Blues/blues-rock guitarist
Derek Trucks is the nephew of longtime
Allman Brothers drummer
Butch Trucks. He displays a command of slide guitar styles running 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
John 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, Florida, and formed his own group in high school. Before the age of 20,
Trucks had shared stages and jammed with
Bob Dylan,
Joe Walsh, and
Stephen Stills.
The Derek Trucks Band, with members ranging in age from their twenties to their forties, released their self-titled debut album in 1997 on Landslide Records. Out of the Madness followed in late 1998. After the turn of the millennium, they released
Joyful Noise (2002), Soul Serenade (2003),
Live at Georgia Theatre (2004), and
Songlines (2006).
Already Free appeared from RCA in 2009. On June 22, 2010,
the Derek Trucks Band released
Roadsongs, which was recorded live in Chicago during the 2009
Already Free world tour. In addition to the album,
Trucks and wife and guitar-slinging partner
Susan Tedeschi formed a touring band, and appeared together on
Herbie Hancock's
The Imagine Project album, singing the
Matthew Moore classic "Space Captain." The
Hancock recording was issued on the same day as
Roadsongs. The pair's group, the
Tedeschi-Trucks Band, was an 11-piece soul-blues ensemble also included
Oteil and
Kofi Burbridge, on bass and keyboards, respectively, and drummers J.J. Johnson and
Tyler Greenwell. The unit signed to Sony and released their debut album
Revelator on its Masterworks imprint in June of 2011. ~ Richard Skelly