As Alex Belth pointed out this morning, you can feel baseball getting closer. The air is starting to smell like spring just a little bit. I don't need to turn on my headlights on my drive home from work at the end of the day. Daylight Savings Time begins twelve days from now; the Spring Equinox comes six days later. Spring Training games start tomorrow.
Elsewhere in the world, the other rites of spring are taking place. The NHL trade deadline is tomorrow. NCAA Conference Tournaments begin over the next week and March Madness will soon follow.
For me, another rite of spring is the Allman Brothers Band's annual NYC residency. As we detailed last June, the ABB is vacating the Beacon Theater this year and heading waaaaay uptown to the United Palace Theatre for thirteen shows beginning March 11th.
Derek Trucks will be part of it, as he has been since joining the band at twenty years old following the 1999 Beacon run. We've talked about Derek quite often here, including detailing his family ties to former Tigers, Browns, White Sox, and A's pitcher, as well as the oldest living former Yankee, Virgil Trucks.
Virgil Trucks had just turned 91 two years ago when this boyish kid who looked as if he were 20 showed up at his door. The kid introduced himself as Derek Trucks, Virgil's nephew's son, and they spent the day tying together the frayed generations of Trucks, of baseball stories Derek loved hearing, and music that Virgil says he didn't fully understand.
For years, Derek had Virgil "Fire" Trucks' baseball card on the back of his guitar, with the Allman Brothers or The Derek Trucks Band, with his wife Susan Tedeschi, playing lead on the Eric Clapton tour, backing Buddy Guy. That he told Virgil, and that Derek's uncle Butch, who has been the Allman's drummer since they formed in 1969, has often had another baseball card on his drums. "I haven't listened to the Allman Brothers too much," says Virgil. "They don't play them much on the Birmingham station."
When Virgil was told that Derek has a 1952 Tiger uniform with Virgil's 23 hanging in a trophy case, he said, "maybe I should start listening to the Allmans a little more."
For the Gammons haters out there - and you know I'm not one of them - you can take solace in the fact that Peter incorrectly claims Derek is Virgil's great-nephew. As we posted here in December, with thanks to Derek's cousin Vaylor, Virgil is the first cousin of Derek's grandfather, making them third cousins twice removed. That's the type of hard-hitting analysis you Fackers get here, something a Ford Frick Award winner can't bring you.
That notwithstanding, it's a great column. Head over and give it read. Just be sure to ignore the part about how the family of Derek's wife Susan Tedeschi are long-time Red Sox season ticket holders, or how they're taking their eight year old son to Red Sox camp this week. Hey - nobody's perfect. As Jay detailed after we attended the Derek Trucks Band's concert at The Egg in December, the dTb is now on an extended hiatus. Derek and Susan are forming a new band, which at present appears to feature a rotating cast of musicians. They have dates scheduled through the spring and into summer, including stops as part of outstanding line ups at the Wanee Music Festival in Florida and the Mountain Jam in Hunter, NY.
Time for another Field Trip Fackers, and with it being the baseball off-season this one will involve our other favorite pastime here: music. While the 21st Annual Warren Haynes Christmas Jam took place in Asheville, North Carolina this weekend, Jay and I will be heading to The Egg in Albany this evening to see Haynes' fellow Allman Brothers Band guitarist and blog favorite The Derek Trucks Band. We'll probably have a summary sometime tomorrow.
Unfortunately this show comes on a night that the Giants and Eagles meet in a crucial NFC East match up. As disappointing as it will be to miss the game, it figures to be worth it. dTb announced in November that they will be going on an indefinite hiatus in 2010, tonight's show is the band's final performance for the foreseeable future. They're a band I've seen countless time over the past decade, starting with a performance for about 20 people at Boston College's O'Connell House during my sophomore year at BC. It will be nice to catch their final performance for the next year or so.
As we've mentioned before, Derek Trucks is a relative of the oldest living former Yankee, Virgil Trucks. However, I previously fouled up the specifics of the relationship. Our last post about it was picked up by an Allman Brothers Band listserv, where Vaylor Trucks - Derek's cousin, Butch's son, and the little kid on the cover of the ABB's 1973 Brothers and Sisters album, set the record straight. Virgil is the first cousin of Butch's father, making Derek Virgil's third cousin twice removed.
Now that we have the family tree squared away we can head off to the show. Here's the Derek Trucks Band, along with Derek's wife Susan Tedeschi, covering some Derek and the Dominoes:
I posed this question a while back, but in light of the nasty guitar solo Susan Tedeschi just laid down during Southbound, it must be resurrected:
Here is the question: A chick ripping a guitar solo: Hot or Not?
Check out the look of pride on Derek Truck's face (and the one of surprise on Warren's) if you think I'm messing with you. With all due respect to Sampson, the answer is "Hot. Real, real hot".
