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The Derek Trucks Band: Roadsongs

Sony Masterworks

This double live album from The Derek Trucks Band provides more than 100 minutes of music culled from two nights at Chicago’s Park West during 2009’s Already Free tour. A bluesy current runs through this stopover in The Second City, complete with a loud and ferocious guest horn section. Roadsongs is comprised of two discs of seven tracks each, which find Mike Mattison’s souful, smoky vocals and Trucks’ wailing slide technique in full force, as well as expert drumming and percussion propelling each tune. On the band’s first full-length live album since 2004’s Live at Georgia Theatre, the six-piece has stepped up its game: the tracks flow well together and the horns add a fresh take on tunes like “Sailing On” as well as classics like Bob Dylan’s “Down in the Flood,” Allen Toussaint’s “Get Out My Life Woman” and the 14-minute behemoth “Afro Blue” (popularized by John Coltrane) with a trademark Kofi Burbridge jazz flute solo. Trucks and company once again prove that they can lock into a funky groove and produce their own brand of energetic, eastern-influenced Southern rock, jazz and blues with scorching solos.