The Derek Trucks Band

“I think, especially for the last four or five years, it’s been kind of an intentional move to not end up there. Especially with this band, we feel more comfortable just playing music that we want to play, that we feel strongly about, rather than give in and play what everybody expects you to play,” said Trucks, whose performing style flows from the blues and jazz to funk and the exotic sounds of east Indian music.

“And I think, hopefully, it’s a longevity issue, too. I hope, doing this, we can be around as long as we can keep it together. I definitely hope to be out with this band or some incarnation of this band for a long time to come 20, 30 years,” he said of his five-man outfit. “It’s nice to have chemistry with a few musicians. It’s something you can’t force and it’s hard to find.”

So while Trucks isn’t necessarily a household name in the commercial world of six-string blues prodigies, his achievements are in a world all their own. As The Derek Trucks Band, he and his fellow cohorts tour clubs, theatres and festivals, performing more than 200 gigs a year. Trucks has shared the stage with many great performers: Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker, Phish, Phil Lesh, and Buddy Guy, to name a few. And then there’s the Allman Brothers Band, which Trucks toured with as a lead guitarist last summer. He’s out again with the blues-jam masters this season.

Trucks, the nephew of Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks, speaks like a seasoned musician more than twice his age someone who’s been around the block a few times, musically speaking. “I think a lot of people get into [music] and it just kind of sucks them up; they’re just kind of in it, and I don’t think they realize why they’re doing it,” he told POLLSTAR. “Because there’s so much hype and there’s so much ego … I think a lot of people lose sight of what it’s about.”

With his namesake band, Trucks and company create a sound that fully incorporates all members, not leaving him to bask in the spotlight alone. The Atlanta-based group includes bassist Todd Smallie, drummer Yonrico Scott, keyboardist and vocalist Bill McKay and Kofi Burbridge on the flute and keyboards.

“I’ve kind of studied him, looked at a lot of his old tapes, when he was like 12 and 13,” Scott, 44, said of Trucks. “He’s always had a good band, but it was almost like the band wasn’t his sound yet. … It took about two years and then we got a sound that melded around him. We were using everybody’s personalities.”

Scott, who’s beat the skins for artists such as Tinsley Ellis, Peabo Bryson, and Nappy Brown, explained the group’s simmering popularity. “We’re trying to do it a different way. We’re just not trying to get it on MTV. We’re not trying to do it like, all of a sudden this is really big. We’ve been doing a gradual thing, where we’ve been building faithful fans, because we don’t do any cheesy stuff. It’s an artistic form. We don’t really talk between songs; we got a thing of melding. So when you listen to us, it sounds like an event, not just a gig. … It’s crazy, man. We have a very blessed camp.”

Other notable members of The Derek Trucks Band’s camp are group manager Blake Budney, who replaced former manager Bonky Odom; agent Wayne Forte of Entourage Talent Associates; legal eagle Kelly Elder; road manager and sound engineer Marty Wall; and production manager Joe Main. “Blake worked as our road manager. … He has a love for artistic music,” Scott said. “Wayne has been really good for us.”

Trucks is in a unique and enviable situation: supporting a solo career that allows complete musical freedom, while being a seasonal member of the legendary Allman Brothers Band, providing an outlet to hone his chops on a host of classic tunes. “It’s worked out really well. [The Allman Brothers Band doesn’t] play enough where I have to choose between the two bands, because I definitely wouldn’t want to be in that position,” Trucks said. “I don’t think that I could give up what we’re doing with this band.”

Trucks envisions a long road ahead with his band. “I’m definitely glad it didn’t take off early on because there were a few points where it looked like it might turn into, you know, (the same thing that happened to) some of the younger guitar players,” he said.

“I think I needed the time to mature musically and just not have all that going on. I think it’s better to just go out and play music and get with a band and just figure out what you’re really into it for … before you’re stuck playing something the rest of your life.”