Ace guitarist Derek Trucks is what you would call a music know-it-all. His musical tastes and inspirations come in numerous forms, everything from traditional Indian music to rock 'n' roll like the Allman Brothers Band to jazz giants such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane to classical pianist Glenn Gould.
Trucks, who grew up mostly in Atlanta, Ga., and now lives in Jacksonville, Fla., bought his first acoustic guitar for $5 at a yard sale when he was 9. Within the year, Trucks, who is self-taught, learned how to play the instrument and began touring, accompanied by his father who acted not only as his chaperon but his manager.
His first paying gig came at the age of 11 and Trucks later formed his first band at 12. He met his current bassist, Todd Smallie, in 1994 when Trucks was 15 and the following year, drummer Yonrico Scott, who has since rounded out the dynamic Derek Trucks Band rhythm section. The Derek Trucks Band maintains arguably one of the most musically and stylistically diverse group of players in today's modern rock scene.
Yonrico, 46, began playing the drums at the age of 7. While growing up in Detroit, he had the opportunity to study R&B among other things under the tutelage of Motown drummer George Hamilton prior to earning a bachelor's degree in percussion from the University of Kentucky.
Kofi Burbridge, who plays the flute, joined the band in 1999 subsequent to his studies at the North Carolina School of the Arts and after permanently settling in Atlanta. Burbridge, who was born in the Bronx and raised in Washington, D.C., picked up the flute at 6 with lifelong training rooted in classical and jazz styles.
Between the 1998 album "Out of Madness" and 2002's "Joyful Noise," Trucks recorded the beautifully assembled "Soul Serenade" with evident nods to melodious masterpieces like Davis' "Kind of Blue."
In 1999, members of the Allman Brothers Band, one of Trucks' childhood idols, afforded Trucks the opportunity of a lifetime when they asked him if he'd like to play slide guitar with the band on the road. Already a bandleader himself at this time, Trucks decided to pull double duty and balance the two acts. He went on to play more than 365 shows in 2000 and 2001.
Now both fans and newcomers of The Derek Trucks Band have the chance to check out the band in its entirety in a live setting with the recent release of "Live at Georgia Theater" which features the group's most recent band mate, vocalist Mike Mattison. The double-disc work entails more than two hours of live music, covers and original pieces alike, all caught on tape at the popular venue in Athens in late October of 2003.
The Beach Reporter this week sat down with Trucks, 24, and talked about the new album, his influences and a look back at a few influential music scenes that have shaped the music of the present day.
The Beach Reporter: How did you come to pick the Georgia Theater?
Trucks: We record every night, we multitrack and when we decided to do a live record, everyone in the band tried to think back over the last six months if any shows stuck out. That show ended up on everyone's list. We went back and listened to four or five shows, and that one stuck out more than other ones. It was kind of like a house gig for the band, and so it feels really comfortable.
So it wasn't something in which you set out to record a live album?
No, not at all, we record every night just in case.
Do you listen to those recordings?
Oh, no, I listen to very few of them. It's like hearing the sound of your own voice; it's just a strange thing.
What has playing in different bands taught you about the creation of your own music?
You take different things from every group - playing with a band like the Allman Brothers, just realizing that a band can stay together for 35 years is pretty promising. You really start to find the common threads with any genre of music, which is just trying to put an emotion to sound and sometimes words. It's something you're constantly learning from and building on. Every time I return from being on the road with another group, it strengthens why I want to be in this band so much more, so it's a lucky situation to be in.
In terms of your band, it's a very eclectic group of people so when writing original music, is it oftentimes an environment in which anything goes?
Yeah, if it's what we think the band sounds like, we'll give anything a shot. It's nice having guys who are versatile enough to really try anything. There are not many groups I can think of that can hit as many different genres as these guys are able to do. We have people who were born in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; and from all over the country.
You include a quote from musician Su-Ra in 'Live at Georgia Theater.' What was the reason for this?
Su-Ra, for me, has been a huge influence from early on in the way he looked at things, and the fact that he kept a band together for more than 40 years making zero dollars is pretty fascinating to me. You don't see many groups hang together even when there are millions and millions of dollars at stake, and so when a band does it solely because they feel like they are on a mission I think there is a lot to that. He has been a huge inspiration of just keeping things going. That quote really in a way crystallizes the feelings that a lot of musicians have about the way the music industry and the way the musicians in general are taking things so lightly. It's almost become just commerce for most people. I think a lot of musicians when they first get into it they may have some pure intentions but maybe less than halfway into it they either decide to play real music or make money, and most of them choose the latter. So, it's refreshing when you hear somebody else verbalize what a lot of musicians feel which I think is if you're really going to do it, if you're really going to play, sometimes it's going to be the tougher road. With this band, I've been very fortunate that we have been able to do both and doing the Allman Brothers has obviously helped in the recognition of our band. We realize that we're very lucky in that sense because there are just so many amazing blues and jazz players who have a hard time paying rent.
Can you remember the first time when music affected you?
I guess at about 14 or 15. Somebody played me a video of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. It was old black and white footage and it completely changed the way I looked at music. That's when I decided that if I'm going to do this, I really have to buckle down and take it serious. Yonrico, Todd and I have all been playing together since I was a teen-ager. We started playing music that was left-of-center and that's when we realized it could be a hard road if we decided to do that but once you get the bug, you really have no choice, you're going to do it either way. I was pretty determined at 14 or 15 and was pretty sure that this is what I would be doing and whether I would be making a living at it or not was a different trip entirely, I think.
What was it about that footage that affected you so much?
