Fans and critics have known for a long time that the Tedeschi Trucks Band is capable of a major Americana effort. After various strong albums, the powerful-voiced soul singer Susan Tedeschi and blues rock guitar virtuoso Derek Trucks have now reached their goal.
The sheer mass of material alone makes this album project the opus magnum of the Tedeschi Trucks Band (TTB), which is already famous for its epic works: 24 original songs, spread over four records, so a total of more than two hours of music are on the horizon for «I Am The Moon» Listen.
And in fact, the twelve great musicians of this blues rock ensemble seem to have reached a creative climax that many fans had been striving for and longingly awaited for a long time.
Blues Grammy for debut album
Actually since “Revelator” (2011), a famous debut, which the big band around the powerhouse singer Susan Tedeschi (51) and her husband Derek Trucks (42) on the electric guitar equal to a blues Grammy and place 12 in the native USA brought in. Strong albums like “Made Up Mind” (2013) or “Let Me Get By” (2016) followed, before they finally dared to approach a pop sanctuary: the Tedeschi Trucks Band played “Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs” live in whole one. And the band actually did it, Derek’s 50-year-old classic
Not only in the States, where their grooving music is audibly rooted, but also in Germany, TTB regularly make it into the album charts. Surely that has something to do with the fact that their songs and selected cover versions are played and sung incredibly well – but on the other hand they don’t sound aloof or unapproachably virtuosic at all. “I Am The Moon” is by no means a vainly self-satisfied niche project, no matter how bombastic the idea and sometimes the production.
There are enough genres in which the Tedeschi Trucks Band is adept, even masters: “Blues, rock, jazz, soul, gospel, funk, country, various types of African music and even Indian music” has the well-known online poplexicon Allmusic from the heard from a good ten career years of the couple and their comrades-in-arms. On «I Am The Moon», too, timbres and moods are changed again in a stylish manner from song to song.
Inspired by mythical history
The mammoth project, which will be released over several weeks – from the beginning of June to the end of August – is “inspired by a mythical Persian story about an unhappily in love couple and emotionally driven by the isolation and seclusion of the pandemic era,” says the label. “The decision to release “I Am The Moon” in four different episodes came about when we were thinking about records we love,” says guitarist Trucks (42), who also played with the Allman Brothers Band. As an example, he cites “Axis: Bold as Love” from the Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967).
Based on the albums «I. Crescent” and “II. Ascension», the Tedeschi Trucks Band has now secured a top spot in the big Americana and blues rock league. And obviously quite relaxed: “You always want to do something bigger and thematic,” says Trucks about the ambitious studio work in Jacksonville/Florida. “This is the first time it has happened naturally.”
