When musical couple Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi decided to put their highly successful solo outfits on hold in 2010 to form Tedeschi Trucks Band, many fans thought of their family band as a stopgap fusion of their previous projects. But during the past five years, the husband-and-wife team have grown Tedeschi Trucks Band into its own, carefully defined entity—a group that owes more to the soulful, revue-like spirit of Delaney & Bonnie and Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour than Tedeschi’s bluesy solo work or Derek Trucks Band’s blend of jazz, blues and even Middle Eastern sounds. Tedeschi Trucks Band’s two studio releases proved that the group also has the potential to cross over to a new, radio-friendly audience outside the jamband scene while their summer runs with bands like The Black Crowes showed that their improvisational chops remain intact.
Tedeschi Trucks Band have embarked on the Wheels of Soul Tour with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and Doyle Bramhall II. The collaborative outing will take the band to sheds and other outdoor spaces across the country, before TTB pays tribute to Mad Dogs & Englishmen at Arrington, Va.’s Lockn’ festival this September. The members of Tedeschi Trucks Band also recently spent time in the studio with new bassist Tim Lefebvre working on their third record, which Trucks believes is the ensemble’s most adventurous and live sounding to date.
Let’s start by talking about your Wheels of Soul Tour with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and Doyle Bramhall II. Can you walk us through how the tour and concept package came together?
I think the idea was spawned when we did The Black Crowes and London Souls tour a few years back [in 2013]. That was the first time we had really done a package tour on that level, and done that many cities with the same band every night or the same bands every night because London Souls were on the bill, too. There was something about it—it was just more fun than the average tour. We got to really know each other, we got to know their crews and everybody involved in putting on their shows. It seemed to just get better and better as the tour went on: The sit-ins got better, the collaborations got better. There were a few nights during that tour where I think we had every member from every band on stage. It was just this kind of beautiful.
So that spawned the idea of “We want to do something like that again.” I was thinking of bands that we would want to tour with. We had been floating around the idea of touring with Sharon Jones and her and her camp for a while. Doyle, in a lot of ways, is just another band member of our band. He’s been here since we put this group together, and he’s been in the studio writing with us a lot. Everyone knows him really well, so when we were putting the tour together, it seemed like a natural fit. It’s really just people we want to hang out with for a few months, and hit the road with. [Laughter.] That’s kind of what spawned it.
Is it true that the first time you actually played on stage with Sharon was when she sat in with Tedeschi Trucks Band at New York’ Central Park SummerStage in May, well after the tour was announced?
Yeah. In fact, Susan and Sharon met for the first time just an hour or so before we took the stage. It was pretty great watching them connect, and how immediate the musical connection was. As soon as I saw that, I was thinking that this could be this could be a really good tour [Laughter]. This could be a lot of fun.
Had you met Sharon before that show?
Well, I had seen her and her band, but I had never really met her. We didn’t have any real connection before that.
In terms of Tedeschi Trucks Band’s upcoming plans, you recently spent time in the studio working on your third album. How have those sessions progressed?
It’s been pretty amazing. We started this album not really thinking that we were doing a record yet, and we were just down into the studio to write. But one of the beauties of having a studio here [at home in Florida] is that a writing session or a chance to put down demos can turn into an album depending on the performance. So before we knew it we had a record on our hands. It has been probably the most work and the most fun I’ve had making a record. This one’s very much a band record where everybody inside the group was involved in the writing, and it’s really just a spontaneous thing that happened. I think it’s more representative of what the band does live, and I think it’s a little more experimental than some of the previous records.
I’m excited to see how it shakes out. We’ve had [TTB vocalists] Mike Mattison, Mark Rivers and [guest singer] Alecia Shakour lay down some vocal parts this week and then, Kofi Burbridge is going to come in for a few overdubs. The horn section is also going to come back for one more day, and I after that I think we’ll probably be done with the tracking. But we probably won’t get around to mixing it until that break we have from touring in August.
Are you planning to intersperse some of these songs into the summer set lists? Or is the plan to hold them back until the album is released?
That’s always the thing you’re trying to figure out: How much to unleash and how much to hold back? The band is ready to go and ready to play some of the tunes. You write the tunes and they feel so good and sound so good on the record and you want to get out and play it. But you do have to hold some of it back so that the album feels fresh, too. We’ll probably take three or four of them and leave the rest ‘till the record comes out. I feel like you have to pull back on the reigns because everybody just wants to play and be included but once you’ve played them all out there and the record comes out and nothing’s really new. It’s a modern problem. [Laughter.] That can actually be a band name. [Laughter.]
What was Doyle’s involvement in the sessions?
Me and Doyle wrote three tunes that are gonna end up on the record together, and he was down here for a while. It is pretty great stuff—I love working with him, he’s such a creative guy. The ideas just kind of pour out. It’s almost just trying to figure out a way to rein it in, but I love writing with him and hanging with him, so that was a great, great shot in the arm for this record. The band was in a great place, and then when he came in it was like the icing on it. I felt like we were there when we finished those tunes.
Doyle’s been part of your musical orbit for years. Did you become friends when you both toured as part of Eric Clapton’s band in 2006 and 2007?
