Slide guitar maestro DerekTrucks on Clapton and the DTB

Tue 23rd Jan, 2007 in Features

Derek Trucks is without doubt one of the most dazzling slide guitar slingers to hit the scene in the last 15 years. And he is still only 28.  Ever since that day he picked up an axe at a garage sale at the age of 9, Derek has been absorbed with the craft and experimentation of the apparatus of his trade.

I asked Derek if his childhood was filled with music. “At about 8 or 9 I started listening to the vinyl around my Dad’s house. The Layla record, the Allman Brothers Live at Fillmore East and Eat A Peach, BB King, Elmore James, and it was up to then a completely normal childhood. From completely normal to completely abnormal rock-blues guitarist,” Derek laughed.

“It came naturally pretty quickly. I got a guitar at 9 years old and a few months later started sitting in at a local music club with a guitar teacher I was playing with. A few months after I began playing I started touring with a local blues band in the US. I hit the road pretty quick. After that it was one thing leading to another and putting a band together at 11 and then this band together at 14 years age. Just hundreds and hundreds of shows a year and cutting my teeth that way.”

Check out The Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php) to hear one of his shows recorded in Atlanta in 1994. This will give you a good idea of where he was then and the licks he already had.  But the train Derek jumped on back then has moved through many stations and the make-up of the accompanying passengers has changed, as have the influences.

Over the past decade the Derek Trucks Band (DTB) has transformed itself into one rock-solid outfit. With band members ranging in age from their 20’s to their 50’s, the influences and styles are always under development.

Todd Smallie (bass) has been playing with Derek for a long time. Derek said, “I was 14 when Todd (23 years old then) joined the band and I remember being excited that he was a little bit taller then me when he joined.  I knew I could catch up! Musically I learnt a lot with Todd. He was the youngest guy I had played with up to that point. All the other guys were pushing 40 and I felt comfortable learning tunes and other things with him.”

The peer influences and feelings of friendship are mutual, according to Todd: “I hooked up with Derek in 1993 and he decided he wanted to come up to Atlanta and find some new musicians to play with. Derek had become really good friends with the incredible Colonel Bruce Hampton and I knew him through the guitarist Jimmy Herring who was teaching at the Atlanta Inst of Music. We used to drive in the Econoline van to gigs and all and were really digging getting into the same music. About that time, we both started listening to Trane and Miles and this knowledge really added a new depth to our performances. We really were onto the same musical education.”

The other members of the band include Kofi Burbridge on keys and flutes. “Kofi is the mad scientist of the group. Kofi is one of those guys where there are extra layers musically within him and it is a matter of putting him in situations where he can let go. Kofi can sit in on a straight ahead gig anywhere in the world, on any instrument, and rip the place apart. Harmonically, he is the most advanced person in the group,” said Derek Kofi began playing flute at the age of 6 and is another of the musical prodigies that make up this group.

The drums are held down by Yonrico Scott who was also a young musical prodigy like Derek and Kofi and began pummeling the drums when he was a babe back in the Motor City.

“Back in those days, the 50’s and 60’s, Detroit was a thriving metropolis. It just seemed like everyone played and it was second nature. My mom was a gospel singer and she hung out with Sam Cooke, Johnny Taylor and Wilson Pickett to name a few. These folks and others were always around the house. We would go to church on during the day on Sunday and at night we would have the gospel shows which I started playing at when I was 5 years old.  By the time I was 15, I recorded my first album with the Sons Of Truth entitled A Message From The Ghetto,” laughed Yonrico.

Yonrico has played with many people since he was a youth. He has played with Stevie Wonder, Earl Klugh, Widespread Panic and Ray Charles to name but a few. He also continues to front his own band (Yon Rico Scott Band) which includes Kofi and Todd from the DTB.

Derek had this to say about Rico: “He is the elder statesmen of the band and he has played with so many people and experienced so much. He would have advice for all types of situations whether it was musical or otherwise, whether it was asked for or not. He is such an energetic drummer and the Motown/Gospel background has been really important for the band. It’s church for him when he is playing and he lets it fly.”

In 2002, the vocals of Mike Mattison, originally from Minnesota, were added to the band. Mike had been living and performing in New York City as part of a duo called Scrapomatic.

“I was not really aware of Derek and I was playing with the other band I still run con-currently now, Scrapomatic,” explained Mike. “Derek’s vocalist left during the recording of one CD and a couple of people recommended me. So Derek recognized my face in the subway in New York and asked me if I was Mike Mattison. And I said I was and he said cool I just got your CD’s today and listened to them.”

How many people in New York City and they pass each other in the underground sewers? Serendipity? Karma?

Derek added, “Mike, for me, has been the missing piece. His musical sensibilities fit in well and his personality and everything else did also. He has influenced the band quite a bit by the things he has been into like Nina Simone.” And he has a soulful voice, as you can hear on Songlines, the first studio album he cut with the DTB.

The last piece of the DTB puzzle is filled by the remarkable percussion of Count M’Butu. Born in 1945 he has played with Frank Zappa, Widespread Panic, The Allman Brothers and many, many others. He has been friends with Rico for nearly 30 years.

“The Count has become more of a full time member of the band then he has been in the past and he adds a fabulous flavour to what we do”, said Derek. And with the world music influences rife in the DTB, the percussion of the Count is simply a necessity.

