With a comfortable country blues sound and low, gravelly vocals, it’s no surprise that the Derek Trucks Band’s new album is titled Already Free, evoking winding country roads and solitary convertibles zooming off into the distance. Its track list includes a wide range of styles and sounds that draw upon a wealth of American musical traditions.
The opening song on the album is a cover of a Bob Dylan song, “Down in the Flood,” which was recorded in 1967 and was featured on the album Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume II. On the cover, Trucks is able to pay homage to Dylan’s musicality while adding his own personal touch to the song. Trucks’ version is slightly earthier with jazz undertones and a distinctly New Orleans vibe. “Down in the Flood” also has recent significance, as former President George Bush is succeeded by President Barack Obama and leaves behind the legacy of Hurricane Katrina, an event that bears a somewhat startling similarity to the lyrics of the song.
Trucks is primarily known as a guitar virtuoso and played as a member of the Allman Brothers Band, touring with the band as early as age 11. While he demonstrates his impressive guitar talents on every track, he allows others to show off their vocal talents on the album. His musical accompaniment to wife Susan Tedeschi’s vocals on the track “Back Where I Started” however, can hardly be called accompaniment. Tedeschi’s soulful voice perfectly complements Trucks’ guitar line; neither overshadows the other.
What is particularly captivating about the album is the extraordinary variety of styles that the Derek Trucks Band manages to capture. While the cover of Dylan’s “Down in the Flood” is a purer earthy blues track, songs such as “Don’t Miss Me” and “Sweet Inspiration” are songs that, though very different from each other lyrically and stylistically, are similar in the wide range of sounds they cover.
“Sweet Inspiration” is a jazzy gospel-esque number with a guitar riff in the middle that sounds much more ’80s rock than Baptist. Its sound is both smooth and energetic, dancing its way across the room in a sensual happiness that is at once sexy, uplifting and completely unassuming. There is no better way to describe it than to say that it makes you want to get up and sway your hips with a sexy smirk on your face. Its lyrical demands for “sweet inspiration” certainly aid in this sensation.
Contrarily, “Don’t Miss Me,” which is the next track on the album, combines blues and rock with vague pop undertones in the hook that illicit smoky images, apathetic breakups and dark figures turning the corner. It starts off slowly, easing into an almost lazy cool aided and abetted by Trucks’ hoarse voice and lilting lyrics that suggest that even if you did miss him, he wouldn’t really care.
What the Derek Trucks Band succeeds in carrying out is a sense of an album that can suit any sort of mood from nostalgic to vengeful to apathetic to reminiscent. An album that falls under no stereotype, it can be classified as rock, R&B and blues. Though it contains elements of all of these, and many more, it doesn’t fit well into any category. Instead the Derek Trucks Band has infused its sound with elements of all genres, creating a new sound that is wholly unique and entirely appealing.
Already Free is an album that should be listened to in a convertible with the top down, driving in the evening down solitary country roads.
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