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Guitarist Derek Trucks
Seeing The Derek Trucks Band play live IS A MUST. Now, with the release of their first ever DVD, you too can do it at any time! Shot live at The Park West in Chicago on January 28, 2006 with nine hi-definition cameras, this 2-hour/21-track DVD is sure to please. Includes bonus interviews with the band members!
Guitarist Derek Trucks Members - The Allman Brothers Band, Frogwings, Derek Trucks Band Styles: Blues-Rock, Slide Guitar Blues
"At age 23, Derek Trucks has already accomplished more than most musicians do in a lifetime." Blues/blues-rock guitarist Derek Trucks is the nephew of long-time Allman Brothers' drummer Butch Trucks. The gifted guitarist has been touring since before he was a teenager, has three solo albums to his credit (his latest, Joyful Noise, is his first for a major label),is the leader of a highly talented band, and has performed with renowned groups such asGovernment Mule and Phil Lesh and Friends. And, oh yeah, then there's his other gig: he's one of the guitarists in the Allman Brothers Band too. He displays a command of slide guitar styles that run the gamut from blues to classic R&B and early rock & roll to classic jazz. Although blues players like Buddy Guy, Elmore James and Duane Allman have been a strong influence on Trucks' slide guitar playing, so have pre-'70s jazz players like Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Sun Ra. Trucks began playing guitar when he was nine, and shared stages and sat in with the likes of Buddy Guy and the Allman Brothers Band by the time he was 12. Trucks began his professional career playing with blues bands around his native Jacksonville, Fla., and formed his own group in high school. Before the age of 20, Trucks shared stages and jammed with Bob Dylan, Joe Walsh and Stephen Stills.
Derek Trucks Band, which has members ranging in age from their 20s to their 40s, released their self-titled debut album in 1997 on Landslide Records. Out of the Madness followed in late 1998. ~ Richard Skelly, All Music Guide Trucks describes his group as "a Delta-blues jazz band playing soul music with a bunch of other things mixed in," and indeed, Joyful Noise (Sony Music Entertainment, 2002) bears out that description. The record offers up an eclectic combination of blues, rock, jazz, and various world-music styles. The roster of guest vocalists testifies to its wide musical range; present are Ruben Blades, Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Solomon Burke, and Trucks's wife, blues singer Susan Tedeschi.
At a recent show at B. B. King's Blues Club in Manhattan, Trucks mesmerized the crowd with his fluid, intense guitar playing. His slide work is eerily reminiscent of Duane Allman, yet original at the same time. Trucks is anything but a flashy showman; his talent, however, is overwhelming. EARLY YEARS Within a year of first learning to play guitar, he was playing out. "I learned a lot by ear," he recalls, "I took about a half-dozen lessons with one of my father's friends. I just started sitting in with local blues bands, and then touring with them. It was definitely a trip." Then he got to sit in with the Allmans. "I think at first they were apprehensive about it," he remembers, "but the guys came out to one of my shows in Miami Beach when they were doing their first record [after forming again for a second time in 1989]. They came and sat in. After that, I started sitting in with them. That was a great night." CALL HIM SHY Despite his almost instant success, the joy of playing was purely a musical one for Trucks. He was not at all comfortable relating to the audience. "I wasn't drawn to being in front of people," Trucks says. "It was definitely the music that got me in, and not the scene." In fact, Trucks was so shy at first that he didn't even face the crowd. "When I first started playing, the only guy onstage that I knew was the drummer, so I faced him for the first month or two."
Trucks still isn't that comfortable with dealing directly with the crowd. When I saw him play at B. B. King's, he spoke on the mic only once, to briefly introduce the band in the middle of the set. Other than that, he just looked down at his guitar and played. According to a Trucks spokesperson, there are people at his record label who wish that he would come out of his shell more while onstage.
