The Tedeschi Trucks Band is a rare outfit. It’s a group steeped in rock, in blues, in soul, in jazz, in American music, and with the musicianship and spirit to immerse themselves in songs and allow the songs to go where they want to go. It’s tough keeping any band together, but the level of commitment necessary to carry full time harmony vocalists and horn players is exceptional. The dividends, however, were plain to see when the full complement of the 12-piece unit assembled at Strange Weather Studio in Brooklyn to perform songs from the new album Signs.

The TTB’s fourth studio effort sits firmly in a 2019 political moment, as well a personal one that has them working through the loss of a number of loved ones. And as you’ll hear in my conversation with Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, that list now includes the very recent loss of their multi-talented bandmate Kofi Burbridge, who passed away the day Signs was released.

In this FUV Live session, listen in on that chat along with performances of “Hard Case,” “When Will I Begin” and “I’m Gonna Be There.”

Derek Trucks Talks Listening In The Tedeschi Trucks Band

Tonight – Saturday, October 8th 2016 – marks the nineteenth show for the Tedeschi Trucks Band at The Beacon Theater. It caps a six night Fall ’16 residence for the twelve piece group that included three nights of support from Jorma Kaukonen, Amy Ray, and Dave Mason as well as three nights, including tonight, of nothing but TTB!

The footage here in this video as well as the interview with Derek was shot earlier this year when he and his mates were celebrating the release of Let Me Get By with a show at The Apollo. It is not a repeat of the report from that time however. I married together some fresh performance clips with previously unheard bits of conversation.

Note: this report aired on NY1 on Tuesday so it refers to four shows remaining in the Beacon run.

Derek Trucks Reveals Special Sauce of Tedeschi Trucks Band –

Epic show on Tuesday at The Apollo by the TTB!  They are a twelve piece juggernaut and, as Derek explained in the interview, with trust as their foundation, they’ve never before been this locked in…this dangerous and ready to go wherever the song wants to go.

After co-producing the first two TTB studio records with Jim Scott, the new album, Let Me Get By, was produced solely Derek Trucks.  (The first album he produced by himself was Roadsongs by the DTB and he also produced the live TTB album Everybody’s Talkin‘.)  He mentioned that he applied a lot that he had learned from Jim and that, being free from a relationship with a record company, it felt like the perfect time to go down that road.  More about that as well as more about Harlem, The Apollo, and Tim Lefebvre (who makes his second appearance of the year on this blog on Ground Hog Day) in the bonus interview footage below.

As I was sitting at Madison Square Garden watching Eric Clapton, it hit me that it was 30 years ago almost to the month that I saw the man at the Worcester Centrum (setlist to that show) in one of my fist concerts.  I was a couple of weeks shy of my 16th birthday.  I’ve seen Slowhand a handful of times since then, most recently at the 12-12-12 show where his inclusion of Got To Get Better in A Little While made wah-wah dreams come true, and it’s always been a richly rewarding experience but I’ve never seen him better than at Sunday’s show (May 3, 2015) which was the second of his two birthday shows in New York.  The first was Friday…a Ranger game in between…with the same guests and nearly identical setlist.

It had it all – a tasty acoustic set including Tears in Heaven that Steve Gadd put a jazz beat on, some deep blues (Robert Johnson’s Little Queen of Spades), fantastic guests, and a few transcendent moments of guitar bliss like the solo he tore off during I Shot The Sheriff.

Clapton has become an outstanding bandleader who surrounds himself with fantastic players and arranges material to get the most out of them.   In addition to Nathan East singing Cant’ Find My Way Home, Paul Carrack sang You Are So Beautiful (not too sweet!) – the first of a pair of songs that Joe Cocker made famous, High Time We Went, being the other – no doubt spurred by having Chris Stainton in the band who played with Joe Cocker from about 66 through 72 and co-wrote the latter.

One could argue…I might even argue that it would have been better to have Tales of Brave Ulysses or any of a number of other great songs from Cream or Derek & The Dominoes etc. rather than those tunes that Cocker is known for.  Yeah, maybe but this Eric is certainly not going to second guess the Eric!  The show was wildly satisfying.  He’s got way too many good tunes to start parsing the setlist in that way.  As he’s been quoted as being fed up with travel, I hope it’s not the last time he comes around but if it is – a more perfect note to go out on could not have been played.

The Allman Brothers played their last show this week – at The Beacon – after 45 years of kicking ass.  It was a three set tour de force that ended well after 1 AM. Here’s what Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks had to say about their beginnings in the group as well as the end of the line when I recently spoke to them individually in this extended interview.

The Allman Brothers Band: Last Stand At The Beacon –

Say it ain’t so…a chat with Warren Haynes & Derek Trucks of The Allman Brothers Band on the end of the road and a look at the 3/14/14 performance at The Beacon.

TTB – it’s easy as 123!