Light On Dark Water

Weekend Music

Trying to drink from the fire hose of inexpensive music over the past ten years or so inevitably causes me to give less attention to a lot of music that really deserves more. One instance is the self-titled first album by the Derek Trucks Band. I played it a few times when I got it some years ago (almost free in eMusic’s early days), mostly while I was doing something else, and was impressed, but never really listened to it closely. Well, for some reason I latched on to it last week and listened to it in the car.

Wow. This album was made when Derek Trucks was eighteen, and it’s enough to put him in the ranks of greatest slide guitar players ever. It’s basically a sort of jazz fusion, which is not my favorite kind of music in general, but man…the guitar work is just mind-boggling. His speed and precision are astonishing, and it’s not just empty virtuosity, it’s got heart. Not to mention nerve: not many 18-year-old musicians would venture to record tunes written and completely owned by John Coltrane (“Mr. P.C.”, “Naima”) and Miles Davis (“So What”). I won’t say his versions rival the originals, but he certainly does something respectable and worthwhile with them.

I couldn’t find anything from this album on YouTube, but I did find a video of the fifteen-year-old Derek Trucks and his band doing “Mr. P.C” in what seems to be a club of some kind. The performance on The Derek Trucks Band is considerably more impressive than this, but you can certainly see what was coming. Fifteen years old.

The Wikipedia bio is worth reading. He was a genuine prodigy. Here’s another one, when he had just barely turned fourteen: