"it's understood Derek is going to be the final decision maker and we all trust him to do the right thing

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tedeschi-trucks-band-recharges-after-the-allman-brothers-1452788818

The Tedeschi Trucks Band Recharges After the Allman Brothers
Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi talk about their new album, ‘Let Me Get By’

By ALAN PAUL
Jan. 14, 2016 11:26 a.m. ET

For most of his 15-year tenure with the Allman Brothers Band, Derek Trucks hunched over his guitar without expression, like a six-string monk. He joined that band in 1999 for their 30th anniversary tour when he was just 19. He had already been on the road for eight years.

The once-reserved prodigy is front and center now. After the Allmans played their last shows in October of 2014 at the Beacon Theater in New York, he turned his full attention to the family enterprise, the Tedeschi Trucks Band (TTB).

As TTB prepares to release its third album, “Let Me Get By,” his leadership on stage is clear. He stalks the band, signaling players and cueing parts like a conductor. Mr. Trucks, now 36 years old, says that it wasn’t entirely coincidental that the Tedeschi Trucks Band took off after his Allman Brothers commitment ended.

“I had been wanting to focus on one band for years,” he says. “Once the decision was made to end the Allman Brothers, I just wanted the final run to be strong. When we pulled it off, I had a huge sense of relief and then I strongly felt the cord being cut.”

His independence had been building for some time. Mr. Trucks married Susan Tedeschi, a successful blues and soul singer, in 2001. Seven years later he plowed the money he earned touring the world as a member of Eric Clapton’s band into building a first-class studio behind their Jacksonville, Fla. home.

The Tedeschi Trucks Band at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2015
That decision was aimed at balancing the couple’s careers as touring musicians with a family life centered around their two children. The next big step was shelving two successful solo careers to form the Tedeschi Trucks Band in 2010. They produced two albums, 2011’s “Revelator,” which earned a Grammy as best blues album, and 2013’s “Made Up Mind.”

He says he treasured his years with the Allman Brothers, but the band’s legacy of illness and death, going back to Duane Allman’s motorcycle crash in 1971, weighed on him. “It’s been really nice to get away from that heaviness,” he says. “I felt liberated as we got home and started writing this record, a feeling that has definitely fueled everything we’ve done since.”

The new album (Concord/Fantasy), due out Jan. 29, reflects the transformation: It’s a varied collection of songs that sounds cohesive even while gliding through rock, soul, blues, jazz and world music.

“We just wrote songs and let them go where they wanted,” says Mr. Trucks. “Holding our attention and inspiring us were the only criteria.”

Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes Perform ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’
Adds Ms. Tedeschi: “There’s a lot more improvisation and a lot more diversity in the songwriting.”

Mr. Trucks handled the producing duties for “Let Me Get By,” balancing a loose approach—building songs out of studio and soundcheck jams, including instrumental interludes—with studio techniques. For instance, rather than simply capturing a live sound, Mr. Trucks often overdubs multiple guitar parts.

“We wanted it to sound like a record, not a live show” says Ms. Tedeschi.

Both musicians say that such experimentation came easily working in their home studio, where they don’t have to worry about a running meter.

“It doesn’t feel like recording, which can be intimidating and very time-sensitive,” says Ms. Tedeschi. “Having a band be comfortable and confident is everything.”

The 12-person group includes two drummers, bass, keyboards, a three-person horn section and three background singers, a format that took some adjustments from both leaders. Ms. Tedeschi, whose vocal style has been compared with Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt, has learned to lay back and sometimes let the other singers finish a line. Similarly, Mr. Trucks picks his spots for extended solos, often flashing pithy lines or playing off a horn chart, vocal or keyboard.

The band, which sold out the 2,894-seat Beacon Theater four nights this past fall, will be on tour in the U.S. until early March before heading to Asia and Australia, returning in April. A major summer tour will be announced soon. The band improvises frequently through their widening repertoire of original music as well as songs from the catalog of Derek and the Dominos, Joe Cocker, Leonard Cohen and others.

While everyone in TTB has their moments to shine and can add input any time, Ms. Tedeschi says that there is no mistaking where the buck stops:

“It’s understood that Derek is going to be our final decision maker and we all trust him to do the right thing.”