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There's a lot less sleep, but the kids are old enough now to be on the road and it's not a complete drain. It's a lot but it's great to have the family together.
-Derek Trucks on touring with the family |
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Photo by Adam McCullough
JamBase: What about the importance of keeping this music alive today in your minds? It's been a topic of discussion of late given the recent revival of the Stax Records label.
Derek Trucks by Rod Snyder |
DT: There are a lot of people that are obviously influenced by that music, and there are a lot of people that approach it but I don't think there are a lot of people that either really have the right to do it, do it with the right amount of respect or really dig into it. There are a lot of bands in the jam scene that kinda paw at it but they never really dig in. It takes a certain voice, a certain groove and a certain sensibility to make that stuff sound right and be what it really is. With a lot of the neo-soul stuff, I think the artists might be able to do it but I think so much of that music has been diluted over the years. It doesn't hit as hard anymore. Whether it's the sounds or the approach, it seems a little bit lightweight. Classic soul music – when it was really hitting – had some fierce players. The sounds were huge. When you see footage of Bernard Purdie, Jerry Jemmot and Cornell Dupree playing with Aretha, those guys were the bad asses of their time. It wasn't some retro thing [laughs]. So I think you have to approach it fresh and take a new look at those tunes.
On this tour, we've been digging in and playing some obscure covers that we love and really getting them under our belt with the hope that we can also write some tunes in that vein. That's the goal in my mind – to eventually write and record some soul music of our own. I feel like this lineup has a unique ability to be able to do that. But, first you have to get that foundation and learn the ins and outs of what made those songs so great and the grooves work. Then you can take the next step and make some new music based on those older tunes.
There are people out there that are doing it but like a lot of things in the music scene today, they're not quite reaching it. They're almost getting there...
It's almost as if they haven't made the full commitment.
DT: Yeah, no one's really jumping in full tilt. Not that we're jumping in all the way but I think there's a real attempt.
Yeah, I would agree. I also feel like with those early Stax musicians and the other musicians playing during that era, there was a certain amount of discipline and reverence for that music and the musicians that had come before, and that's really what I feel is lacking from some of the soul music today, with the rare exceptions here and there.
Susan Tedeschi by Tennille |
DT: Yeah, it's true. A lot of what made that music special was the discipline of the players involved. Those guys were assigned specific parts in every song and were told to lock it down hard and don't budge. "I don't want to hear what you have to say about it, just play your fucking part [laughs]." So for us, that was a different mindset coming into this tour. And the group's a little different, too. My brother's out playing drums with us this tour, so we have two percussionists. I'm not used to playing with another guitarist, so we're delegating all kinds of roles and things. It's a different approach for sure but I think it's coming together. The show last night at the Fillmore was definitely the highlight of the tour so far.
Susan Tedeschi: Yeah, it's starting to gel and the music's getting better and better...
DT: Everyone's becoming more comfortable with the roles we have to play. Once we establish those roles and become comfortable in them, that's when you can shatter them and become freer with the music and really anything goes. But you have to get that bedrock first.
It's funny you mention Bernard Purdie and that rhythm section because the favorite record to listen to in my house on Sunday afternoons is Aretha Franklin's The Complete Amazing Grace Recordings. I listened to it on the way down and Bernard Purdie really drives that whole recording with his drumming. I've always preferred the Muscle Shoals rhythm cats to the later Aretha rhythm sections but he's such a brilliant musician.
Trucks & Tedeschi by Adam McCullough |
ST: Bernard Purdie played on all the hits. If he played on it, it was a hit. [laughs]. And it's not just because of the song. Those grooves are so strong...
DT: You'd have to be really terrible to screw up a Bernard Purdie track [laughs].
ST: It's hard because you really strive for that excellence when you're in a band. So it's nice when you're playing with some musicians who are really talented and into playing this music right but also bringing something new to it as well. That's what this band does so well and it's really exciting to be a part of it.
Tell me about how you all selected the covers to play on this tour. Was it something you two handled mainly or was their band participation in building the set list? How did that work?
Derek & Duane Trucks by Josh Mintz |
DT: It seemed like most everyone pitched in choosing the tunes. We had a lot of tunes that we threw up against the wall and some stuff just didn't stick. We'd listen to the track and the concept was better than how it actually came out once we played it. It's still a work in progress. A lot of the tunes we're doing are songs we've loved for a long, long time. Susan brought in the Delaney & Bonnie tune "Coming Home," which I was vaguely familiar with but not really. Once everyone heard that, it seemed like an obvious choice.
ST: In a way, if you look at Delaney & Bonnie and Derek and the Dominoes and artists like that, we're trying to educate some of the younger music fans about that music because they might not have ever heard it before. And we're playing it for the older music fans as well because they remember that music and love it. So, we're trying to stir that back up in them.
DT: For us, that stuff's a pretty good template for a band like this.
Yeah, that's the obvious question, so I guess I'll ask it. How much of an influence did Delaney & Bonnie – that music and the concept of that band – play in putting this tour together?
DT: More so after the fact once we decided to do the tour. It just kinda reinforced that it's not an impossible task and that there are people that have done it or done things similar to it in the past. Sly Stone was another big influence on this tour. That group is similar in the sense that it's a traveling circus.
And they're back out on the road again this summer, too.
DT: Yeah, I saw that. I'm curious to see how it turns out. They just reissued all those records on vinyl. I've been listening to Fresh constantly since it came out again.
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