Derek Trucks

“I'm a big fan of other guitar players, Duane Allman and tons of them, but I don't really love totally guitar-specific albums.”

“Y'know, you can sit in a room, practise all day, learn your scales and blaze blues riffs: it's easy to hide behind that. But I think with the slide, it's a little bit tougher.”

“You hear it in the great musicians, whether it's a drummer or a horn player or a guitar player - you hear them take those breaths. You can feel that there's something they're trying to tell you.”

“The Allman Brothers Band has a long, storied history and I wouldn't count them out. It's just not in the cards for me.”

“I think on some level, you always carry your first and biggest influences with you, whether it's the Allman Brothers or Col. Bruce Hampton, people that you learned a huge amount of what you do from. So it's always there.”

“I used a '57 Les Paul on one track, 'These Walls', which features Alam Khan on sarod. I tuned it way down because the sarode is naturally in C but I tuned the guitar down to D and he came up to D. It was all a pretty simple setup.”

“I was nine when I bought my first guitar at a garage sale.”

“I've always been of that mindset - when you're writing tunes with people, there's a traditional way of chopping things up, and then there's the way that feels right. If people contribute, you hit 'em accordingly.”

“My grandfather's from Pinson, Alabama, all the Truckses came from there.”

“When you do a different city every night, it's easy to repeat things. There are songs you want to play for people and get excited about so you don't always switch things up.”

“It's been a slow steady climb since my solo band got together almost 20 years ago. Me and my manager Blake were just talking about this, how every show has a few more people at it, every record has done a little better.”

“When things come up, you deal with them. However uncomfortable that is, let's have this discussion right now.”

“I think the first time I was at Red Rocks was my first gig as a member of the Allman Brothers Band, June of 1999.”

“But I don't pretend I earned a Lifetime Achievement Award.”

“I remember a festival we did in Denmark with the Clapton band where you suddenly realize it's an actual band - and you're on an equal stage playing music together.”

“You hear a great Art Blakey drum solo or Elvin Jones, and you can tell when they're taking a breath. You can tell when they're loading up for something big. There's just this humanity in it, and I think that's important as well.”

“Slide can sound like the most beautiful woman's voice.”

“A lot people hit the road trying to make some cash. We are out here trying to do something that we really believe in. That's what all of our musical heroes always did.”

“When you think about your heroes, it absolutely shapes how you play and who you are.”

“I remember the first time hearing a recording from Minton's Playhouse; it was Charlie Christian and a young Dizzy Gillespie, and he was just the best musician in the room.”