{"id":7331,"date":"2016-04-15T15:57:13","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T15:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=7331"},"modified":"2016-04-17T14:08:49","modified_gmt":"2016-04-17T14:08:49","slug":"tedeschi-trucks-articulates-their-full-voice-and-vision-on-let-me-get-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=7331","title":{"rendered":"Tedeschi Trucks articulates their full voice and vision on “Let Me Get By”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Susan Tedeschi\u2019s soul-stirring voice soars and dips more majestically than ever, on an eagle\u2019s wing. Listen to \u201cAnyhow.\u201d It\u2019s a broken heart with tenacious muscles. Time after time, Derek Trucks\u2019 slide guitar solos, searing and catchy, nail a song’s heart. Kofi Burbridge’s sinuously gleaming flute emerges periodically like a spectral angel. The band\u2019s a glorious monster, like we\u2019ve never quite experienced before. Yet there\u2019s more, much more.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve watched The Tedeschi Trucks Band grow before our eyes into the 12-musician offspring of the most blessed musical couple in American music. I\u2019m hardly alone in thinking they\u2019re the best performing band we have today. It\u2019s also amazing how they become so great so fast, even while still coalescing. Their collective and individual talents have slashed through and absorbed thickets of influences, up the mountain to the roots-rock summit. Then, they reach out to pull you up with them. Their path betrays the sheer toil of inspired dedication, performing on the road for more than 200 days for the fifth straight year in 2015 — and they’re currently on another summer-long tour.<\/p>\n

On Let Me Get By<\/em>, their third studio recording, \u00a0they articulate overarching purpose and meaning more clearly than ever.\u00a0That statement is quite evident on the basic album, as it should be. But it becomes more fully realized in the album\u2019s two-disc deluxe edition, which includes eight bonus tracks, three of them live concert performances, and a David Bowie cover. I\u2019ll address the bonus material in a second post, to try getting a handle on a great collective group finding its fullest self. Remember, TTB\u2019s reputation remains foremost as a live band, despite their Grammy for their 2011 debut studio album Revelator<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Cover of the two CD deluxe box of “Let Me Get By.” amazon.com<\/em><\/p>\n

The new album title and cover say something like \u201cunchain your heart!\u201d A Mongolian golden eagle has broken free from its master\u2019s glove, and seems bound for new heights — bound for glory, as the band put it, on a great song from Revelator<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Let Me Get By\u2019 actually refers to a lot of things,\u201d says Trucks in their website profile, \u201clike the band becoming more self-reliant than ever before\u2014writing our own songs and producing our own music in our own studio. It\u2019s about moving on to a new recording label (Fantasy\/Concord) with a deal that gives us more freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely took time for us to get here. I think the connections we have in this band and among the crew and extended family are the real reason why.\u201d<\/p>\n

His spouse and band co-leader, singer\/guitarist Susan Tedeschi comments, \u201cDerek hears everything from a big picture stance. Not just track-by-track but the album as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Trucks: It\u2019s a bunch of different true stories meshed into one.\u201d<\/p>\n

So much feel-good P.R. talk? Listen closely, after you\u2019ve felt the music, and judge for yourself.\u00a0The road-tested communal feeling Trucks speaks of feeds into the band\u2019s ethical worldview, which seems more clearly crystallized on Let Me Get By<\/em>. Lyricist and background singer Mike Mattison\u2019s emergence speaks plenty about the band\u2019s step forward. He gets his first two lead-vocal spotlights on a TTB album (on \u201cCrying Over You\u201d and \u201cRight On Time\u201d), and his increasing mastery as a lyricist and songwriter is more central than ever to the band’s vision. Despite their prodigious musicianship and Trucks \u201cguitar hero\u201d status, they funnel those powers into the songs, and a sense that the collective sound fuels human aspirations.<\/p>\n

Even vocalist Tedeschi, like her spouse, seems lacking in typical leader ego. She started a kind of joke about her joy and gratitude, Trucks says. \u201cAfter shows, she started to say to everyone, \u2018Thanks for letting me be in your band\u2019 and we\u2019d all laugh. Now we all say it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joy and gratitude ooze from Let Me Get By,<\/em> amid more complex emotions, and as qualities that might help heal and make a difference in a deeply injured earth and troubled society.<\/p>\n

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Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi at Red Rocks Amphitheater in 2015. Courtesy iwebradio.fm\/Kell Yeah Photography<\/em><\/p>\n

Hear the clarion call of Tedeschi bracing opening note of \u201cAnyhow\u201d signaling the \u201cwreckage in my soul\u201d: Running from a bitter taste\/took a rest from all the chase\/feeling something anchored in my soul.\/ played the game by all the\/learning lessons no one gets to choose. <\/em>The song continues about a personal relationship, but that first verse can speak to anyone in the economic 99% feeling betrayed by the game and its rules — the rigged system — whether you lean left or right. The song goes on to speak of cold-hearted desperation among the unemployed and even working poor, and invokes Biblical myth: \u201cCain and Abel lit the flame\/we can never go that way again.\u201d This clearly references brother-on-brother crime, whether it is inner-city shootings, police brutality\/homicide, or white-collar financial betrayal.<\/p>\n

