Concert Reports

Rolling across America on a sizzling summer run, Tedeschi Trucks Band’s “Let Me Get By” Tour brought their Grammy-winning, 12-piece blues-rock dynamo back to the Central Coast on September 4 at Avila Beach Resort

All Photos: Mark Gvazdinskas / www.SilentGPhotography.com

www.TedeschiTrucksBand.com

The TTB journey began on April 1, 2010 with their first gig at the Savannah Music Festival, and led to the recording and release of their Grammy-winning debut album Revelator in 2011, and Made Up Mind two years later. During their five-year rise, the group toured incessantly, raising their profile and being handpicked to play with the likes of Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, and Santana; to appear on television shows hosted by Jay Leno, Conan, and on the premiere of Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show; and hosting special all-star musical salutes themselves, including Bonnaroo’s Superjam in 2014 (with Chaka Khan, Anthony Hamilton, Taj Mahal, and others), and Lock’n Festival’s Tribute to Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs & Englishmen in 2015 (with Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, and many other original members.)

Formed in 2010 with a spirit of adventure that saw Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks shelve their equally successful solo careers, Tedeschi Trucks Band has quickly become the vanguard of modern roots music. The 11-member group has already earned a Grammy for its debut album, Revelator, followed with a dynamic live double disc, Everybody’s Talkin,’ and most recently released Let Me Get By. Driven by Trucks, #16 of the top 100 Guitarists of All Time (Rolling Stone), and Tedeschi, blessed with a voice that passionately delivers a range of powerful R&B belters to gentle ballads, the band combines inspired Memphis soul with post-war electric blues and classic songcraft that has captured the admiration of both concert audiences and critics. With its legendary live performances featuring original material and choice covers, fans can also expect to hear new songs from the recently released Let Me Get By.

In just five years, Tedeschi Trucks Band -- the 12-member collective led by husband-wife duo Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi -- has taken its hearty roots-rich musical mix to audiences across the globe and become a proven musical powerhouse. Driven by Trucks' signature slide-guitar sound and Tedeschi's honey-to-husk voice, Tedeschi Trucks Band delivers an electrifying blend of blues, soul, jazz, and rock drawing from an ever-deepening well of material.

Let Me Get By

Let Me Get By is the third and latest studio album by the TTB, featuring ten new, original songs that together stand as a testament to the hard work, independent spirit, and now full-on commitment of the husband-and-wife team of Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, plus the musicians and music professionals who are part of the band’s ongoing journey. The album’s artwork—a Mongolian golden eagle caught a moment after flying from its master’s glove—and even the album title, reflect the sense of total dedication that serves as the driving wheel of TTB.

“’Let Me Get By’ actually refers to a lot of things,” says Trucks, “like the band becoming more self-reliant than ever before—writing our own songs and producing our own music in our own studio. It’s about moving on to a new recording label with a deal that gives us more freedom, and personally, I found myself with more time to focus on TTB after the Allman Brothers played their final shows this past year.

“It definitely took time for us to get here. I think the connections we have in this band and among the crew and extended family are the real reason why. I look around the stage every night and am just in awe of the situation—the music’s amazing and road-tested and we all really like each other. That’s what I hear in the music on this new album—this feeling that we’re now putting 100% of what we have into this band, not going back to anything else, not having anywhere else to go.”

Let Me Get By is the culmination of an exceptionally busy year for TTB. The music on the album in fact, as guitarist and bandleader Trucks remembers, was born during tour rehearsals in their hometown of Jacksonville, Florida in January with an impromptu idea played by the band’s keyboardist. “The song ‘Let Me Get By” started at sound check one day, Kofi [Burbridge] playing that riff and then we took it into the studio and [singer] Mike Mattison and Sue went upstairs and the lyrics just poured out. It’s a bunch of different true stories meshed into one.”  

Like the group’s other recordings, Let Me Get By benefits from a number of musical elements that have become TTB trademarks: their deep sense of American roots music: rock, blues, soul, and especially gospel. Their balance of easy-flowing song structures and soaring, improvisational sections. Tedeschi’s spiritually charged vocals, and Trucks’s wide range of guitar tones, slide and picked, from back-alley, distorted rawness to Indian sitar-like sinuousness.

For Trucks, Let Me Get By is concrete evidence that the band is on the right track, and that more singular music will continue to flow from the expansive yet tightly connected musical family TTB has become. “There’s a lot of sacrifice that goes into a band like this and the fact that everybody’s on board musically, hearts and minds, makes it very humbling. There are nights on stage when I think I don’t know if it’s ever been more fun to be in a band and be on the road and be alive than it is right now with a group like this. For me, that’s the joy and the thankfulness that comes across in Let Me Get By. “Susan and I take that seriously and at the same time, Susan started a kind of joke about it. After shows, she started to say to everyone, ‘Thanks for letting me be in your band’ and we’d all laugh. Now we all say it.”

www.SilentGPhotography.com

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