The lead vocalist in the Tedeschi Trucks Band is powerhouse namesake singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi — yet its primary mouthpiece for press interviews is the group’s other namesake guitarist, her husband Derek Trucks. Both will be front-and-center when their 11-piece act headlines the third annual installment of their own creation, the Sunshine Music & Blues Festival, on Jan. 18 at Mizner Park Ampitheatre in Boca Raton.
Trucks doesn’t sing, and takes on such speaking engagements to help Tedeschi rest her voice in-between her soaring excursions with the expansive blues/soul juggernaut, which also features keyboardist/flutist Kofi Burbridge, saxophonist Kebbi Williams, trumpeter Maurice Brown, trombonist Saunders Sermons, bassist Tim Lefebvre, drummer/percussionists Tyler Greenwell and J.J. Johnson, and backing vocalists Mike Mattison and Mark Rivers.
Married since 2001, Tedeschi and Trucks certainly know how to share responsibilities, including recruiting musicians from their self-titled solo bands when they combined forces in 2010 (Trucks bringing in Burbridge and Mattison; Tedeschi indoctrinating Greenwell). Tedeschi was already a five-time Grammy nominee; Trucks had led his group since 1995, winning a Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy for its 2009 effort Already Free. He’d also been a vital component of the Allman Brothers Band since 1999. His uncle is that band’s founding drummer, Butch Trucks.
“Mike is very involved in our songwriting, and he steps out front for a few songs a night,” Trucks says by phone from Richmond, Va., before the band’s Dec. 11 engagement at the Carpenter Theatre. “Kofi’s such a bad boy musically, and I met J.J. when he was playing with [singer/guitarist] Doyle Bramhall. When he and Tyler first met and sat down behind the drum kits, it was obvious that they had an instant connection; a serious chemistry, both musically and personally. Kebbi had been an Atlanta staple for years, and helped us find Maurice and Sanders. We met Mark through another singer we’d been on the road with, Ryan Shaw, and he and Mike also had a great rapport right away. And Tim provided instant chemistry. He hears things harmonically as quickly as Kofi, and that’s unique.”
Talk about starting off with a bang — the large group won a Best Blues Album Grammy for its 2011 debut CD Revelator, and has since released a 2012 live album (Everybody’s Talkin’) and 2013 studio follow-up (Made Up Mind). Trucks and Tedeschi live in Jacksonville, Trucks’ hometown, where they record their studio efforts at their home-based Swamp Raga facility.
“I’ll be doing dishes and think about a chorus,” says Tedeschi. “Then I’ll bring it out to him in the studio.”
For the past three years, they’ve inserted a couple of Sunshine Music & Blues Festival stops into their itinerary to honor Trucks’ home state. On two separate stages at Vinoy Park in St. Petersburg on Jan. 17 and in Boca Raton the day after, fans can enjoy a wide range of blues, Southern rock, funk, pop, soul, and jazz styles featuring founding Allman Brothers Band singer/guitarist Dickey Betts & Great Southern, Los Angeles roots music icons Los Lobos, The Both (with acclaimed pop singer/songwriter Aimee Mann and her alter-ego, post-punk singer/guitarist Ted Leo), New Orleans’ own Rebirth Brass Band, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood (led by the Black Crowes vocalist), plus blues/rockers Grace Potter, Matt Schofield, and Sean Chambers.
“The idea was to put as many acts together as we’d pay to see on a bill,” Trucks says, “so we always have a wish list. They’re all people we’ve shared stages with, and are glad to do so again. Then again, Susan and I try to get input from others on bands and performers that make sense being booked together. I know I shouldn’t be the only one choosing. My tastes can run a little too eclectic.”
Those eclectic tastes — ranging from bebop to Pakistani qawwali music — have helped to propel the 35-year-old Trucks to great heights. When Rolling Stone published its original “100 Greatest Guitarists of All-Time” cover story in 2003, Trucks was number 81 while only in his early 20s. When the magazine updated its list in 2011, he had climbed to number 16 as the result of his impeccable slide guitar playing (influenced by Elmore James and late Allman Brothers Band founding guitarist Duane Allman) and uncanny finger-picking technique. Like Jeff Beck, another exclusive finger-picker, Trucks has a searing sound all his own.
