If you're not listening to Derek Trucks then you're missing out.
It's easy to play the blues, to learn how to play the blues at any time after 1980 or so. B.B. King couldn't learn from B.B King could he?
(If you disagree you might be better off at 'KurrentTimeTravel.com')
Anyway, I've learnt some licks off the old school guys, Robert Johnson for example (there are lots of other original blues legends you haven't heard of too) and if you want to be a guitarist you basically have to learn some version of The Thrill is Gone at some stage. So Derek's obviously done all that. He knows what he's doing. But how do you go from knowing all the licks to being a musician? Not so easy (and in some ways infinitely easier) as learning some lines from recordings...
I think the answer is soul. I don't mean soul as in some magical non-physical entity (that's a whole philosophical issue not relevant at the moment) but emotion. Derek Trucks, like all the greats people remember (the three kings of the blues for example) manages to touch people. I haven't even seen him live and listening to the Tedeschi Trucks band or his solo stuff is an emotional experience. In a live setting it must be ridiculous.
Trucks has done ten albums with the Derek Trucks band, three with the Tedeschi Trucks band (Susan Tedeschi is a sweet sweet singer and also Derek's wife) and three with the Allman Brothers in the early 2000s. The Tedeschi Trucks band is his main focus at the moment, a mixture of blues, rock, soul and gospel that gets me right there. Derek's signature sound is Eastern influenced blues lines played with a smooth, smooth slide. But he can get dirty when he wants to. Stop wasting your time and go listen to Derek Trucks.