Trucks, however, isn't sure that would be the right thing. "I'm kind of torn in between," he says. "I like it being a little bit different because people either focus on the music or they don't come out. You have less people there for the show and more people for the music. I know that most people really listen with their eyes. If you take that out of the equation, you can get through to them a little more deeply." But he knows that he's walking a fine line. "It even offends people sometimes that there's not enough interaction, which I think is just a product of everything else being so overboard that way. When you look at footage of Miles, he was turned with his back to the audience half the time anyway, because it was about music being performed. It's gotten so far away from that. I think this band is trying to get back to that intensity and that idealism onstage." "I highly recommend this!"
A BAND INDEED As the leader of his own band, Trucks takes pains to keep the lines of communication open so that personality clashes like those that plagued the Allmans don't occur. While it isn't a classic democracy, Trucks always listens. "They're really respectful in that they let me have the last say," he says of his bandmates. "But if somebody's strong about something, I'm completely free with letting the best idea reign. They're really gracious about coming to me and asking." The good vibes between Trucks and his band have kept them together over a long period of time. Bassist Todd Smallie has been with the band for ten years. "It's been great with Todd," says Trucks, "because we've really grown together as musicians. We were introduced to a lot of stuff at the same time."
Trucks was forthcoming when asked about the controversial firing of Betts in 2000. He thinks it has had a positive impact on the Allman Brothers. "I think with any relationship that goes 30 years - especially a relationship between four people - there's gonna be all kinds of history and baggage. If there's enough negative energy between a few people, then once that's taken out, everyone just feels a weight lifted." Trucks says that the stresses with Betts were felt mostly by the other original members, Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, and Jaimoe. "Once those guys were free of all that inner tension, then everyone just felt like playing again," he says. "I can completely understand that. Having a band for ten years, I see where if you don't head things off it can really turn into a problem. I think with that band [the Allman Brothers], communication just got lost 20 to 30 years ago. Once that's gone, you're just kind of at the will of the universe." [Laughs.] Trucks was forthcoming when asked about the controversial firing of Betts in 2000. He thinks it has had a positive impact on the Allman Brothers. "I think with any relationship that goes 30 years - especially a relationship between four people - there's gonna be all kinds of history and baggage. If there's enough negative energy between a few people, then once that's taken out, everyone just feels a weight lifted." THE SOUND The first thing you notice about Derek Trucks when you hear him play or listen to one of his records is the gorgeous, fat tone he gets when playing slide. He achieves his sound with about as minimal a setup as you'll find. A Gibson '61 Reissue SG (sometimes he uses a Washburn E300) into an old 1964 Blackface Fender Super Reverb. That's it. No effects, no fancy preamps; just a guitar into an amplifier.
The only things that aren't stock about his setup are the Pile Driver speakers in his amp. Trucks's tech, Joe Main, tells the story of how Trucks started using them. "He blew his speakers out on a Saturday night, and so on Sunday his father and I were looking for speakers, somewhere, anywhere. We couldn't find anyplace open. So we went to a car-stereo store and found those speakers, and we put them in the amp, and Derek won't let me change them. They were designed to be in a car stereo; they weren't designed to be in an amplifier." "They kind of break up at a low volume," says Trucks. "You don't get as much volume out of the amp, but it's a little warmer." Would Trucks ever consider a different amp, maybe even something digital? "I'm into trying anything; if it felt right I'd use it. I've tried a bunch of things, but I always go back to the Super Reverb. I've had that same amp for maybe 11 years." IN THE OPEN Part of Truck's distinctive sound also comes from the fact that he plays everything - not just slide - in open-E tuning. "I started playing open tunings at about ten years old and just never went back," he says. Playing slide in open tuning is common, but playing nonslide guitar parts when tuned that way is extremely unusual. When he started doing it, Trucks had to relearn all his chords and scales. "There are definitely some chords that are really stock for normal guitar players that are a little bit difficult in open E, but there's vice versa," he says.
