Derek Trucks: The Art of Melodic Storytelling

so Derek can I get you to play something yeah I was trying to think of things uh you're talking about writing that we did um you know during the lockdown all the different types of tunes and now you know a lot of times you'll I'll write something and then I'll I'll remember where I think it came from or and one of my favorite guitar players is this guy named the Gary it's from Madagascar okay just really unique player and there was a there was a few a few songs on the record that um he plays a lot of open tuning things I don't even know what the tunings are like it's just a wild style he has but a few of the tunes turned into songs on the record that um just it just felt like his stuff and one of them one of those rare times where you have an idea and it's just kind of fully formed and I recorded it on my phone and I thought of the Gary and I thought of my friend Oliver wood who's a great singer songwriter yeah guitar player and I just sent him the clip and and he was like man I've I've been I've been listening to that Melody for days you mind if I finish writing it have at it so he wrote this beautiful tune that ended up being called uh I can feel you smiling which was kind of written about the colonel Oliver was there that night yes so but this song um I'll just play a little bit of it but it's got a little bit of the degary thing it also has a little bit of the uh maybe Dwayne almond a little Martha Vibe um but a lot of that's just open tuning you know so [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] something like that awesome but that's got a little bit of a I don't know somewhere between Madagascar and Macon Georgia there's a place there you know there was another phrase that that popped into my head that um that also felt like uh the Gary and it's all that open tuning stuff this one we've never played live I gotta remember it but uh [Music] it's kind of the base of the tune but his his stuff is always a lot of his stuff is all triplets he plays a lot of triplets but the Melodies that I take out of his stuff uh just seem to come from a different place I highly recommend there's a record with him just playing acoustic guitar on the front and it just looks like he's in the jungle somewhere but he was kind of famous for he would roll in for these sessions without a guitar they buy him a guitar he'd record and then just splits so I mean like he's just he would just he was just kind of he would just wandered man um he ended up playing in the states he did a festival here uh our sound man at the time was living in Atlanta and housed him he put him up and uh into Gary and his percussionist I can't remember his name through a house concert for the which I wasn't able to go to but I heard it was one of the the greatest evenings of their life uh but some of the styles that um on the record you go from that to I mean I as a side player I listen to As Much Charlie Patton or uh book of white is I do anybody and so there was a there was a few song ideas that came out of that but when I think about my favorite slide moments I go I go back to these book of white licks uh I think the one I'm about to rip off is I think it's him doing fixing to die okay but there's just these there's these Melodies he plays that I think are I just I think they're they're beautiful things but [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] just little things like that that I could Harrison to all day long when you're doing this stuff are you muting with with the palm of your right hand also at the same time how do you get the clarity of every note like that I'm not sure I'll have to look this time so you know sometimes but it's usually I'm using almost all of my fingers so you're kind of muting that way without thinking about it you do some it's incredibly fast runs though that I can't even fathom how you do them and play them so in tune you know those are probably laying my thumb down okay and and for example the single naughty stuff uh like uh let me just like I'll just play some melodies for you yeah [Music] foreign [Music] so I guess I am I'm muting all the way here a little bit with the thumb yeah and just whatever string you're at you're one finger decides that we're going to take over and everything else is is kind of muted other times you're just letting it fly right um they owe more stuff that stuff is always uh hmm [Music] [Music] just melodies for days those those are the guys that I think you can always go back to the well there's always um almost when we went when we dug into that that poem that in the zombie poem um like there's so much here there's when something lasts a thousand years there's a reason for it usually right but it's the same with Elmore and those guys like there's there's so much music there everyone thinks it's uh that's the same song or it's all the same progression but the amount of Melodies that are that are hidden and they are really incredible um you know all those Blues Guys Sun house there's just there's stuff for days man if I'm ever out of gas with ideas or inspiration there's certain people you can go back to Albert King or well just the intensity of their plan the way you've been past a note or any of that stuff now you've you have these all these these records that you're releasing one after another yeah do you think that that people have the attention span to listen to a double record even or like why yeah I release things separately or what what do you what are your thoughts on that about kind of the modern listener yeah I don't think people do have the