As they were exiting the stage, this got picked up on Greg's mic:
"Thanks for letting me play man, it was fun" ~ Bruce Hornsby
Yes.
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Shut up, I had tons of other things I could have done with my Saturday night, but chose to watch this concert instead (not really, but I blame Meredith for making me start drinking at 2:00).
The show started just before 8:30. And they opened with a live version of Little Martha backed by a slideshow of Duane and the early days.
At the beginning of Statesboro Blues, Derek's guitar wasn't working...
And then about three minutes later, it was my internet that wasn't working.
Awesome timing. It's not like I had been waiting for this for an entire week or anything...
That pretty much sums it up right there. I was running a cable and was connected to two different wireless networks that I usually steal from, so it wasn't just my issue. The whole area was down.
Even Billy in 4C couldn't help a brother out.
This felt exactly like the time when I was still playing online poker for a "living" and flopped four jacks at a final table. I had the second biggest chip stack in play and was about to run away with the tournament (provided my opponent didn't draw two perfect runners to a straight flush) when my internet shat out. Once the 90 second disconnect grace period was up, the other player, who could have had two pair or some bullshit, probably just made the minimum bet and my hand was automatically folded. By the time the connection came back 45 minutes later, my stack had been blinded down to a measly pittance and I ended up in 7th place.
Except that's not how this ended.
After almost two hours of watching the 'Zags zap the Zips and other NCAA Tournament action (which isn't a terrible consolation prize) the internet rose from the dead right in the middle of Good Morning Little School Girl.
Immediately after the song, Greg announced Clapton and they broke into Key to the Highway.
DreamsWhy Does Love Got To Be So Sad
Little Wing
Anyday
Encore Break:
Layla (Piano jam)
The two hours without internet were pretty brutal. Any two hours of my life spent indoors without access to broadband is inconvenient, but I had been looking forward to this and hyping it up for a week. And you know, the main reason that I bought Moogis was to be able to watch this show live.
On the other hand, what made this show so sick was Clapton, and I caught every note of the songs he stood in on. Not to mention that the song selection was awesome. I got my wish for Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad, so tomorrow I'll be out on the town and will turn my password over to Cliff, who is probably the biggest Clapton fan I know. Enjoy it, homey.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go move my car which I spent two hours in searching for a spot last night, before I ended up parking on the same block I was on, on the same side of the street.
What were you doing with your life when you were 11 years old?
I was in sixth grade and age 11 actually marked the apex of my athletic career. That summer was the only year I played football, and as an undersized offensive lineman by default, I carried my Jr. Plainsmen team (not really) to an undefeated season. It was also the only year I made a CYO Basketball team (St. Edwards Gold, baby) and we won our Diocesan Championship on a still legendary buzzer beater by Ange Michael. I played the crucial role of 7th man, coming off the bench for 6 points in the championship game against St. Paul's. For that one year, I was like the David Eckstein of Clifton Park, except I couldn't use being short as an excuse for why I sucked.
I only ask because at 11 years of age, Derek Trucks was already doing shows with the Allman Brothers Band. It probably helped that his uncle, Butch Trucks, was an original member of the Allmans, but they weren't going to throw the kid on stage if he wasn't something truly special.
Derek was born in 1979 and named after the Eric Clapton-led group Derek and the Dominoes. He bought his first acoustic guitar at a garage sale at the age of 9 for $5. Learning to play the guitar at any age takes a toll on the tips of your fingers, but young Derek simply couldn't put enough pressure on the strings of a $5 acoustic to play it. Since his Uncle was in the Allman Brothers, and he had grown up listening to his parents' LPs of Eat A Peach and Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, he decided to circumvent traditional playing and try the slide or "bottleneck" like his idol, Duane Allman.
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A slide is a tube-shaped device made of glass, metal, plastic or ceramics that totally transforms how the guitar is played. In a pinch, a Zippo or even a plastic lighter isn't that bad of an option. The slide has to be applied with enough pressure to keep the strings from buzzing when picked, but not so much as to make the strings touch the frets. I'm guessing the $5 guitar he bought had considerable space the between the strings and the fingerboard (action), which would make it very difficult to play normally, but perfect for slide.
When playing slide, the frets are only useful as a frame of reference as to where to position the slide itself. In that way, playing slide guitar is similar to the violin in that you don't have frets to land the note on. You have to find the notes yourself, which is done almost exclusively with your ear.
The modern incarnation of the technique is said to have come from Hawaiian guitarist named Joseph Kekuku.
He was walking along a road in Honolulu, holding an old Spanish guitar when he saw a rusty bolt on the ground. As he picked it up, the bolt accidentally vibrated one of the strings and produced a new tone that was rather pleasing. After practicing for a time with the metal bolt, Joe experimented with the back of a pocket knife, then with the back of a steel comb and still later on with a highly polished steel (bar) very similar to the sort that is used today.