I think the footage of Coltrane especially, the intensity, the look, the sound, it wasn't just for entertainment, it wasn't about that. You could tell he was on some other kind of search. At that point it hit me on that level but I don't think I understood all the other levels it was working at. He's one of those guys you can listen to for years and maybe five, 10, 15 years into it, you hear new things and it starts to make sense. There was just something about the intensity, the look in his eye that really struck me. Very few musicians whom I've seen or heard have affected me on that level. Definitely Duane Allman early on was one of the first but he and "Trane" and a few of the jazz guys were really the only ones I can think of who just stood there and played. There was a certain calm and intensity in what they did, and it wasn't about showmanship and sheer entertainment. You could tell they were working on a different level.
Any Coltrane albums that stick out in terms of reflecting this philosophy?
The obvious one is "A Love Supreme." That is definitely the one everyone seems to point to and it was his prayer - it's an amazing record. "Live at Birdland" I think is amazing and just as far as stretching the boundaries harmonically, "Giant Steps" was a huge breakthrough record. But there are probably a dozen more at least.
Who are some of your favorite guitarists?
A lot of the early guys. Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Duane Allman for electric slide was the guy, he and Elmore James. A lot of the early blues guys - Booker White and all the kings - Albert, Freddie, B.B. There are quite a few from that era. More contemporary, there are not a whole lot. I like the Sacred Steels guys a lot - Chuck Campbell, Aubrey Gent who are gospel players and are just amazing. My good friend Jimmy Herring has always been a big influence as well.
Do you think there are less influential guitarists these days as opposed to the past?
I think it comes in waves. I definitely think there seems to be less time put into the instrument these days. It seems like if you get to a certain level because the bar has been lowered that people sometimes start raving about musicians before maybe they deserve it. A lot of times when that happens. and you read articles about how great people are and they read it themselves, they really stop growing. I think a lot of times, the praise thrown at people really kind of stunts their musical growth. I see that happening with a lot of contemporaries. There are definitely guys out there though. It's usually more underground than not but there are definitely guys out there moving and stretching it forward, and doing things that I have never heard before.
How did you go about selecting the covers (Curtis Mayfield, Wayne Shorter, etc.) on this live album?
It's just music we listen to on the road and sometimes someone will mention in the bus, it would be fun to play that tune, and maybe the next day at sound check we will try to work it up. Some tunes stick and some tunes you place once or twice then let them go but Curtis Mayfield is a huge influence and really on some levels is an unsung hero. I mean people know who he is but he was writing songs in a way that was kind of like the North American version of Bob Marley in terms of the content. During that time period he was one of the few guys who was putting sentiment of the movement to words. He and Nina Simone definitely strike the band on that level. The Qawwali tune, I've been really into the Indian classical and the Pakistani and a lot of the traditional Middle Eastern music. We decided to throw a few of the melodies into the set as well.
Have you learned a lot musically by being on the road?
Sometimes I think about it and it almost seems it would be easier to grow just being surrounded by a local community of musicians like the blues scene in Chicago in the day or the Harlem renaissance. Within a two-block radius of Harlem you had 50 to 60 of the baddest musicians on the planet - that seems like the best flow of ideas. A lot of times, you get on the road and it's just four or five guys stuck in a van and you go from city to city, it becomes a little tedious and it's kind of hard to really exchange ideas with people. But there are other times when you're touring with another band and a lot of that happens, so I think it can happen both ways. But there are not a whole lot of scenes anymore because either people are playing in cover bands or doing session work. There are not just a lot of movements going on, but there are a few cities left - San Francisco, New York and a handful of others - and for the most part when you go from town to town you don't see this, this thriving music scene.
Do you have a theory as to why that is?
You know, I think it comes in waves. The obvious reason is that financially, I don't think people can afford to just play music anymore. At that time in Atlanta, there were 20 or 30 venues you could go and play original music, and there was an audience for it and people would come out. Even if you weren't making a lot of money you could survive and then when all those clubs dry up there is just nowhere for people to play; it's just a matter of what's available for people. In Harlem, that's definitely what was going on. There were hundreds of clubs in that area and people were playing every night and sitting in with other people, there was just so much music going on. It really takes a whole community for a scene like that to thrive. I think it comes and goes. Definitely in the last decade or so, live music and improvisational music has taken a pretty big hit. Other than the fact of the hype behind the jamband scene, but to me, that's really a handful of bands that have a big hippie following which isn't necessarily a lot of give and take, musically. String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic and Phish are doing their thing but that's not necessarily a scene, I'd say.
Today, it seems like the average music listener's attention span isn't what it used to be. Do you think that has anything to do with the live music scene?
Yeah, people can't sit through it anymore. You see the Ken Burns jazz series and the most you get out of one of the greatest solos ever taken is a 12-second clip. I think that has a lot to do with it because profound thoughts don't come out of three to four seconds of sound bites. You have to weed through a lot to get to these great moments and people just aren't willing to do that anymore.
It's a discipline like anything else.
That's for sure. A lot of other cultures, listening to music, there is a lot more expected from audiences, where over here it's, "You like it, all right great. You don't like it then fine, too." People don't have to be educated musically because you can't just walk into a great jazz show completely uninitiated and not know the history and tunes and changes people are playing and all of that, and completely understand it. You have to have some background to it which is why it's not a very popular form of music, I just think people aren't hip to what's going on inside of it and that's partly the fault of music education, there is none of that in schools. If it wasn't for me being 9 years old and touring around with blues bands and being around musicians, there is no way I would have been turned onto the music that I was.
What are your top-five desert-island records?
It changes day to day but let's see today.
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, "Signature Series Vol. 2." He's the master of Indian classical music in the last 100 years, amazing.
Mahalia Jackson, "Live at Newport."
John Coltrane, "Live at Birdland."
A Donnie Hathaway live record and maybe Glenn Gould playing some of Hayden's piano sonatas.
But tomorrow it would be five different ones, I'm sure.
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