Tedeschi Trucks Band Balance, partner of music and life: NPR

Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks juggle the chaotic life of raising a family while facing the Grammy Award winner Tedeschi Trucks. The last album of the band, Signs, made public on February 15, explores this balance while transforming grief and confusion into art.

The married group leaders are linked to some of the biggest names in blues rock. Their story began with The Allman Brothers Band, a legendary rock band with which Trucks played in the late 90's. At the time, Tedeschi was their first part.

"Derek had actually started with the Allman Brothers in June 1999, just around his twentieth birthday, and I was 28 years old." Said Tedeschi. "I told him that he was too young for me, but everyone knows he's older than me."

During their first years together, Tedeschi and Trucks played in separate groups. Both, however, pursued a distinctive style of blues, a little more traditional and a little purer than other artists. "We were lucky because we were incredibly muscular," says Trucks. "And it still works."

The couple's decision to merge their professional lives came after 10 years of marriage and having two children together. In the busy decade preceding the formation of the Tedeschi Trucks group, the couple remembers having made a lot of "parental relays" while Trucks was in three groups, playing with the Allman Brothers group in 2006 and Eric Clapton in 2007.

The Tedeschi Trucks Group plays "When am I going to start?" Live In-Studio

Tedeschi Trucks Perform & # 39; Hard Case & # 39; Live In-Studio

"I mean, we were both a little nervous," recalls Tedeschi. "But if anything, we love each other better than others.We realized that because we were so much on the road in our lives, it was nice not to be on the phone so much [together] in person."

Trucks is now 39 years old and Tedeschi, 47 years old; both are at an age when their older mentors, like Gregg Allman, are dying around them. Kofi Burbridge, a long-time keyboard player and flautist with the Tedeschi Trucks group, also recently died at the age of 57, the same day Signs has been freed.

Tedeschi and Trucks say that these losses were in their minds when they wrote their last album. and for the group. "The trucks said." All the lyrics were raw and breathtaking.

Signs is now available via Fantasy Records.