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Focused on the music
Guitarist Derek Trucks, 23, starting touring with bands when he was 11. He says he has survived, and flourished, because he pays attention to the right things.
By PHILIP BOOTH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 12, 2002
[Publicity photo]
Derek Trucks, the 23-year-old guitarist for the Allman Brothers Band and leader of the Derek Trucks Band, knows how to stay focused.
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Child stars seldom make successful transitions to careers as adult artists. Debbie Gibson, anyone? Danny Bonaduce?
Derek Trucks, 23, a guitarist with the Allman Brothers since 1999 and a solo artist with a just-released CD on Columbia, is an exception.
The bottleneck slide master, whose technique and approach are reminiscent of the late Duane Allman, was 11 when he first fronted a band on stages all over the Southeast. Skipper's Smokehouse, in Tampa, was a regular stop during the preteen period of Trucks' career.
A decade or so later, after logging hundreds of hours of stage time, the nephew of longtime Allmans drummer Butch Trucks has graduated to Next Big Thing status in the guitar world. Derek Truck's salvation: He never believed the hype and still doesn't.
"When people burn out, it's because they're focusing their attention on the wrong things," Trucks says from Manchester, N.H. He was in New England for a visit with his wife, blues guitarist Susan Tedeschi, and their son, Charles, born in March. Tedeschi's band has an opening-act slot on B.B. King's tour.
"It's easy to burn out on the lifestyle and career and all that," he says. "A lot of young people, when they get a lot of acclaim early on, they let it go to their head. But what people say and write about you is not what you are. As long as you're focused on music, then all the rest will be okay. You're not done learning at age 15, 16, 17 or at any age. You're not finished."
Acclaim for Trucks' playing, bluesy, passionate and sensitive but hard rocking when required, has grown louder in recent months. Allmans fans have accepted him as part of the two-guitar front line: He played alongside original Allmans guitarist Dickey Betts (since fired from the band), Jimmy Herring and group returnee Warren Haynes.
And he was heard on two discs that were nominated for Grammys this year, The Allman Brothers Band: Peakin' at the Beacon, honored for best instrumental for the song High Falls, and Hellhound On My Trail, a Robert Johnson tribute that featured an acoustic track with Trucks and Tedeschi. The latter was nominated for blues album of the year.
Trucks is all over Victory Dance, the Allmans' much anticipated first set of new material in eight years. His more immediate concern, though, is Joyful Noise, the fourth Derek Trucks Band album, following a third that's being held from release by a former label.
The new CD, produced by Craig Street (Chris Whitley, Cassandra Wilson) shows the creative, intuitive interplay among Trucks, keyboardist-flutist Kofi Burbridge, bassist Todd Smallie and drummer Yonrico Scott. Smallie joined Trucks in 1994, followed by Scott in 1995 and Burbridge in 1999.
The group initially intended on doing "a straight-up band record" with its former vocalist, Javier Colton. But Colton split from the band and plans changed, with unexpectedly brilliant results.
Solomon Burke, a veteran R&B and gospel great, is heard on Home in Your Heart, which was on one of his early albums, and Like Anyone Else, written by Burbridge.
"We did one track on each one of those," Trucks says. "(Burke) was awesome. He was amazing. He's such a natural singer, from the era of Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. There aren't many of those guys left, and I don't know any that are singing any better than he is."
Pakistani singer Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is out front on the hypnotic Qawwali piece Maki Madni. Panamanian renaissance man Ruben Blades sings and plays percussion on the band-written Kam-ma-lay, and Tedeschi's voice tops the band on a cover of Baby, You're Right, a Joe Tex tune popularized by James Brown.
Blues, rock, R&B and roots music are all touchstones for the music Trucks plays with his band and the Allmans. But the Allmans explore music that in general rocks a little harder and heavier.
"It's a different beach, for sure," Trucks says. "It's not as nimble as what we're doing, as far as being able to head into any direction at any different time. But when you're in that, that's what you're going for. You realize that you're in a band that's got such a huge track record, and it's a legendary band. You definitely want to respect that and respect the past, what they've done. You want to maintain that tradition."
PREVIEW
The Allman Brothers Band, 8 p.m. Saturday, Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater. Sold out. (727) 791-7400.
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