“I was lucky to play with my heroes at 9 years old. I remember doing shows with Buddy Guy and Bob Dylan”: Derek Trucks recalls playing with the greats from an early age – and the lesson he learned from Buddy Guy that influenced his entire sound
Sharing the stage with his heroes taught Trucks a wealth of valuable lessons – and also showed him the difference between mediocre players and the greats
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Many nine-year-old guitarists dream of shredding on stage with their electric guitar heroes, but very few get to live that reality – let alone at that age.
As part of the second generation of talents to play in The Allman Brothers Band, Derek Trucks’ story is much different. Indeed, by the time he was legally able to buy a drink, he’d already played live with Buddy Guy, Bob Dylan and a handful of other greats.
“I was really lucky to play with a lot of my heroes early,” Trucks tells the Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett on a new episode of the Shred With Shifty podcast. “I started touring at nine or 10 years old, and remember doing shows with Buddy Guy and sitting in with Bob Dylan at 11.”
It proved to be an incredible early boost to Trucks’ resume, which got Shiflett wondering: at such a young age, was he encouraged to show off his talents, or did he recoil into the background?
“I was reserved naturally so they would have to pull you out of your shell a little bit,” he replies. ”Buddy Guy was always great about that. He’d let you know, like, ‘Get your ass out here.’
“What I remember about Buddy Guy is, we were playing a lot of small blues clubs in the early ’90s. He hadn’t really had [his] big resurgence yet. When he wanted, he would bring the band down to a whisper. I could hear the amps humming.”
In that moment, Guy instilled what would eventually become a core characteristic of Trucks’ playing into the baby-faced guitarist.
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“I remember that discipline and that use of dynamics just being a huge thing that went off in my head. It’s powerful when you can bring things down to that level but still hold the intensity. Then when you take the lid off of it, it’s a big trip that you've taken.
Derek Trucks on touring with Eric Clapton | Shred With Shifty - YouTube
“I'm lucky,” he repeats. “I’m sure there were people along the way that were less inviting, but those were usually the mediocre musicians. The great ones are usually really confident in their shoes and they’re like, ‘Come on, what you got?’”
Guy has a long history of supporting the next generation of blues guitar players. Earlier this year he linked up with Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram for a Fender promo, and during their chat he recalled how Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page all rushed out to buy Fender Stratocasters after they saw him play.
A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He's also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.