While Trucks practically taught himself to play while growing up onstage — sitting in on Allman Brothers concerts and starting his successful self-titled group while in his teens — Tedeschi took the scholarly route. She’s a graduate of Boston’s heralded Berklee College of Music, and while she doesn’t sound like that school’s numerous jazz/fusion products, her deceptively-intricate guitar playing intertwines with her husband’s, and her voice blends the welcoming timbre of Bonnie Raitt’s with the unbridled spontaneity of Janis Joplin’s.
Like Tedeschi, Mann attended Berklee and emerged thinking outside the box. She fronted the band ’Til Tuesday, which had a huge radio and video hit in the mid-’80s with “Voices Carry,” contributed introspective compositions to Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Magnolia in the late ’90s, and has mainly focused on an independent solo and session career since. She plays guitar and bass with The Both, which released its self-titled debut CD in 2014, blending her pop sensibilities with Leo’s indie-punk attitude for surprising cross-references, both vocally and instrumentally.
“Susan, myself and the entire band are fans of Aimee’s,” Trucks says. “I haven’t heard The Both yet, so I’m curious, and looking forward to checking them out.”
Some of the tour’s other participants, like Los Lobos and Robinson’s post-Black Crowes act, are the result of Trucks’ wide-ranging tastes and previous tours.
“There was a question on the tour bus about Los Lobos,” Trucks says, “centering around ‘Is there a greater established American rock band still out there doing it than them?’ And when we did a tour with the Black Crowes last summer, it was a blast. Chris is a rare and gifted front man, and an encyclopedia of ’60s and ’70s rock, funk and jazz. The deejay sessions on the tour bus were pretty over-the-top.”
Then there’s Betts, the singer/guitarist whom Trucks played with in the Allman Brothers for a year before the founding member’s acrimonious 2000 ouster.
“I don’t think things are too civil between he and the other original members,” Trucks says, “but I was still new at that time and had nothing to do with those decisions. Dickey and I have kept in touch. I’ve sat in with his band several times since then, and he sat in with us on a show last year.”
When Trucks and singer/guitarist Warren Haynes decided to leave the Allmans last year to focus on their own projects (Haynes also fronts the powerful blues/rock act Gov’t Mule), there was much speculation about their replacements, including talk of incendiary Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo. Instead, founding namesake singer/keyboardist Gregg Allman decided it was the end of the line after 45 years of a pioneering mix of blues, rock, jazz and gospel that left other Southern rock bands in the dust.
And boy, did the iconic group close with a bang. Allman, Haynes, Butch and Derek Trucks, second founding drummer Jaimoe, bassist Oteil Burbridge and percussionist Marc Quinones ended with one of its annual runs at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on Oct. 28 by playing well past midnight for their finale — meaning the band finally ceased on the same date that brother Duane died in a 1971 motorcycle crash.
“The spirit was right,” Trucks says. “There was an energy in the room, and the band played its ass off. I’d hoped all of that would line up, and it still became even more than that. It’s rare when you can play more than four hours at a high level, and have the crowd right there with you. And Butch was an MVP all night. He was bringing it.”
Much has happened since the Susan Tedeschi Band fatefully opened a New Orleans show by the Allman Brothers early in Trucks’ tenure with the now-retired icons, allowing the future couple to meet for the first time. Now their children, 12-year-old Charles and 10-year-old Sophia, often tour with the band, lending to its already familial nature. Trucks was, in fact, named for guitarist Eric Clapton’s group Derek & the Dominoes, which featured the legendary Brit’s iconic fretwork alongside Duane’s, notably on the classic 1970 hit “Layla.” Recognizing how well Trucks had updated the late Allman brother’s style, Clapton even picked him as a second guitarist for his 2006-2007 world tour.
In 2009, the separate bands led by Tedeschi and Trucks toed the water by touring together under the banner Soul Stew Revival. By the following year, they’d merged full-on. The sound of the Tedeschi Trucks Band is a lush and powerful family affair, and the 11-piece lineup might very well grow during its closing set through appearances by other brothers and sisters on the festival bill.
“I think that’ll happen,” Trucks says. “Susan and Chris singing together last summer was special, so I’m hoping to dip into some of that collaboration again. You never know who’ll make the connections, or what might happen.”
The Sunshine Music and Blues Festival starts at noon (gates open at 11 a.m.) on Jan. 18 at Mizner Park Ampitheatre, 590 Plaza Real, Boca Raton ($49.50, $99.50 and $179.50 plus service charges through Ticketmaster, 800-745-3000).