So that is where the DTB line-up stands today. The talent and groove of each of these fabulous players is just part of what you get. Overall, there is a sense of love and commitment to the man who fronts this band on slide.

“I think that he is a great bandleader,” said Mike Mattison. “You talk about the great jazz bandleaders like Duke Ellington and those folks and he fits right in there. Derek does not really care who you are and where you come from as long as you fit into his vision, he’s good like that. He is a centered guy. I think the thing that gets lost is that he is so technically, physically talented, but it is the musical choices that he makes that make him such a fine musician. He can back it up with his facility. But that said, he is musically very generous, and if we want to contribute, he is open to it. It is a democracy, but he is definitely the President.”

In the last decade Derek and his band have released 6 albums. Todd Smallie and Yonrico Scott are the only 2 members from 1997 still with the DTB today. On the eponymous release in 1997 you were not only given a beautiful serve of blues, but you had Derek covering Coltrane (‘Naima’ and ‘Mr. PC’) and Miles Davis (‘So What’). Out Of The Madness a year later gave us some more blues with Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Forty Four’ and some Son House too. However, I believe it is the instrumental tracks on this release that truly glow, such as ‘Pleasant Gardens’.

Joyful Noise (2002) and Soul Serenade (2003) are probably my favourite Trucks studio releases. Soul Serenade, really was the DTB’s third album, but was held up in a legal swamp. Kofi Burbridge joined the DTB as a member here and his flute on ‘Oriental Folk Song’ is stunning.

Joyful Noise recorded after Soul Serenade, but released before (are you confused yet?), is an album filled with guest vocalists and more of the same influences that drive Derek and his mates. Guest vocalists include Mrs. Derek Trucks (aka Susan Tedeschi), Solomon Burke, Ruben Blades and the great Qawalli singer Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan who joins Derek on ‘Maki Madni’. This blend of cultures make for amazing listening and I can never get enough of the slide and the vocals displayed on that track.

And of late we have the Live at Georgia Theatre CD released in 2004 and the latest release Songlines in 2006 and a live DVD Songlines recorded soon afterwards. Songlines continues the flavour of world and blues music all under the same roof. And since we have yet to see Derek and the present sextet perform live in Australia, the DVD is well worthwhile to see the young man in action.

The album’s title, Songlines, was inspired by the Aboriginal creation myths that the world itself was originally sung into existence by legendary totemic elder beings who wandered the Australian continent along invisible pathways (later known to Westerners as “songlines” or “dreaming-tracks”) singing out the names of everything—trees, flowers, streams, animals, clouds, earth—breathing form, order and beauty into the unfolding world. This is the journey we get to take with Derek and the band as they take a bit from here and there and spread it around the world.

The Derek Trucks Band has an interesting year ahead after they get their leader back from his tour with that other guitar master, Eric Clapton. Derek has been on tour with Eric for the past year and it has been a very successful and critically acclaimed run of shows.

Showcasing his slide work throughout the tour, Eric has given Derek plenty of room to shine, especially on many of the tracks from the Layla album.

“I was kind of worried when Eric first let me solo so much,” said Derek. “He is very generous and I thought some of the Clapton fans would be pissed off because they came to hear him play. But it has been quite an opportunity for me. Most of the Layla era stuff seems to be fun for me and the other guys in the group. The early tunes seem to have a bit more edge in the way we play and we naturally lean towards those tunes. And with three guitarists in the band, there is ample room for us to fit in as these songs were written for more then one guitar.”

The Eric Clapton tour hits Australia commencing on the 29th of January in Sydney and runs until the 11th of February in Perth. As Derek and his band won’t be here for awhile, this is your chance to see the young gun and the old god do their thing. Based on the reviews I have seen throughout the tour, it is one not to miss, and tickets are sold out at a number of the gigs.

Besides being the youngest guitarist to ever grace the Top 100 Guitarists poll of All Time, by that revered music mag, Rolling Stone, Derek has played with many of the greats already. As a teen he had played with the Allman Brothers (he is a nephew of Allman’s drummer Butch Trucks), Buddy Guy and got a few licks in with Dylan when he was 12.

This is a trend that continues to this day with many guests playing with him on his albums. He has also contributed to a handful of Allman Brothers records (filling the boots worn by Duane) and recently recorded with Clapton and JJ Cale on their release, The Road to Escondido. Derek will re-join the Allman Brothers in March for the Spring Madness shows at the Beacon Theatre in New York City that take place over a 2 week period. 13 shows! What a fortnight!

After that, it will be back to focusing on the DTB and the year ahead on the road and in the studio. As vocalist Mike Mattison put it, “I think Derek being out with Clapton bodes well for the DTB. He has gotten so much exposure around the world which is just priceless. It is very difficult for promoters out of our home country to take a chance on us. But now that Eric has given this opportunity to Derek, we can get back out on our horse and go. We don’t sell a lot of records, we are a touring band, and now that the Clapton tour is nearly over we can get back to doing what we do best.”

Based on my conversations with Mike, Yonrico, Todd and Derek, they are all eager and excited to get back together and to re-form the DTB. I think we will be very lucky listeners with the musical contributions they will give us over the next year and, hopefully, the years to come. Long may they run!

Many thanks to the DTB and their manager Blake Budney in allowing me access to the Band for this article. Check out all things DTB-like at www.derektrucks.com.