Yeah. I met him a little before that—he was recording on Susan’s record, Hope and Desire, so I met him while she was making that record. I overdubbed a bit on that record—playing on one or two tunes and Doyle was there for those sessions. And I don’t think it was more than four or six months later that Eric was looking for a third guitar player, and Doyle threw my name in the hat. He’s a lot of what got me that gig.
You and Doyle recently sat in with Eric Clapton during his 70th birthday shows at Madison Square Garden this past May. How far in advance did that collaboration come about?
A little bit before the gigs, Clapton reached out to me and Doyle and asked us if we were gonna be there and asked if we wanted to play together. It was one of those no brainers, “We’ll be there!” [Laughter.] I said, “Give us the tunes,” and he picked the tunes that he wanted us to play. We only ended up doing two or three tunes because he had four guests for his birthday shows everybody got a few tunes in. It was a good hang, it was a good day.
It was good to see him again, and there’s a pretty amazing chemistry with the three of us, just ‘cause I’m playing in open tuning. Doyle sat down onstage and he played left handed and Eric is Eric, so there’s three separate worlds up there. They don’t get in the way of each other. I was surprised at how seamless it was because we hadn’t played together since I was out with them, and it was immediate. When we did the rehearsals, it was a “play through it one time” situation and that was that. It was smiles all around, and it was great to see him. I mean, to still be doing it at that level at 70 years old is impressive. Also, I had never played “Let it Rain” with him, so that was fun. It’s another one we can throw in the mix now. [Laughter.]
In terms of TTB setlists, at this point you draw from several albums of original material, a stable of covers, material from your individual catalogs and tunes associated with The Allman Brothers Band. How do you pick the setlist for any given right and are there certain songs from various periods of your career that you feel are off listens for certain reasons?
It’s a balance of all of those things. I don’t feel like we ever have to play a tune—nothing has to be in the set every night. So anytime something’s feeling uninspired, we’ll put it aside for a while. So if you have a handful of tunes every night that you haven’t played in quite some time, or that haven’t been in the rotation before for the tour, every day we will bring tunes back and relearn a few things. Our bassist Tim
has only been with us a year and a half, and some tunes he hasn’t played with us before, so you’re constantly keeping the coals on the fire.
In a band like this, where there’s so many creative people on stage, if you’re not changing it up, it definitely loses the inspiration. And then some of it is just deconstructing and reconstructing tunes that maybe aren’t in every rotation. We never play a tune the same way twice, and that’s a big part of it too—just realizing that it could stop and turn on a dime so long as everyone’s in it and on the same page. And that’s the beauty of it, that’s what keeps us interested and inspired, and then night to night you really do have to be in the moment, you have to be thinking about it. There’s no chance to coast or phone it in, but it’s nice that, as time goes on, there’s more and more songs to choose from.
I think when we started this band, I was really trying to avoid taking songs from my solo band and Susan’s solo band, just so everybody would realize that this is a different thing—that this is not a combination of our personal projects, but as time as time has gone on we feel more and more comfortable throwing in any tunes—tunes from my group, her group, even the Allman Brothers occasionally. We don’t do Allman Brothers tunes that often, it is mostly for special occasions or an instrumental, but any tune is fair game at this point.
At what point did you feel comfortable incorporating songs from your solo catalogs and the Allman Brothers in your TTB setlists?
It was really just stumbling across a song that you haven’t heard in a while, and it dawns on you like, “Hey, that was fun to play.” [Laughter.] We will say, “Let’s get that back out.” Sometimes it is just us trying to incorporate Mike more and get him singing more. It is usually as simple as, “Hey Mike, what do you want to sing? What tunes from would you want to step out front and sing?” Sometimes it’s songs you miss playing, you know—we don’t often judge things on whether it was a crowd favorite, or if it was viewed as a showstopper. It’s really more of what can you bring to a piece. There’s times with a band like this, with two drummers and a horn section, and backup singers, that you played wishing you had that arsenal, now you break things down and you can give them a life that you wish you could have when you first conceived it. Sometimes you don’t realize that a tune was tailor made for a group until the group is there, so that’s what we’re doing when we kind of relive some of these tunes, and fully realize them currently.
You mentioned before that Tim is fully acclimated into the band, and that your new album is going to have the feel of a band record. Have you felt a new chemistry or dynamic onstage now that he has gone through the full creative process in the studio with the group?
Absolutely. And I feel like that this record is just very much just the band doing its thing. I feel like it makes everything a little bit tighter. And not tighter in a sense that you’re over thinking it, but everyone’s just a little closer, and maybe feels just a little more connected to the whole thing. When you make a record, you’re really digging in, and you’re pulling stuff out of each other. When Tim came along we just finished making Made Up Mind with a different bass player, but there’s something nice about writing and recording songs with the band. It just makes everyone feel more a part of it. And I feel like when everyone’s more comfortable on that level, it’s easier to dig deep, and to get to work—whether it’s improvising or whatever is going on. It feels like everybody is on the same page, on a different level, so that’s been really nice.
