Guest Book

HEADLINE: LIVIN' ON BLUES POWER -- SUSAN TEDESCHI BREAKS OUT WITH HER MOST AGGRESSIVE RECORD YET By Scott Mervis Pittsburgh Post-Gazette When Susan Tedeschi set out to make her fifth record, there was no thought to setting her sights low. In fact, with "Back to the River," the singer-guitarist seemed to be shooting for the stars -- both alive and dead. "There were a lot of directions I wanted to go in and one was to make it more of a rock record," she says, "like Derek and the Dominos, Delaney and Bonnie, Janis, Jimi Hendrix, whatever, more of that time period -- and still incorporate the blues mixed in with trying to create great stories, song-telling, Bob Dylan kind of style." Derek and the Dominos meets Janis meets Bob Dylan is a tough trick to pull off, but just in the attempt Tedeschi has made the most ambitious record of her career. Most people will think of classic Joplin when they hear her bold bluesy vocals on songs like "Talking About" and "There's a Break in the Road." The fact that Tedeschi also is playing the aggressive guitar licks only adds to her appeal. To fashion this as a harder blues-rock outing, Tedeschi hired producer George Drakoulias, who has worked with the likes of Screaming Trees, Jayhawks, The Black Crowes and Tom Petty. She also went off on writing sessions with Joe Leventhal (best known for his work with Shawn Colvin), swamp-rock veteran Tony Joe White, the Jayhawks' Gary Louris and, of course, Tedeschi's talented husband, Derek Trucks. Just imagine this Tedeschi-Trucks household, where the two young children might just have the best guitar-playing parents on the planet. "Usually, I'll bounce stuff off of him," Tedeschi says of Trucks. "I'll say, 'Honey, do you like these songs?' And he'll be real supportive, like 'Those songs are great' or 'I really like this song here, but it needs a bridge.' That's what happened with 'Butterfly.' I was playing it in pre-production for the record and Derek was like, 'Honey, can I play on that with you?' and we went out to our backyard, to the studio, and Derek said, 'Why don't we add this bridge?' He put in this Curtis Mayfield-y bridge, and it opened the whole song up. We ended up keeping the demo and put it on the record." Tedeschi, a Boston native who formed her band in 1994, met Trucks in 1999 when she was opening for the Allman Brothers, just one of the bands he plays in, and they married in 2001. In addition to playing with Trucks in Soul Stew Revival, it's not unusual to find Tedeschi now jamming with the Allmans and other luminaries of the jam and blues scenes, from the Dead to B.B. King. What has she gained from these associations? "Friendship, knowledge, insight and awareness ... and humility," she says with a laugh. "You gain a lot of things when you play with people like that. It really humbles you in a lot of ways and makes you realize, 'How did I get so lucky -- just to meet these people let along share stages with them?' I feel like I've gained a ton from the Allman Brothers. What an amazing band." It's not lost on Tedeschi that the jam scene is a male-dominated world that's hard for a woman to crack. She laughs about how "I've forced myself to find female role models" -- like Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson, Joplin, Big Mama Thornton and Bonnie Raitt -- "because I felt like I was too male-dominated, listening to Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Otis Rush and Freddie King and Albert Collins and Johnny Guitar Watson and Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton and my husband. It's like, oh my god, men, men, men!" She has just the right upbringing, though, to equip her for jamming with the big boys. "I've always been part of the boys club," she says. "I don't know why. I've always wanted to play with the boys. I think because I grew up with two older brothers. As a woman you have to work harder 'cause you have to keep up. On another level, I have a lot of advantages because I am a woman. I can hang out with Buddy Guy and B.B. King and Willie Nelson, probably because I'm a woman," she adds with a laugh. "I don't think if I was a guy, I'd really be hanging out with them as much. I definitely have some power as a woman."