Derek Trucks’ preternatural slide guitar talent proves that he’s inherited his family’s Southern swamp rock roots, but his intellectual and musical curiosity has led him to draw from influences including Motown funk, free jazz, Latin and Caribbean rhythms, and historically elemental string music including Gypsy guitar and various Eastern instruments like the sitar and the sarod. Trucks performs with his own band, with the Allman Brothers Band, and with his wife Susan Tedeschi (often as Soul Stew Revival, a blending of their individual bands). He’s also partnered with artists including Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale, Béla Fleck, David Sanborn, Gov’t Mule and Junior Wells.

When Trucks was a kid, he began sitting in with the Allman Brothers Band at the invite of his uncle, the group’s drummer Butch Trucks. As he matured, Trucks absorbed the technical and mystical influences of artists such as Elmore James, Django Reinhardt and John Coltrane, and today his band reflects this musical hunger: multi-instrumentalist Kofi Burbridge (brother of Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil, once of Col. Bruce Hampton’s Aquarium Rescue Unit) has roots in jazz and classical music, and studio band member Count M’Butu contributes African drum rhythms. Bassist Todd Smallie and drummer Yonrico Scott, with roots in blues and jazz, have been with Trucks since he was a teen.

Gracefully progressing with each recording, it’s clear Trucks has studied the crafts of masters as well as American history, and reveres both. His band’s more notable efforts include 2002’s Joyful Noise and 2006’s Songlines (which featured the debut of lead singer Mike Mattison of Scrapomatic). Trucks stepped up as producer for Already Free, the band’s sixth studio effort, which was recorded at his home studio in Jacksonville with guests including Tedeschi, Oteil Burbridge and Doyle Bramhall II.

Provenance: Jacksonville, Florida

Latest Release: Already Free (2009)

© 2009 Nigel Music Media LLC. Used by permission.

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