue Note and stayed in touch with him, and actually Susan and I were doing a photo shoot for The New York Times at the Blue Note and Steve approached us, he said they were thinking about doing a guitar record with McCoy and asked if we would interested, and I said, "Of course, how much is it going to cost me? I'll be there! Whatever it takes." [laughing] That was great, and then I was really pumped to see that John Synder was doing it, and most of the times I've been on recordings with John it was because of him. I got to record with The Band before [bassist/vocalist Rick] Danko died because of John, I got to record with R.L. Burnside and Joe Louis Walker and a bunch of great acts through John Snyder.

He's the one who did our first record, when no label or anyone was interested in recording us, John put up his own cash and stuck his neck out. And he was the first major supporter of the band, and really kept the band together and alive for a long time, so I'm hugely indebted to him, and he's been somewhat of a mentor to me, I was really young when I met him, I was maybe 15 or 16, I met him on the Junior Wells sessions, and he immediately opened up to me and we became good friends. I would always pick his brain about all sorts of things, and he would either recommend great books or I would get a package in the mail every once and awhile with four or five books, pretty heavy reading, and whether it was Bertrand Russell or whoever, we've had an ongoing dialog for about fifteen years now.

AAJ: He's amazing, I got a CD the other day which was virtually the last recording that Paul Desmond ever made, with Chet Baker, and I noticed John Synder was there for that.

DT: Yeah, John's all over that stuff. After I met him I went through a lot of my CDs and I was shocked by how many of the reissues had been produced by John. He was right there in the middle of it for a long, long time. I mean, CTI and his own label Artists House, he was and still is ahead of the curve. Like with artists owning their masters, stuff that's still unheard of today, he was experimenting with that in late '70s and early '80s. [Laughs] He got fired off of a lot of gigs for being too generous.

AAJ: That pays off later.

DT: I think it does! And he's still working and a lot of them aren't.

[Ayler]

Crossroads: Tal Wilkenfeld and Johnny Winter

AAJ: There were so many stellar guitar moments at the Crossroads Festival, but I wondered if you caught Jeff Beck's set with Tal Wilkenfeld? That was a pretty awesome bass solo she dropped on those people.

DT: That was great, Susan and I are both good friends with Tal, so we went out front for that, so that's one of the few sets we caught from the audience's perspective. We got to catch that, we were so excited to see her on the big screen, and people just freakin' out, asking, "Who is that chick?" I loved it!

AAJ: She looked like she was about 14, but I was surprised she was in her twenties. But some amazing playing.

DT: A great player. I think she's in Japan with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton right now.

AAJ: Of course you backed Johnny Winter at the Crossroads Festival. I love those Muddy Waters albums he produced and played on, he and Muddy were both on top of their game: "Mannish Boy," "I'm Ready," and "I Can't be Satisfied." He was so close to Muddy, did you have a chance to talk to Johnny backstage?

DT: You know what, I didn't really. I've spent a little bit of time with Johnny and he's been really gracious to me over the years, but he's not too communicative, he's a bit of a recluse.

But you know, we just did a Blues Cruise and I spent a lot of time with Bob Margolin who was also on those records with Johnny and Muddy, and John was in Muddy's band for years and he's an encyclopedia of knowledge when it comes to Muddy. He's really the disciple who's out there preachin' the gospel of Muddy Waters. So I've gotten a lot of great stories out of Bob, he makes no apologies that he's here to spread the word about how great Muddy was. And I love when someone takes on a roll like that and just does it!


The Allman Brothers, Chuck Leavell and Barbara Dennerlein

AAJ: I saw a YouTube clip of Dickey Betts calling you on stage when you were just a young kid to play with The Allman Brothers, you looked to be in your early teens. And I was trying to imagine what that would be like for a kid, and here's what I came up with. If I were a kid and I went to a Yankees game with my glove hoping to snag a ball, and they called me into the game. That's how I might have felt in your shoes.

DT: That's about how it did feel. They were my first and biggest influence and at that point there was no music that I was more into. So to get to sit in—I don't get nervous much, [laughing] but I was pretty damn nervous!

AAJ: But you really nailed it. And what impressed me, was that Dickey Betts looked past your extreme youth and treated you with respect as a musician, I got the sense he was impressed.

DT: Yes, they were great to me then. That was a great moment, I definitely remember that whole day really well. I'd never played through an amplifier that loud or played with a band like that, and I remember the first thing Dickey said was, "Don't stand in front of my amps, you might loose your hearing. I know how to stand in front of it, so stand over here, it's safer." [Laughs] And I said something like, "Yes sir."

AAJ: I interviewed Chuck Leavell last year and he had a lot of kinds things to say about you. I wondered, you're probably in the best position to judge this, well maybe not from age, but when we lost Duane [Allman]—and we heard that this 20 year-old piano player would be stepping into the void left by Duane—what an incredible achievement Chuck accomplished.