Hawaii had already set a precedent for developing unique guitar traditions, inventing slack key in the late 19th century. The technique involves tuning the guitar down to form open chords, creating the mellow trademark Hawaiian sound you instantly associate with leis and luaus.
At 30 years old, Kekuku left O'ahu to pursue a recording career on the mainland, never to return to Hawaii. He spent the next 28 years touring the U.S. and Europe performing, teaching and popularizing the steel and slide guitar.
In Sub-Saharan African there were and still are one-stringed bowed instruments that are played using a smooth stone or piece of bone as a slide. This is thought to have carried over during the slave trade and morphed into a similar contraption called the Jitterbug that surfaced in the South in the 1800's.
In the early 1900's, guitars had begun to be manufactured instead of handcrafted, and this made them far more available to the masses. The reason it's also called "bottleneck", is that some of the original slides were parts of discarded broken bottles which were carefully cut with a heated blade at just the right point so they wouldn't shatter.
The confluence of these forces lead to the ubiquitization of slide guitar in blues and later country and rock music. Mississippi Delta Blues legends Willy Brown, Blind Willie McTell, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House, and the King, Robert Johnson (right) were among the first well known practitioners of the trade.
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When Trucks was 12 years old he got his first major gig, opening for Bob Dylan in Clearwater, Florida. He played "Highway 61 Revisited" and later recalled:
I remember leaving the show and I ran into Dylan, I was on my way out and he asked me if I wanted to stick around and sit in with him. I was only 12, but I knew how much weight he carried, I remember my dad being completely freaked out. He was much more nervous than me.
Derek Trucks was officially made a member of the Allman Brothers band in 1999 at the age of 19 and has been touring with them full-time ever since. Luckily for Sampson and I, we live a block away from the (recently restored) Beacon Theatre where the Allmans play 14 shows over a three week period every - well - every year that Gregg Allman's Hep C doesn't decide to flare up.
Another amazing thing about Derek is his stage presence. He's got a young-looking face and a long blond pony tail, and doesn't typically say much during his shows. He is also probably one of the least demonstrative lead guitarists you will ever see. He doesn't feel the need skip around the stage and bang his head or play to the crowd in any way. Instead, he stands there like a monk transfixed in prayer. Check out the clip of Desdemona below from the Beacon and you'll see what I mean. He rips an incredibly moving solo, but simply stands there without even much of a facial expression (and busts out the slide at the 2:10 mark with the sleight of hand of a magician).
Trucks met Eric Clapton backstage at a Folk Festival in 2003. Without warning two years later, he called Derek and asked him to contribute to his album with J.J. Cale, Road to Escondido. Two days into the recording, Clapton asked Trucks to go on tour with him. Having Derek along allowed Clapton to start playing more Derek and the Dominoes tunes including Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad, and Nobody Knows You When You're Down & Out (both recent YouTubes from the tour).
His own group, The Derek Trucks Band came together when Trucks was 15 years old and they have been recording and experimenting ever since. In spite of his Southern blues and rock roots, the band is extremely eclectic, also drawing on jazz, funk, Latin, Indian & Pakistani, and classical music to form their own very unique sound.
The video below is a one minute excerpt from Sahib Teri Bandi Maki Madni.
Even without the imagery I've added, you can clearly hear the Hindu influence in the song. The inspiration for this was the time DT spent studying at the Ali Akbar College of Music. The song is actually a combination of two Punjabi folk classics, "Sahib Teri Bandi" and "Maki Madni", written by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, into one song. What you heard in the beginning is called the "raga"; a section that sounds like improvisation, but is actually a composed segue to the scale the musician will be using. The melody established in the second half of the clip is "Sahib Teri Bandi". If you listen to the full version (the album cut is 9:54 long), you'll hear the "Maki Madni" melody line introduce itself about 3/4 of the way through.
Trucks' wife is singer Susan Tedeschi, and they have two children, a boy named Charlie after legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker and daughter Sophie, who takes her middle name, Naima, from a John Coltrane song. In addition to his duties with The Allmans, Clapton, and theDTB, Trucks and Tedeschi occasionally merge their bands into a group called Soul Stew Revival.
The title track of this post is obviously This Sky. It's the last track off the album Songlines, but never gets played live for one reason or another. It's and laid back, soothing and almost ethereal. Without further adieu:
Derek Trucks will be part of it, as he has been since joining the band at twenty years old following the 1999 Beacon run. We've talked about Derek quite often here, including detailing his family ties to former Tigers, Browns, White Sox, and A's pitcher, as well as the oldest living former Yankee, Virgil Trucks.
As Jay detailed after we attended the Derek Trucks Band's concert at The Egg in December, the dTb is now on an extended hiatus. Derek and Susan are forming a new band, which at present appears to feature a rotating cast of musicians. They have dates scheduled through the spring and into summer, including stops as part of outstanding line ups at the Wanee Music Festival in Florida and the Mountain Jam in Hunter, NY.
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