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Also posted in the Forum... Headline: Trucks' rock was bound to be blues-tinged By Jeff Spevak Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle Duane Allman was dead before Derek Trucks was born. But Trucks can still hear him. Perhaps it was inevitable that Trucks would absorb the signature sound of Allman's slide guitar. Trucks' uncle is Butch Trucks, The Allman Brothers Band's drummer. So that door was open, and the kid stepped inside. He was a 9-year-old guitar prodigy, sitting in with Buddy Guy at age 12. The circles he moved in included all of the Allmans, among them percussionist Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson, and the legendary roadie Red Dog, who in the early days of the band drove to gigs in his Winnebago. And there was Gregg Allman, who heard the ghost of his brother in Derek Trucks' guitar. These guys had a lot to teach the kid. "I remember early on playing in Gregg's solo band for a while," Trucks says. "I was 14 and went for a ride with him. He stopped the car and he showed me some of his scars, the tracks in his arms." Allman told the kid that maybe his own troubles wouldn't be in vain if people learned from his experiences. Staring at the topographic map on Allman's arms, "That kind of seared it into my brain," Trucks says. Trucks' guitar has been a major part of the Allmans renaissance for more than a decade now. And, as if he wasn't in deep enough with this blues-based rock, he's married into it as well, getting hitched to the guitarist and singer Susan Tedeschi in 2001. They were touring separately for a while, then assembled a big soul and R&B revue called the Soul Stew Revival, which evolved into The Tedeschi Trucks Band, here for a sold-out show Saturday at the Auditorium Theatre. We think of Trucks as a kid, but he's 32. His own kids are ages 9 and 7, and he takes them to their baseball games and violin lessons. A regular guy who lives and dies with his sports teams, it's mostly death these days, Trucks admits, after the Atlanta Braves went into a spectacular slump to miss postseason play. And the hometown Jacksonville Jaguars are off to a 1-5 start in the NFL season. "That teaches you humility," he says. At least Trucks can take matters into his own hands and go fishing. "No possibility of cellphone or email," he says, appreciatively. And he does his patriotic duty, a well-informed citizen who admits he's a loyal Obama Democrat when it comes to politics. "The whole First Amendment thing, once you become a musician, people act like you can't have an opinion," he says with a laugh. "When I go in, I go fully in. I live in Jacksonville, a pretty red area, so many people vote against their economic best interests. They've had the wool pulled over their eyes. It's this weird plot they're following that has nothing to do with reality. And the inside job that led to the financial collapse, that's where my frustration lies." So he knows it's tough economic times, and probably not the right time to put an 11-piece band on the road. But Trucks and Tedeschi are committed to a big sound that includes horns and backing vocals. "I guess it's betting on yourself," he says. This is music rooted in the past. Music collected from lessons learned from a young age. "It's been a pretty wild ride from the beginning," Trucks says. "I remember the first time playing with Gregg, I was 9, maybe 10 years old. His brother was such a big presence, he left us much too young. But he left this voice, and anyone that touches that subliminally, you kind of fall into it in that way. "I spent a good part of my career just physically trying to run away from it. But it's part of your roots and your musical heritage. The further I thought I was getting away from it, the further I was getting into it. I was listening to Ali Akbar Khan, Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and then I find out they were listening to it too. Jaimoe is a massive jazz fan; he has a vast record collection. I'd be hanging out in my hotel room, stereo set up, thinking I'll play him something he doesn't know, and he says, 'Oh yeah, I've got that one.' "I think he was playing that stuff in the Winnebago from the very beginning. And my uncle is a big classical fan. Tunes like 'Mountain Jam' and 'Whipping Post,' they're pretty symphonic in a way. "Essentially, we're all dipping from the same well. The same music that influences me influenced the generation before me. It's going to be the same for the generation after me. Hendrix, Buddy Guy, they were all listening to the guys before. Son House, Hubert Sumlin, they build this foundation. Duane added his name to Elmore James with the slide, digging into it, finding out where it came from." Trucks' conversation has kind of an old soul feel to it, maybe because he started early. He had played with the Allmans, Guy, Bob Dylan and Stephen Stills before he was 20 years old. Yet, "Playing with these guys at a young age was kind of an out-of-the-ordinary gig," Trucks says. "Even though I was really young at the time, you have a few hundred gigs in bars under your belt. Playing 50 nights in a terrible bar in Florida, that becomes you more than sitting in with a guy for one night. In other people's minds, that doesn't count. But in my mind, it adds to the mythology I didn't know." And sure, a part of that mythology is what provides material for VH1: Behind the Music. "People that have lived through this stuff and lived to tell about it, like Gregg, you learn from them," he says. "Eric too, they wrote the book." Trucks and Eric Clapton have been frequent collaborators since they met in 2006. "I find myself, some of my best friends are people that have gone through that. I find I relate with people that have done that. "I don't think you have to bottom out to have that clarity. But when you bottom out, there's a humility that comes with it. You're at the bottom of the ocean looking up. Taking the blinders off. There's something about going through the fire that burns it way through to the truth."