Looking ahead, Tedeschi Trucks Band will celebrate Joe Cocker’s landmark Mad Dogs & Englishmen project at Lockn’ with an all-star cast, including Chris Robinson, Dave Mason and Leon Russell and Rita Coolidge from the original tour. I know Mad Dogs & Englishmen was an early touchtone for Tedeschi Tricks Band. How specifically did that project shape TTB?
I really don’t remember how I stumbled across it—I think I just saw the movie flipping through the channels when we were on a tour bus—but Susan and I watched the Mad Dogs & Englishmen movie when we were thinking about putting a band together. It hit us how many musicians from that band we knew from other projects and how it related to Derek and the Dominos and Delaney and Bonnie, and, in turn, Capricorn Records and Allman Brothers thing. It was this whole incestuous thing going on, and all these musical connections you’re making. Then it hit us: that’s kind of the project we had been kicking around—this traveling circus. Just watching them do it that way, there was just something beautifully rowdy about it. It seemed like it was just mildly controlled chaos.
When we began to thing about putting a group together, that was very much on our minds. I thought was, “It would be great to do that, but maybe build it where it could last a little bit longer than a year and a half or however long that was together for.”
It was that and the Sly Stone concept, as well as the Dominos and even the Allman Brothers in some ways. Those bands were very much inspirations when we were thinking about putting a group together.
We had been talking with Dave Frey over at Lockn’ about different collaborations, and Joe Cocker was on the list. We had been talking to him about playing with us at Lockn’, and then all of a sudden you could tell that something was up. It wasn’t really coming together, and that’s when he was sick, and that’s when he passed away. We thought that instead of trying to find another guest, maybe we should have a tribute to him with the Mad Dogs & Englishmen thing was the best way to do it. So we started reaching out to original members and everybody seemed pretty excited to do it. And as soon as we announced it, even other members have reached out about showing up: other singers, percussionists and people who played with him. It’s been pretty great: people are coming out and just gravitating toward it. It’s gonna be a party [Laughter.] It’s still coming together, it’s just that there’s so many names popping up and so many ideas popping up, but I think it’s gonna be rowdy in that spirit.
Did you ever get to meet Joe Cocker in person?
No I didn’t. It’s funny. My dad had a club in Jacksonville when he was young, in his twenties, and I think Joe Cocker played there. He stumbled in a few times, so my dad had some connection with him. But I never saw him or met him.
Tedeschi Trucks Band will also play a series of shows at New York’s Beacon Theatre this September. Obviously you have a long history with the Beacon dating back 15 years when you joined the Allman Brothers Band. Did you always have your eye on starting your own tradition there?
There’s something about that room, and obviously New York. You play differently when you’re there. There’s an appreciation of music and the history of it, and people have watched you grow and do your thing. So it really does make you dig deeper, and it makes you change—you don’t want to show up and repeat the same things, so I feel like every year it’s a great learning curve for us. You show up and you really have to put a lot of time and energy into making the show different and great. In a lot of ways it helps the band to do shows like—four or five nights in the same place. Obviously the history with the Allman Bros there is a huge part of that. And when we were putting together our September shows, there was talk of moving our run to March to kind of fill that void a little bit, but it felt like it was just better to keep it separate and let it be its own thing, and not try to run for that. So we, from the beginning, always had in our mind that we would try it naturally and so if it takes. If not, you try something else, but it’s been pretty amazing so far.
Everybody in the group really looks forward to it in a different way than you look forward to other shows. It’s a daunting task, but it’s something that you look forward to doing.
Looking back on the Allman Brothers Band’s final shows at the Beacon Theatre this past October, what was your musical or personal highlight?
I think that sneaking in “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” in a different way every night. I think there was something great about that—it was the song that they played at Duane’s funeral, but really that whole last show was special. It really is weird because I’m the young guy, but I was proud of the way everybody handled it, and everybody gave what they had to give musically. I thought the spirit was right; those last shows just had a feel to them. I had been on stage a lot of times with a lot of different situations, but I thought that was unique, and it felt definitely… I thought with the spirit that that’s the way it should have been.
It was a long show, and everybody just constantly stayed in it. I felt like it stayed locked, and it never mentally got away from anybody. Everyone stayed in it—the weight of it was very much on everybody’s mind, and the audience that night was… you could feel it. The crowd and the band, everybody was in the same place, which is not always the case.
I felt that “Circle” almost turned into a theme song for the run—nobody knew when you were going to bust into it but they knew it was going to happen.
And that’s something that the Allmans really haven’t done all that much over the years. It was nice in that it happened kind of spontaneously the first few times, and then it became a challenge to find different ways to approach it. The greatest part was when Gregg jumped in the last night and sang, and we all just kinda felt it one night. It felt good to me. [Laughter.]
Speaking of musical legends, given the Dead’s 50th anniversary shows, can you look back on some of the lessons you have learned from Phil Lesh, who brought you into his band when you were still a teenager?
Playing with Phil over the years, I definitely learned a whole new level of respect for not only the Dead’s level of musicianship but really the catalog of songs and the approach. There’s not many bands or artists that have kept going and stacked it up the way they did. It won’t go away, people will be listening to that and playing those tunes, it’s very much going to be living and breathing long after the band hangs it up.
