Unquestionably the most formidable husband/wife team in the history of southern rock and blues music, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi have put together a new band which is officially scheduled to hit the road in the spring and summer of 2011 with a studio album soon to follow. The first generation of this new lineup made appearances at some of the most prestigious festivals of last year including New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest, Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Fest, Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, and Japan’s Fuji Rock Fest. In addition, Derek and Susan collaborated with Herbie Hancock on his "Imagine Project," performing with the jazz master at high profile events such as "Late Night with David Letterman" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," as well as both of his 70th birthday parties held at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Trucks' slide guitar playing is second to none. He has led his own The Derek Trucks Band for over 15 years, has been the slide guitarist for the Allman Brothers Band for more than ten, toured the world with Eric Clapton” and was featured on the cover of the 2007 Rolling Stone “New Guitar Gods” issue. Combine that with Trucks’ 6th studio album release (“Already Free”) debuting at #19 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart and it’s no wonder why he is the youngest musician to date to make Rolling Stones list of “Top 100 Guitarists of All Time”.
Tedeschi has risen to fame with multiple Grammy Award nominations. Her powerful singing voice and fearless stage presence have made her one of the most stirring soul and blues musicians of our time. Add her knack for musical truth telling and her commanding guitar playing, and you have an artist who is quickly taking her place as the new generation’s greatest female blues guitar/singer and, perhaps, one of the best ever.
With the added accolade of individual 2010 Grammy Award nominations (The Derek Trucks Band eventually winning in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category with Tedeschi having contributed vocals to the cause), this duo will undoubtedly take the world by storm and are poised to become one of the greatest husband and wife performing duos of all time.
Robert Randolph ~ We Walk This Road Artist Notes
This record is a celebration of African-American music over the past one hundred years and its social messages from the last thirty. Although we cover a whole timeline of different eras on We Walk This Road, what ties these songs together remain their message of hope, their ability to uplift. After we finished our last record, Colorblind, we began searching for a great producer to help guide the follow up. We wanted someone who understood me and the road I’ve walked this far, who understood our connections of my roots within rock and gospel and the church, who would help us put those things in their most compelling context.
T Bone Burnett shared the vision of how gospel, blues and rock could be put together in a way that could relate to my history and connect to my present. It was important to us that we make the record we wanted to make, even if the end result was unclassifiable. We just focused on making great songs and great music that spoke to me, and that reflected the way I try to speak to the world. We recorded We Walk This Road over about two years, after T Bone had finished his record with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. We went into the studio with virtual libraries of songs, whole volumes worth of material to go through. T Bone brought in old archival songs from the twenties and thirties and many of them were in the public domain. I had songs that I had written with the band, or that other artists had sent me, and we sat down and starting sifting through history. Read more...
Robert Randolph & the Family Band
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Who are these guys, anyway?
The story of Kings Go Forth starts with the afore mentioned Andy Noble. He was born, raised and still lives in Milwaukee, and probably knows more about classic soul, funk, and R&B than anyone you’ve ever met. He’s a dedicated record collector, an independent label entrepreneur, and the proprietor of the fabled Lotus Land record shop. If you’re looking for someone to provide discographical details of, say, the Magic Hat label or to sing the praises of some long-vanished vocalist from Memphis or Birmingham or Cleveland, then Andy’s your man. He’s that into it.
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Born and raised near Chattanooga, TN, J. Roddy Walston is the only limb left on the once-proud family tree of the Roddy clan. It was in the Smoky Mountain hollers of Tennessee that he was raised on the “Music of God” and taught to play rock and roll by the hand of the Devil. As a child, his grandmother turned down the Grand Ole Opry to sing only for God and family, while his uncle chose to drink himself to death in the real honky-tonks rather than heed the calls of the Nashville hit-makers that constantly beckoned. After young Roddy watched both punctuate their refusals with the business end of a shotgun, he decided not to let the family die nameless.