DT: Yeah I love Chuck. And the first record he did with the band, he played some of the most classic solos that have ever been on an Allman Brothers record. I mean that solo on "Jessica" is so recognizable; what a feat, and that was a lot of weight, I'm sure that was quite a task jumping into that, when I joined the band it was 30 years after the fact, and I still put a lot of thought into it, I can't imagine doing that when the wound was still fresh.

AAJ: And I wanted to get your take on something else. When I listen to what Jaimoe and Chuck did with their early Sea Level albums, I got the impression that they had been trying to do something for The Allman Brothers and eventually they just gave up and went their own way, but that would have been an interesting musical direction for The Allman Brothers.

DT: Yes I think some of that definitely got in there, but sometimes you need different outlets, and I think that started as a trio, We Three, and it turned into Sea Level. But yes, there was some great playing—Jaimoe, Lamar [Williams] and Chuck.

AAJ: I should also mention I interviewed Barbara Dennerlein a couple of years ago and asked her about you. She said your playing knocked her out and she loved your sound.

DT: I've heard a lot of her stuff now, and she was supposed to make it out to a show the last time we were in Germany, but I think she had car trouble. So I hope I'll run into her soon, she's great, an amazing player.


Meeting President Obama

AAJ: There's a video of Barak Obama telling a reporter that he loves Howlin' Wolf's London Sessions (MCA/Chess, 1971), with Clapton, and the song "Wang Dang Doodle." That's pretty cool, and he's got Coltrane on his iPod. I wondered, when you were in Washington for the inauguration, did you at least get a chance to see him?

DT: Yes, Susan and I got a little bit of face time with the Bidens and the Obamas. It was nice, it was such a crazy day, and we were there for the swearing in. We had pretty good seats for that, and the energy there was just amazing. I haven't seen that many people in one place ever, and I've never seen a crowd like that, I mean, anytime you have that many people confined in a limited area it's going to be a pain in the ass. On normal days there would have been a lot of bickering and petty bullshit [Laughing] but everybody was in just such a good mood. I saw a lot of people start to get annoyed, and then shrug it off like "Not today." [Laughing] I thought to myself, even if it just lasts one day, I appreciate that sentiment.

AAJ: That's definitely something your great, great grandkids will be talking about.

DT: It was great, seeing Aretha Franklin and Yo-Yo Ma, and that night to play. I think he showed up a little before 1 am to our ball, so it was a long day for him, and us! But he was great man, he was great with his time, the Secret Service had to pull him away, "Mr. President, we've got to go, we've got one more ball left." It was fun, Susan and Michelle Obama and the President were talking about having kids, as busy as their schedules are, and how crazy it is to tour with kids. It was great; it felt like a real life moment, it was a lot of fun.


What If?

AAJ: Last question, if you could go back and somehow be a witness to four musical events, one each from jazz, blues, rock and classic, which would you choose?

DT: Seeing Howlin' Wolf in his element, I don't know when his peak was, as far as havin' his great bands with Hubert [Sumlin], but seein' Wolf when he was on top of his game in a sweaty club, that would be high on the list for blues.

For jazz it's a toss-up. I think the first thing that came to mind was seein' Charlie Christian at Minton's, some of those jam sessions with Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker, that would have been pretty great. But with jazz there's three, so I'm just going to throw them out! (Laughing) Seeing the Sun Ra Arkestra in the mid-'60s probably, when John Gilmore was just playin' out of his head. They were just deep into it, makin' great records, so seein' those guys do their thing. Or the John Coltrane Quartet around the time of Live at Birdland (Impulse!, 1963). So for jazz that's probably the three.

Classical, let's see, I would love to have seen Glenn Gould perform, I would love to have been there when [Krzysztof] Penderecki first broke out "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima"—just for the craziness of it. And the riot that [Igor] Stravinsky's Firebird Suite caused, I would have liked to have been there. And from all the stories I've heard of his tone and how beautiful it was in person, I would love to have seen Joshua Heifetz.

For rock, it would be some of those famous Fillmore shows. I never got to see Duane [Allman] so that would be first on the list. You know, seeing Duane or Hendrix, or Duane and Clapton together that would have been great. Any one of those three, but I think seeing The Allman Brothers in their heydays would have been life changing.

Source : http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=31943

[Ayler]

Q: Obviously, you’ve played with Eric Clapton before, but what did it feel like to finally get him up there with the Brothers?
A: Oh, it was great. Eric has had a long history with the members of the Allmans, and I think there was a lot of pent-up energy on both sides to make that happen. It finally came together.

