Derek Trucks is not quite sure where he went wrong while earning the moniker “guitar god.” “It’s just not what you set out to do when you start playing,” Trucks said in a phone interview, after a pre-show soundcheck in
Derek Trucks is not quite sure where he went wrong while earning the moniker “guitar god.”
“It’s just not what you set out to do when you start playing,” Trucks said in a phone interview, after a pre-show soundcheck in Albany, N.Y., recently. “You want to follow your muse … stuff like that … compose music … then you laugh and figure out where you went wrong.”
He was referring to this year’s Rolling Stone magazine cover proclamation that Trucks had reached guitar-god status, that included an extensive article inside the publication.
Guitar god or not, Trucks started playing at the age of 9, getting on stage as early as age 11. “I started sitting in at blues clubs for the most part, and found back then, a kid could get away with playing at some of the shady places I played.”
He’s 28 today. He started the Derek Trucks Band at the age of 15.
Trucks says his playing style was a conscious decision at an early age. He doesn’t use a pick and rarely uses effects. He is adept at playing the slide guitar and his equipment is pretty honest. “It is a pretty simple setup … guitar and amp,” Trucks said.
The simple setup is a 2000, ‘61 reissue Gibson SG guitar plugged into a 1965 Fender Super Reverb amplifier loaded with four Pyle Driver MH1020 speakers.
Derek is a nephew to The Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks. Derek has been playing guitar with the Allmans since 1999, when he is not touring with The Derek Trucks Band. His own band was formed in 1994, with bassist Todd Smallie and drummer Yonrico Scott. The current lineup also includes: Kofi Burbridge on keyboards, flute, and vocals; Mike Mattison on lead vocals; and Count M’Butu on percussion.
The band is blues and soul driven, with elements of classical Indian rags and raginis, reggae and straight-up rock creeping in at any time. “These guys are straight ahead players and the playing comes natural to a lot of the guys in the band,” Trucks said. “There are a lot of influences in the band and it is so much fun to play with these guys.”
The Derek Trucks Band tours so heavily, the creative process for the band sort of evolves as it goes, Trucks says. “In the last few years, we haven’t had the chance to get together to straight-up write (music),” he said. “We tour so much, it is not so conducive to writing music; so it happens during soundcheck or out of music you hear while we’re playing, or hearing the need to put some music here or there.”
When asked which direction the band is heading, toward blues and soul, or away, he says “undoubtedly toward blues and soul.” “The crowds and the core audience we build … they expect the music to wander; the blues stuff is a more recent addition, but that is definitely the direction we are heading.”
Trucks’ slide guitar playing is inspired by Duane Allman, who Rolling Stone named in 2003 one of two greatest guitar players, second only to Jimi Hendrix. Trucks has been a full-time member of the Allmans since 1999, and recently toured with another guitar god, Eric Clapton, as a guest soloist.
Trucks says his fans have come to expect “Coltrane-quartetish-type-stuff” as well, as they are familiar with his love of the jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane. Trucks calls jazz one of his major influences.
He has also spent time studying music at the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music in San Rafael, Calif., a school renowned for its training in classical Indian music. “A friend of mine, Col. Bruce Hampton (of Aquarium Rescue Unit fame), introduced me to (Indian music) and it was head and shoulders above anything else going on in music,” Trucks said. “With those guys it is a constant devotion.”
Trucks’ music is rooted deep in the South and he calls Jacksonville, Fla., home. He is married to soul and blues vocalist Susan Tedeschi. The two have toured together and are raising two children together. “She will be with him on this trip,” said promoter Kevin Rogers, owner of Mardi Gras Entertainment, here on Kaua‘i. “She may come up on stage and do a song or two when they play here.”
Rogers was referring to The Derek Trucks Band show scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Wednesday at the Kilohana Plantation in Lihu‘e. “I used to live in Chicago and I got to sit in with Derek Trucks and play the harmonica with him when he was 15,” Rogers said, who also plays in a band on Kaua‘i called Swampdaddy.
Rogers loves the music Derek’s band plays, he says. “He’s certainly blues-based, with a jazz and world beat sensibility. He takes blues rock to the next level and the players in the band are all seasoned veterans,” Rogers said.
Trucks is touring on his latest album “Songlines” released in 2006. That album is built around the abilities of the band’s lead vocalist Mike Mattison. “I write lyrics,” Trucks said, “I just have no desire to sing … Mike, he’s the singer.”
The band also has a flutist in Kofi Burbridge, and part-time percussionist Count M’Butu will be playing with the band on its swing through Hawai‘i. The band will stop in Hawai‘i after a string of first-time gigs in Japan as the headliner.
The bands 2003 release “Soul Serenade” morphs its title track with the Bob Marley tune “Rasta Man Chant” before later flowing into the “Oriental Folk Song” and hitting its coda with “Sierra Leone.”
A Derek Trucks Band show does wander, and its fans have come to expect it. A show can go in any number of directions. “One of my most favorite songs is ‘I’d Rather Be Dead, Crippled and Blind,’” said Rogers, “I hope they play it. I know ‘Joyful Noise,’ is a crowd favorite.”
Trucks says one of his strongest influences, not known to many, is George Jones, because he played back “when it was actually the real stuff.” Jones still plays today, and his fans say his songs capture the grit and feel of raw emotion.
Tickets for Wednesday’s show at the new venue at Kilohana Plantation are $45 in advance and $50 on the day of the show.
For more information call Rogers at Mardi Gras Entertainment at 337-9234. Papa Mali will open the show.
Tickets are available at Bounty Music, Hanalei Music & Video, Banana Patch Studio, Aloha-N-Paradise, Harley-Davidson, Progressive Expressions and Scotty’s Music.