In as much an attempt to bring due credit to his kin as a desire to rebel against what they stood for, he moved from the shadows and secrets of the South into the spotlight and temptations of the North. Whether by divine appointment or a cocktail devised by the Devil, no one knows, but by the time he reached Baltimore, a vicious band of players had gathered around him. First was his northern right-hand-man, Billy Gordon, a guitar player with a formidable pedigree himself. Next, taking his place on bass, was Zach Westphal, who sings like a bird but plays like he’s fighting a hellhound set on taking him back to Montana. Rounding out the troop to hold down the steady beat was Steve Colmus, a southpaw with an affinity for chew and a strong snare hand. Together, they’ve been begging rock n’ roll to respect its past and teaching old music new tricks.
Meanwhile, Baltimore really is a rough town, and the violence of the city and sheer muscle of the band’s live show has turned them into nothing less than a modern Rock n’ Roll Miracle. Every time they strike a note it’s as though goat piss is turning into gasoline. With all the conviction of a holy ghost revival and the persuasive ability of your high school bully, J Roddy Walston and the Business have come to hail themselves The Megaboys of Rock’n’Roll!
J. Roddy Walston and The Business
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Tom Larsen has been a major player on the East Coast music scene for the last twenty-five years. Originally a solo performer, Larsen specialized in the acoustic blues of the 1920’s and 1930’s covering such artists as Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell. Tom’s expanding love of blues music soon moved him to add the electric styling of Muddy Waters, Guitar Slim and B.B. King. Tom became especially noted for his intricate, clean slide guitar playing and for his ability to play harmonica and guitar simultaneously. Besides performing his solo blues act, this was a period of intense wood shedding as Tom taught himself electric guitar by listening to old blues records from the 60’s and 70’s.
Tom’s first public electric guitar gig was a stint with a black gospel group in the late 70’s. In his travels to churches around Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, his exposure to gospel’s impassioned vocals was to inspire his singing forever. Then one night in June of 1979, Tom decided to spice up his solo act by inviting a couple of his gospel buddies to back him up on bass guitar and drums for a set of electric blues. The response was immediate and overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and that night the Tom Larsen Blues Band was born.
In the late 70’s most people had not been exposed to blues, so from the start the idea was to present the music in an entertaining way that would get the audience to party and above all make them dance. Tom’s performing developed during this era when a performer had to reach out and involve the audience in order to win them over and keep their attention. Tom quickly became known for his showmanship, which included walking around the club playing slide guitar with outrageous objects.
As a bandleader, Tom realized early that it was futile to try and get local musicians to sound like old records. Tom developed a knack for getting the best available talent and showcasing each musician’s forte during the show. Eventually, the blending of Tom’s blues vocals, harp and guitar with the funk bass styles and aggressive drumming in vogue during the 70’s and 80’s evolved into what is now the signature Larsen sound; upbeat danceable blues driven by a tight, progressive rhythm section. Although his personnel have changed over the years, this highly original style has remained constant.
Along with this fusion of music styles came experimentation with original songs and by the mid 80’s Tom was writing and performing his own material. His repertoire had always included highly original versions of other artist’s songs, so the step to creating his own tunes was an easy one. Tom’s music has been covered by Johnny Winter and recorded by Delbert McClinton, Roy Buchannan, and Tinsley Ellis. His music has been featured in movie soundtracks, commercials, and many of his songs are in the repertoires of regional acts looking to perk up their shows with a Larsen tune. On any given night his show will be predominantly, if not totally, all-original. In the past few years Tom has returned to his roots, paying tribute to his original influences by adding the classic blues, funk and soul he cut his teeth on, to the delight of the band’s many fans.
Starting in the 70’s, throughout the 80’s and 90’s and now well into the new century, Tom Larsen is still on the cutting edge of modern blues. Not content to follow the rules and copy the old styles, Tom continues to forge his own trail in the blues world.