Q: You guys did five songs from "Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs'' – "Key to the Highway,'' "Little Wing,'' "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad,'' "Anyday'' and "Layla'' – but also "Dreams,'' from the Allmans catalog. How did you and Eric choose what songs you were going to do?
A: Well, the Dominos stuff was a no-brainer given the Duane connection, and then we wanted Eric to be in the Allmans’ element and do a few Allmans tunes as well. ``Me and (fellow guitarist) Warren (Haynes) came to the same conclusion, and we gave him a list of Allmans songs we suggested and let him pick. He’s been really gracious about everything and went out of his way to be here.

Q: (Allman Brothers drummer) Butch Trucks told me recently that the Allmans have asked you and Warren to give them more time than ever this year – the 40th anniversary year means a longer-than-usual summer tour. But you have a new record out and are keeping busy with any number of additional projects. Where’s everything at?
A: You know, it was tough. ``Already Free'' came out, and it’s doing better than anything we’ve been a part of before. I wanted to put a lot of focus into it, which is what we’re still doing. But this being the 40th anniversary, Gregg and Butch came to me and Warren and asked if we’d put a little extra time aside. Between the anniversary and the Duane tribute, we really had to.

Q: How would you describe ``Already Free'' relative to your previous Derek Trucks Band albums?
A: I think the maturing process is visible there, and also the feeling we got from building a studio and doing it ourselves. A lot’s happened for me since ``Songlines,'' including being on the road with Eric’s band and the cast of musicians and songwriting. Any time you’re spending time with musicians of that caliber, you’re learning. I think this sound is a representation of all our current influences.

Q: How did you go about choosing material? You have some of your own stuff and, as usual, a collection of very unique variations on cover songs like Bob Dylan’s ``Down in the Flood.''
A: That was the last song we recorded, and it was almost an afterthought – maybe we needed something in that realm? It was pretty spur of the moment, and I remember thinking before we cut the tune, it’s a pretty timely song title in light of Katrina.

Q: Tell me about the new studio.
A: It started as just a brainstorm, really. I was thinking of ways to be home more, and it really started as, well, maybe I’ll just build a rehearsal room on the property. Doing it as a rehearsal room morphed into, maybe we’ll make it a low-end recording studio, which morphed into, hey, the guitar tech in our band, his dad was chief engineer at Electric Ladyland studios for 10 years. He took blueprints of the original room and sized it to a world-class recording studio, and from there everything fell into place.
... I think having it there puts a healthy pressure on me and Susan to keep grinding, working and producing. I don’t want to have this great studio out there and just hack away at it. It makes you play to a certain level – you made this, and you want it to really work for you – where you’re at the top of your game. You’re not worrying how much it costs an hour when you’re sitting there playing either, and you’re also at home with the kids.

Q: Are the kids playing music yet?
A: Ha, a little, but my son’s (Charlie Kahlil, 6) on a baseball team and that’s kind of what he’s into.

Q: You and Susan also have the Soul Stew Revival, a combined band. Any more plans for that this year?
A: This year I don’t think it’s in the cards, at least not until the very end of the year. We usually do New Year’s in Atlanta. But I hope to spend part of next year recording an album for that project.

Q: We usually see you guys in Boston in the fall, around Thanksgiving.
A: It’s a great spot, and Boston’s always been a great spot for our group and Susan’s separately. It was one of the first cities to open up for my band and of course Susan has so much family. We usually try and get to Fenway whenever we’re up there, too. I grew up a Braves fan, but I can root Sox most of the time. We have some good friends in the Red Sox organization, and I’m such a big sports fan anyway, when I see bad sportsmanship like Manny at the end of his tenure, it bugs me.

Q: Do you ever get fried from all you have going on? How do you avoid burnout?
A: ... You kind of prepare yourself and get no surprises. I mean, I came from a household where my dad was a roofer, up at 5:30 every day to make ends meet, and that puts it in perspective.
Having multiple bands also prevents you from getting burned out. ... You’re learning different peoples’ material, so it’s a different mental exercise. All this doesn’t feel like work at all. It might be physically tiring, but like reading – it’s intellectually stimulating.

Q: You’re a voracious reader, if I remember correctly. What are you reading these days?
A: The book I’m in the middle of is ``The Book of Dead Philosophers.'' It goes through about 200 or so philosophers and their views on death and how they, themselves, ended up. Some of them go out in a pretty heroic day, but some it’s like, all the (expletive) they talked for 50 years goes right out the window right before they die. I don’t know, man, it’s pretty good for an airport book.

Q: Guess it’s either that or the new John Grisham, right?
A: Absolutely. Or People (magazine). I can’t be doing that.

Source : http://www.patriotledger.com/entertainment/x917906420/Derek-Trucks-is-a-real-live-guitar-hero

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