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May 27, 2006
SOTW: Week of 05-27-06
Florida-born Derek Trucks took up the guitar at age 9, and was touring within two years. Having an Uncle (Butch Trucks) banging the drums for The Allman Brothers certainly didn’t hurt, giving him early exposure to living legends like John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis and Howlin’ Wolf. His early stuff was heavily blues-focused as a result, and Derek became known as the master of the slide guitar. In 2003, he was the youngest guitarist on Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All-Time.
Trucks is also known as a purist, running the line straight from his guitar to the amp, a ’64 Fender Super Reverb. If you hear it, he’s playing it. Earlier this year, he was confirmed as the accompanying guitarist on Eric Clapton’s 2006-2007 tour. He’s married to Susan Tedeschi, a kick ass rock-n-roller in her own right who channels Janis as she belts out her own blues-R&B-rock. Her cover of Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” off the album Just Won’t Burn still makes my hair stand up. They have two kids, Charlie and Sophia, who have no excuses for not being musical prodigies. No pressure, kids.
Now just in case you’re thinking, ‘there goes Keelhauling again, stuck in yesteryear, pulling up some moldy old geezer music’, the man has podcasts. RadioDTB is the website, and every podcast features some – usually live performance – Derek Trucks guitar.
I wish I could tell you how I happened to end up with “Songlines” on my CD player, but for the life of me I can’t remember. Now it’s infected my iPod as well, and it won’t go away. I hope you are lucky enough to catch it. All I got to say is if this don't make you shake it, you musta lost it somewheres.
Posted by John at 12:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