Trucks uses a glass slide that he puts on his ring finger. He doesn't use a pick, just the fingers on his right hand. His style of slide playing was clearly influenced by Duane Allman. Although Duane died before Trucks was even born, Trucks admires much about the legendary guitarist. "His tone and intensity and complete abandonment at times - he was not afraid to just hang it out there. The tone, and just his feel, I really loved." These days, Trucks is influenced less by guitarists and more by horn players and vocalists. "There's always the obvious like Wayne Shorter and John Coltrane. John Gilmore, who played with Sun Ra for a long time, is one of my favorite tenors. There are so many, though. That whole Blue Note era in the '60s, almost any record you pick up is amazing. We burn out a lot of those. Clifford Brown is another favorite." Trucks is even influenced by the vocal stylings of his wife, Susan Tedeschi. "I end up trying to cop some of her vocal licks [on slide]," Trucks says, "and I notice some of our band sound rubs off on what she's trying to do." Trucks blames the decline in musicianship on the commercial side of music. "I attribute it to music being used now as a means to make bread only. The musicians get out there, and there's no time [to develop]; there's no small chitlin' circuit anymore. There's no time to get warmed up. They just throw everything against the wall and see if something will stick."
"There aren't any workshops anymore. There are no scenes. Everything's just deteriorated. It's all about that you have to make a certain amount of money and sell a certain amount of records. There are no development deals anymore. The reason the Allman Brothers formed is that someone at Atlantic believed in Duane and said, 'Go start a band.' You know, 'Here's some cash, you got a few years, try to make something happen.' That kind of stuff rarely happens anymore." In his travels, Trucks has observed a deterioration of the live scene. "In the past four or five years, clubs have been closing everywhere. You can just feel it in the music scene in general. The standards are dropping. There just aren't that many great bands out there anymore." Trucks lays some of the blame at the feet of successful musicians, who set a bad example for younger players, emphasizing materialism over musicianship. "I really don't want to know about your new pool. I want to know musically what you're trying to say, what you're trying to do. What does it mean? What are you trying to express? Not Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." Trucks is refreshingly earnest in his belief in the power of music. "Some of the greatest moments I've ever had were where somebody sat me down and turned me on to something entirely new. The first time you hear Kind of Blue or something, it's just a revelation; it freaks you out to your core. You're like, 'Wow, I didn't know that was possible.' It makes you look at everything differently; life as a whole. I think music is much more powerful and can be used in much more powerful ways than it is now. It takes the right musical leaders and the right bands and the right artists to get that message out there again. It's one of the few art forms that is completely intangible; it's here and gone, and it can change things." You can bet that Derek Trucks will continue to try to change things, even if he has to do it one gig at a time.
Capturing Derek's Pure Tone When it comes to reproducing Derek Trucks's guitar tone in the mains, front-of-house (FOH) engineer Marty Wall has a pretty simple job. "He's got such a beautiful tone that I just don't need to do much," says Wall. "I don't ever use compression on him. I don't ever use anything on him. In fact, it's rare that I even EQ the channel." That is in keeping with Trucks's stage rig, which is designed for ultimate purity of sound. "He just doesn't want anything in line, doesn't want a volume pedal in line; he'll just ride the volume on the guitar," Wall says. "It's pretty impressive." Wall uses two mics on Truck's Fender Super Reverb amp: a Sennheiser MD 409 and a Shure SM57, as part of his stereo out-front mix. "I usually don't end up panning them, but I like to have that option," Wall says. "More often than not I don't use the 57. The 409 is a spectacular guitar mic. I usually just end up using that."
The band doesn't have a dedicated monitor engineer, so it falls to Wall and band tech Joe Main to set up and EQ the monitors for every show. Although the other band members use wedges, Trucks eschews a monitor completely, preferring to hear everything from the amps and instruments on stage. Wall recalls that when Trucks used to play occasional acoustic guitar parts during segments of his Allman Brothers gig, he refused monitors even for that. "He just listened to the house, to the mains in the amphitheaters for acoustic guitar, which is incredible because it was just a direct signal," Wall says. Wall doesn't just mix sound for the audience at the venue; he also records each show for posterity onto DAT and CD (you can hear full-song examples from these tapes at Trucks's Web site, www.derektrucks.com). Wall varies his recording techniques depending on the room characteristics. "Sometimes what I do," he says, "is to set mics out in the audience; sometimes I set them out onstage. I do different things. If it's a small room, I will take the board mix and add in some microphones to fill it in a little bit and make it sound a little better."
