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Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks: Bound for Glory

After spending a few days at the studio, surveying the room and figuring out where Susan would be, Scott built a vocal booth so she could track vocals live with the band.

“‘Until You Remember’ is all different live tracks,” Derek says of the process. “We pieced it together ‘cause the tempos were all so close. It was maybe four takes, but that’s the sound of the band playing. And that’s Susan singing with us.”

The group wanted to make the record the old-fashioned way: going into a studio environment where they could be together for extended periods of time—living, eating and playing around the clock. One of the band’s inspirations early on in the process came from a viewing of Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs & Englishmen. For an 11-piece band, Tedeschi Trucks has the cohesion of a much smaller group.

“Yesterday, four of us went to Fiddler’s Crab and before you know, there were 12 of us there, all saying, ‘How’d it happen?,’” laughs Susan. “‘Cause we weren’t calling each other—we’ve just grown so intimate, we can feel each other without talking.

Whether going surfing, doing laundry or working out, the Tedeschi Trucks Band moves through life as a true family.

“Everyone there was all about being in the music, living it,” says Derek. “It was something we hoped to get to and you can tell—I think. You can feel the difference.”

There is, for instance, a suppleness that emerges on the album-closing “Shelter,” just as the wah-wah funk of “Love Has Something Else To Say” lands somewhere between Sly Stone and The Staple Singers, staccato horn bursts, and a cautionary note about the things that really matter in life.

For Derek, whose Derek Trucks Band was only recently profitable, and Susan, who was poised to find another level of success, the decision to put their individual careers on hold was based in passion, not business. While the freshness of starting a new project thrills them, they aren’t guaranteed that they will be successful.
“It’s a real risk,” says Derek of the new venture. “We have twice as many people on the road [as either our of solo bands do], so there’s a whole other level of what needs to happen to be responsible[to your bandmates]. And you’re taking this to [fans] who have some idea of what they think [the music is] supposed to [sound like], and some of them will leave [a show] because it’s not that. But this was more about finding salvation in the music. To be in a place where that is what it is.”

Susan agrees. “[This band] is about how the music moves you,” she says. “Coltrane, B.B. King, Sun Ra—I’ve always connected to music on a more spiritual and emotional level. I’m more comfortable singing than talking. There’s elation, the spirit moves you and you feel like you’re floating when it’s good. This band has that, too.”

The Tedeschi Trucks Band is something truly special for the couple who got together after Derek courted Susan by airplane on off-days while she was opening for the Allman Brothers in 1999.

“When you can call each other on when you’re deceiving yourself,” Derek offers, “and it’s not about one-upping—but helping—you know something here is special. That’s what this is built on. We all needed every moment, every triumph and every failure to get here.”

“And that’s why this is so important,” Susan explains. “We have a lot of blues roots, but it’s so much more. Still in times like these, the blues speaks to people. Bessie Smith was No. 1 in 1929 because people needed to hear that.”

Back onstage it’s late in Savannah but the musicians are still coiling around each, peeling off notes and smiling at each other’s moves. It’s joyous—holy, even.

And, sure enough, Derek and Susan’s children are still laughing and dancing in the wings.