attention span which is when when we got into this project we had 24 25 teams and we thought about just releasing it all at once I just felt like such a waste I was like no one will dig into it the right you know no one will listen to it the way we want them to hear it um so let's just I mean how do people watch or listen to things now it's kind of small chunks it is it's like it's like the TV shows that people will binge watch but they'll watch instead of making one movie that's two hours long yeah you make it in this in a series and then I think somewhere along the way our perception kind of just leaked and it was never really that way like all of our favorite records were a lot shorter than we remember them you know like that's true and that was kind of a revelation we had because we listened to vinyl and upstairs in our studio and I remember we were in the process of writing all this stuff and we we often go upstairs and listen to everything we've done up to that point once a week just to kind of see where we are see what's holding water what's not um but we you know we're spending records we're listening to a Love Supreme we're listening to axis bold as love listening to slash Stone fresh and then I remember looking at the back I was like 33 minutes right 36 minutes are you kidding I mean like everyone actually you think that these records are incredibly long no but they just take you places that's right and when they're done you're like I would listen to that again right start that sucker over so that that was kind of a mini Epiphany we had when we were thinking about this I was like there's no reason I mean at some point it was just like how much can you cram on CD you're like that's not there's nothing artistic about that right so about let's just record until there's enough time like that's not a who I mean that never happens I mean why you know what uh you think about uh yeah you think about your favorite records I bet most people are surprised when they go back and and think about how long they are I mean a double album was a little bit over an hour or so right I mean because you and and this is something I didn't really know until we started really getting into the way we were recording we have this beautiful old need console and we're recording as analog as possible sometimes we only hit tape and we never hit anything else and um and then you really start looking into vinyl cutting which is difficult because there's not a lot of people doing it anymore it's hard to get the materials um and you really dig into well why does this vinyl sound terrible in this one you're like we can only squeeze so much that's right you can squeeze more but you lose sound because there's quality so most of the great records are 18 minutes aside 15 to 20 but you know it's unbelievable you don't want to squeeze much more and you think about that you're like that's a half hour basically yeah so I mean yeah so that that was part of it and then uh and then the other thought we had was very early in the lockdown we started airing live concerts every Thursday just for our fans on I forget what it was on some a YouTube channel or something and it would you know we've just eight o'clock there's going to be a two-hour concert and maybe a day before you like it's from Red Rocks 2016. and people were tuning in every week tuning in and it was something to do and it was kind of this communal thing a lot of our fans travel and know each other and it was a way when people were separated to kind of at least be on the same wavelength for a minute so we did that and then we realized we weren't going to work forever we started we did a few where we filmed the band at our house or at the farm we did those and it was always on a Thursday and there was something that was just something to look forward to and we had that and we were home with our family in the lockdown certain TV shows that come on bi-weekly or weekly and you're like cool we have something to do right Friday well there's just nothing anything that you can do and so that was part of the thought of why don't we release this as episodes why don't we wouldn't it be nice if we could get people to listen to the album for the first time together communally um because every record we've done in the last decade or so you know you spend a long time you've spent there's a lot of work that goes into making an album and then uh they're like yeah we're gonna the first two tracks iTunes gonna give away a month before the record they're gonna stagger them and there's two singles and then the record comes out and everyone's heard half of it that's right but piecemeal like right exactly not the way that you it's like why do we even bother sequencing this thing like if everyone's just going to hear it randomly yeah um and so we wanted to be really stubborn about we want this thing to come out and we want people to hear it the way we want you to hear it you know and like this is a there's a reason it starts here and ends here you know and and so that was the thought and then we put visuals with it and we're like well let's just we'll just air it for free for some time and and then we'll release the records Like You release it and see how it falls

Channel: Rick Beato 2

Views: 239,685

Keywords: derek trucks, slide guitar, tedeschi trucks band, blues guitar, tedeschi trucks, derek trucks solo, slide guitar solo, derek trucks band, rick beato, interview, slide guitar licks, derek trucks interview, allman brothers

Id: JzwZOnCC9Y0

Length: 12min 30sec (750 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 13 2023