"When you're in a live situation, the vocals come off on tape a lot hotter than they do on a commercial release," Wall says. To compensate for that and other problems inherent in recording off the board, Main uses the matrix output of the FOH console to change the mix going to tape. "You can kind of boost up all the music to keep the vocals down just a little bit," he explains. Derek Trucks Band Gear
Derek Trucks: guitar Gibson '61 Reissue SG Washburn E300 Fender Super Reverb (circa 1964) with Pile Driver speakers Sennheiser MD 409 and Shure SM57 mics on cabinet
Kofi Burbridge: keyboards, flute Hohner D7 Clavinet (circa 1972) Hammond BC organ (circa 1953), modified by Goff Professional Fender Super Reverb (circa 1965) Leslie 147 (2) Yamaha Motif Lewis Electronics 2x12, 100W combo amp Ibanez Tube Screamer (on the Clavinet) Ampeg bass amp (for occasional left-hand bass on the Motif) Sennheiser MD 421 and AKG C 414 B ULS (2) mics on Leslie Whirlwind passive DIs Gemeinhardt flute (miked with a beyer M 88) Todd Smallie: bass Modulus six-string bass with graphite neck Ampeg SVT Classic (circa 1974) Ampeg 8x10 cabinet Electro-Voice RE20 mic on cabinet Countryman DI Yonrico Scott: drums LP congas, timbales, timbalitos, and bongos Everyone's Drumming djembe and dundun Miscellaneouos hand percussion Pearl BLX-series birch drums: 22" kick 12" and 14" rack toms 16" floor tom 14" x 8" Pearl Dennis Chambers snare Remo Pinstripe heads Zildjian cymbals 16" hi-hats 14", 16", and 17" Dark K crashes 7" splash 21" K Custom ride Zildjian sticks Kit mics: Kick: Shure Beta 52A Snare: Shure SM57 Toms: Electro-Voice N/D 468s Hi-hat: AKG 460 Overhead: Neumann KM 184 Overhead: AKG 460 Djembe: Shure SM57 Mike Mattison: lead vocals Shure SM58 Thanks to Marty Wall and Joe Main of Derek Trucks's crew. COPYRIGHT 2003 PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
NPR Interview - Derek Trucks Band, Singing the World Alive Derek Trucks has been playing guitar since he was 9. Now his innovative style shows influences from Buddy Guy to John Coltrane and Charlie Parker. His band's new album, Songlines, relates to a belief among Australian aborigines that things are sung into existence. Trucks also plays in the Allman Brothers Band -- he's the nephew of Allman Brothers drummer Butch. And he has another claim to fame: He was the youngest person on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Trucks, who is married to musician Susan Tedeschi, says his band's tours are a little different now that he's a father. But one thing hasn't changed: When they're on the road, the group listens to the music of wherever they are, soaking up a different way of life.
NPR Interview Derek Trucks Band, Singing the World Alive
Blues Shuffle In E What To Play Let's play along with a blues shuffle in the key of E. Let's use the E pentatonic minor scale to play along with. Below is the scales most popular fretboard pattern tabbed out in the key of E:
Derek Trucks performing in Brazil, 1995, Nescafe and Blues Festival. Only 16 years old!
Full Grown Band Short Documentary and Music Video www.fullgrown.net
This is a short documentary showcasing the Full Grown Band. The Full Grown Band is a local Charlotte, NC band that plays original blues, honkey tonk, rock and folk. The Full Grown Band is plays all the time...check their web site for dates in your area. Singer, Songwriter: Angie Rikard Guitars, Singer, Songerwriter: Matt Hatfield Producer, Shooter, Editor of Video: Michael Diiorio
"Write the music and then write the lyrics to however the song makes you feel. You have some riffs that make you feel sad, then share an experience about a down time in your life through your lyrics. If you write a few happy notes, then sing about how "The sun is shining in the sky," and "there aint a cloud in sight" (to quote ELO). I always like to write the lyrics to the song instead of the song to the lyrics, because I find that it's the music, not the words that drive the emotion of the song. And that's what it's all about right? The emotion!"
-Tyler
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Updated: 2/17/07
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