Derek Trucks stands among the most commanding slide guitar players of his generation, known for a style that’s deeply soulful, technically fluid and unmistakably vocal in character.
His foundation was laid early. Before his teens, he was already sharing stages with Buddy Guy and Bob Dylan. By 20, he had joined the Allman Brothers Band, and later co-founded the Tedeschi Trucks Band with his wife, Susan Tedeschi.
Asked how he developed such mastery, Trucks points to several core influences.
“I think it's important to listen to vocalists and have that in mind,” he tells Ultimate Guitar. “It's all ear training, it's all intonation.”
His earliest inspirations were the slide pillars: Elmore James and Duane Allman. From them, he absorbed the fundamentals of lyrical phrasing — the same quality that elevates electric guitarists like David Gilmour..
But the breakthrough came when he turned to Indian classical music.
“Then it was listening to a lot of Indian classical,” he says of his progression. “The sarod is a fretless instrument. That was a great way into the vocalization.”
The sarod’s fluid, gliding phrasing offered Trucks a new expressive vocabulary, one that helped distinguish his guitar style from the slide legends before him.
No figure influenced him more than sarod master Ali Akbar Khan. Trucks first heard Khan at age 14 and called it “a life-changing event.”
“The power of the sound, the dedication and devotion of the musicians — it was so obvious,” Trucks said of Khan's impact upon his death in 2009. “It re-emphasized the belief in what you love about music.
“When I heard the news [of Khan’s death], it was like losing Ray Charles, or John Coltrane, or Charlie Parker, you know? There probably couldn't be two to three musicians like him in the world.”
In a related story, Trucks — along with former Allman Brothers bandmate Warren Haynes — has credited an obscure 1997 album as another game changer for his playing.