Yet \u201cAnyhow\u201d is an absolute soul-stirrer — not a downer. And TTB doesn\u2019t preach, they understand the philosophic pause and the medicine of laughter, in the ensuing \u201cLaugh About It.\u201d This band\u2019s ethically-driven sort of communal political synergy resonates from the rapturous gospel choruses right into the groundswell roar of the Bernie Sanders political movement, a sense of empowerment and transformation.<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Here is The\u00a0Tedeschi Trucks Band in a NPR Tiny Desk Concert, performing “Just as Strange,” “Don’t Know What it Means,” and “Anyhow” from the album “Let Me Get By”:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2016\/03\/24\/471725403\/tedeschi-trucks-band-tiny-desk-concert<\/a><\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

The instrumental break in “Laugh About It” shows how tight and rich their grooves and arrangements have become, with Truck\u2019s guitar quick-stepping through horn and rhythm counter-punches.\u00a0You can dance along to it or your music head can marvel. And Susan does laugh about it at the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t Know What It Means\u201d shows this band reaching new heights in its pop appeal, in the power of call-and-response. The refrain glows with as much warm infectiousness as a vintage Sly and the Family Stone song, another collective-oriented stylistic precursor. That refrain melody descends like the slowing last yards of an exhilarating roller coaster ride, and the rhythmic hand-clapping helps turn that dynamic into a Juneteenth Day gospel-infused parade.<\/p>\n

The lyric continues the previous song\u2019s laugh-it-off wound-licking: If the story feels exactly like a dream\/ don\u2019t know what it means\u2026 And you can\u2019t just turn the page and let it go\/ things that you\u2019ve been told\/ deep down in your soul.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Rather, it\u2019s time to strategize: \u201cDon\u2019t make your move too early\u201d or you may \u201csurely lose your way.\u201d And the shyster or con man may be poised to snooker the unwittingly earnest.\u00a0Yet TTB believes self-empowerment perseveres: Now don\u2019t look down in the dirt\/ just to find out what you\u2019re worth\u2026 To work hard and do it right\/ learn to speak up and fight\/ the truth is gonna beat them down the line.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

If that sounds preachy to some, it\u2019s hardly fire-and-brimstone browbeating. Rather, it the sort of uplift that even the ostensibly angry American black writer James Baldwin articulated in the voice of his preacher father-figure in his transformative 1962 novel Another Country<\/em>. The black minister\u2019s own son had committed suicide, yet the father counselled his congregation, all grieving his own son\u2019s death: \u201cDon\u2019t lose heart, dear ones, don\u2019t let it make you bitter, try to understand. The world\u2019s already bitter enough. We got to try to be better than the world ‘\u2026Except for someone — a man weeping in the front row — there was silence all over the chapel\u2026” 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

You find no comparable moments of low-key compassion on this recording, as this band has achieved on their brilliant story-song \u201cMidnight in Harlem.\u201d But the new \u201cbunch of different true stories\u201d now mesh into a bramble-strewn path rising toward sunlight.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearn to speak up and fight\u201d can mean collective song<\/em> as much as righteous chants. A group of remarkably persevering protest singers in Madison, WI have assembled every noon each weekday at The Capitol building for five years — over 1,300 consecutive weekdays — to sing. The Solidarity Sing Along sustains the spirit of the original massive protests of Gov. Scott Walker\u2019s collective bargaining-busting, anti-education Act 10 \u201crepair bill\u201d — which has helped decimate and polarize my home state. The Sing Along\u2019s 60-plus song repertoire ranges from Woody Guthrie\u2019s \u201cThis Land is Your Land\u201d to adapted country blues classics and a Ramones song, to originals by participants. The Act 10 bill and its 100,000 protesters helped inspire Occupy Wall Street and now the Bernie Sanders \u201crevolution.\u201d 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

TTB\u2019s solidarity stresses human commonality, via a collective gathering of cultural tribes, from Tedeschi\u2019s ex-gospel choir singer-cum-blues mama roots to Trucks\u2019 voraciously wide-ranging \u201cbig picture stance.\u201d Trucks rose from country-blues bottleneck guitar to Allman Brothers’ band trademarks \u2013 gutsy singing, swampy blues, pealing guitar riffs for modal flights. And his Coltrane\/Shankar micro-tonalities help summon this band\u2019s patented \u201cswamp ragas.\u201d That simmering instrumental vocabulary facilitates exquisitely meditative introductions or segues, which help embrace a more worldly cultural vision.<\/p>\n

