Remembering Butch Trucks & Jaki Liebezeit: A Southern Rock & Krautrock Spotify Playlist

The music world lost a pair of icons this week as The Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks and Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit both passed away within days of each other. Trucks, the quintessential Southern Rock drummer, was 69 years old when he died on January 24, while Liebezeit, the quintessential Krautrock drummer, was 78 when he passed on January 22. This edition of Saturday Stream is devoted to standout live performances featuring the two legendary percussionists.

Liebezeit’s pioneering work behind the kit with the German experimential rock outfit Can in the late-1960s and early-1970s paralleled Trucks’ stateside growth in popularity alongside fellow The Allman Brothers Band percussionist Jaimoe. Can’s groundbreaking sound was anchored on Liebezeit’s machine-like, ever-steady and relentless drumming patterns that would become known as Motorik. The Allmans’ rolling, swinging, blues-rooted sound was driven by Trucks and earned him the “Freight Train” moniker he thoroughly personified.

Both drummers could seemingly endlessly keep time for their band mates to take off on lengthy exploratory jams. Those types of drawn-out flourishes of improvisation are the focus of the Spotify Playlist below. Each of the tracks making up the collection below were culled from live releases from Can and The Allman Brothers Band’s early eras, to focus on the truly innovative music that was being developed. You’ll find beloved Allmans classics like “Mountain Jam,” “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed,” “Whipping Post” and others, as well as Can standouts such as “Spoon,” “Mushroom,” “Halleluwah” and “Kata Kong.”

Listen to the nearly five hours of ever expanding rock below: