RIP Butch Trucks

Richmond Coliseum, spring of 1973. Hell of a show. Love the ABB.

 

The Tedeschi Trucks Band, led by Derek Trucks, has continued the ABB tradition of two drummers, and it's a seamless percussion act, too. Also a lot of fun to watch when yours eyes stray from Trucks' guitar work or Susan Tedeschi's lead vocals.

 

I am a huge TTB fan and the drummer interplay is incredible, like guitarists they find their way around each other without getting in each other's way. Suspect it is much easier said than done.

 

Great TTB tribute to Derek's uncle Butch: "Statesboro Blues"....

 

Saw this posted elsewhere today. Great story.

Butch Trucks Talks Music After Allman Brothers, And The Farewell Tour That Never Happened

L4LM: You recently told us about the moment of epiphany you had on the day Duane Allman “reached into [you] and turned [you] on.” Can you tell us more about that?

BT: As you may know, I had played with Duane and Gregg about two years before Duane began putting together the ABB. I wasn’t the most self-assured drummer around back then and when things weren’t really in a groove, I tended to pull back. When Duane showed up with Jaimoe and began putting his band together, at some point he decided he needed two drummers. He had Jaimoe and Jaimoe kept telling him that I was the guy.

Knowing Duane, I don’t think he wanted an insecure player in his band and one day I think he decided to see what I was made of. We were jamming at a top 40 AM radio station outdoors. We started a shuffle and it just didn’t go anywhere. I pulled my usual stunt when that happened and pulled back. Duane whipped around at some point and looked at me dead in the eye and played a very strong lick with little misunderstanding that he was calling me out. My first reaction was to pull back more and then he challenged me again. Then he did it again and I noticed that he was showing me up in front of a lot of people.

I got mad and Duane and I got into a musical fist fight for a while. I was hitting my drums like I was hitting Duane upside the head and he would keep coming back at me. After a few minutes of this, he stepped back smiled at me and said, “there ya go.” The band was soaring. Duane had gotten me so angry I forgot to be scared, and that made all the difference in the power coming from the group. It was like he reached inside me and flicked a switch. The light went off in my head and I realized that I may not be the greatest drummer in the world, but I could play and from that moment on I have never played in fear. After seeing how I handled myself, Duane added me to the mix he had and I have never looked back. If that moment had not happened, I am certain that Duane would have chosen another drummer and my life would have taken another route. That was the kind of man Duane Allman was. He changed people that were lucky enough to know him.

 

Did not know that Detroit Tiger pitcher Virgil "Fire" Trucks was Butch's uncle.

 

There ain't much that beats watching Derek Trucks play guitar.

 

Holy shit. He shot himself in front of his wife

http://pagesix.com/2017/01/26/allma...of-wife/?_ga=1.264812424.643660037.1484939730

 

Totally agree, I have seen him live three times - twice with the Allmans and once with TTB (wish they would come back to Canuckistan) - and he was incredible every time. When we pulled up to their Toronto show in 2013 he was standing in front of the venue shooting the shit with fans. TTB is one of the best live bands on the road today. As great as their albums are they don't come close to capturing what they are like live.

 

Another sad chapter to the Allmans star-crossed history.

 

This live performance really works for me. ... Great cover interpretation, too.

 

They do an amazing version of that one which seems to have disappeared from their setlists but they throw in so many amazing covers with their own material. Incredibly versatile and talented band. And Mike Mattison may be the best blues/R&B/soul singer alive who doesn't have his own band.