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Flutist-keyboardist Kofi Burbridge highlights “Swamp Raga for Holzapfel, Flute and Harmonium” on “Let Me Get By.”\u00a0Courtesy Wikipedia.com<\/em><\/p>\n

And all the band members seem attuned to the wellsprings of the blues, \u201860s-\u201870s gospel and R& B, free and funk-jazz, and modern pop-rock, epitomized, of course, by the Beatles.<\/p>\n

Which leads me to album\u2019s next song, the slightly tipsy rollick of \u201cRight on Time,\u201d Mattison\u2019s vocal seems to channel John Lennon\u2019s gentle side, \u201cWhat is it that you lack? What is it that you seek?\u201d Then, the gently bouncing harmonized refrain: \u201cDoes a smile come alive when you share the wine..?\u201d and a \u201cHey!\u201d refrain, with woozy dance-hall horns. The whole effect, the George Martin-esque arrangement, could\u2019ve fit right into Magical Mystery Tour<\/em> or even The White Album.<\/em>\u00a0Heresy? So sue me.<\/p>\n

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Lyricist and backup singer Mike Mattison of Tedeschi Trucks Band gets two lead vocal spotlights on “Let Me Get By.”\u00a0Courtesy pghintune.wordpress.com\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

For blues-rock buffs who fear they\u2019re getting too cute, the title song is another full-throated empowerment barn burner. \u201cLet me get by\/cuz time won\u2019t wait!\u201d And then, they pause again, for a reality check. \u201cJust as Strange,\u201d co-written by Doyle Bramhall\u00a0II, is a stripped-down Robert Johnson-like wail about abject craving for sex or drugs, as pure \u00a0bedevilment.<\/p>\n

Mattison\u2019s fervent lead vocal on \u201cCrying Over You\u201d with the deliciously cheesy line \u201cI caught you snooping \u2018round swimming pool\u201d segues to a lovely, haunting\u00a0swamp-raga. The album\u2019s last few songs tread in lost-romance\/relationship territory, but very convincingly.<\/p>\n

However, the final song (of the non-deluxe album), \u201cIn Every Heart,\u201d resounds like a thematic recapitulation, blending reality and inspiration. Mellifluous horn harmonies, the ever-ready background singers, and an easy, reflective groove cue Tedeschi\u2019s voice, honoring a warm primary influence, Bonnie Raitt. Yet \u201cHeart\u201d is TTB\u2019s own statement: \u201cIn every heart there\u2019s a name\/under the perfume and the blame.\u201d It\u2019s about coming to terms with your true identity and your \u201cstory,\u201d admittedly no easy task. \u201cIn every heart, there\u2019s a song\/ turning the pages\u2026 In every song, there\u2019s a psalm\/ coming to find you to sing along.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a surrogate family like the Tedeschi Trucks gang, one need not be alone. They deliver the power of the song. Perhaps some existentialists will call that mere sop. Me, I\u2019d rather not stand in the rain of my spiritual solitude.<\/p>\n

PART 2.<\/strong> I\u2019ll consider the deluxe bonus disc of Let Me Get By<\/em> and that 2-disc total package in another post, coming shortly.<\/p>\n

______________________<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. James Baldwin, Another Country,<\/em> Vintage International, 1993,\u00a0121<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    2. Scott Walker, who survived a re-call election driven by the Act 10 protests, later declared, \u201cIf I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world,” in reference to defeating the terrorist group ISIS. The spurious analogy may have marked the beginning of the end of Walker\u2019s short-lived presidential nomination bid. Meanwhile, he\u2019s back in Wisconsin working his same far-right agenda and the singers continue, as they say, \u201cuntil Wisconsin gets better,\u201d as one of their mottos declares.The Solidarity Sing Along is open to anyone each weekday\u00a0starting at noon at the Capitol. Their Facebook page: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SolidaritySingAlong<\/a>. At times, noted musicians have joined the participants, including Woody Guthrie\u2019s famous son Arlo and Billy Bragg, who wrote music for and recorded unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics in his Mermaid Avenue<\/em> project with Wilco.<\/p>\n

    For the full story on the Wisconsin protests, see John Nichols\u2019 book Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street.<\/em><\/p>\n

    “Let Me\u00a0Get By” album cover at top, courtesy zumic.com<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Susan Tedeschi\u2019s soul-stirring voice soars and dips more majestically than ever, on an eagle\u2019s wing. Listen to \u201cAnyhow.\u201d It\u2019s a broken heart with tenacious muscles. Time after time, Derek Trucks\u2019 slide guitar solos, searing and catchy, nail a song’s heart. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,24,26,29,27,28,30,23,31],"class_list":["post-7331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com","tag-susan-tedeschi","tag-let-me-get-by","tag-derek-trucks","tag-james-baldwin","tag-mike-mattison","tag-sly-and-the-family-stone","tag-solidarity-sing-along","tag-tedeschi-trucks-band","tag-the-beatles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-1Uf","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7331"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7361,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7331\/revisions\/7361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}