The Tedeschi Trucks Band Shine Their Light at the Beacon  – The Village Voice

As if by silent mutual consensus, when the Tedeschi Trucks Band walked onstage at the Beacon Theatre last Saturday night and began the 1972 Joe Cocker classic “Woman to Woman,” the audience rose as one from their comfortable seats and pretty much stayed that way for the next three and a half hours — swaying, whooping, and raising their arms in an almost religious fervor. (“Greatest touring band out there!” bellowed the very vocal guy behind me.)

Guitar virtuoso Derek Trucks was leading the 12-piece group in that song’s oft-sampled funky riff, but one piece was missing: singer Susan Tedeschi. She soon sashayed out from stage right, to blaring horns and the crowd’s roar, wearing a smile and a Stratocaster, a short black dress, and spectacles, as unassuming as she is extraordinary.

When Tedeschi opened her mouth, undaunted by all the sound already filling the ornate room — one could imagine the theater’s golden statues aching to throw down their spears and rock out — she added yet another riveting instrument: that voice, gritty, soaring, galvanizing. Bonnie Raitt meets Janis Joplin (as has often been noted), with a little Etta James thrown in. Woman to woman indeed.

Tedeschi, who is married to Trucks, also plays a mean blues guitar and does not wilt in the shadow of her partner’s renowned prowess. Heads tipped toward each other, they both expertly riffed us into the next selection, “Let Me Get By.” (The family that shreds together…?) That song, an original from their Grammy-winning 2011 debut album, Revelator, began with Tedeschi, in more than a nod to Bob Dylan, singing in a voice drenched with warning: “I told you that times are a-changin’.” When Trucks later took a solo, he seemed to be talking to us with his playing — as emotive as her voice — by turns plaintive, seductive, thrilling. His Gibson GS was way up in the mix, and that was just fine. (The Beacon has a new, immersive sound system; it’s “crystal-clear,” as claimed.)

Tedeschi met Trucks in 1999, when her eponymous band opened for the Allman Brothers, whose new slide guitarist was the 20-year-old Trucks, nephew of one of the group’s drummers, the late Butch Trucks. (TTB continues the Allman tradition of two drummers, in their case, Tyler Greenwell and Isaac Eady, with Brandon Boone filling out the rhythm section on bass.) The pair fell in love, married, and eventually decided to join forces musically as well, forming TTB in 2010. 

Tedeschi introduced that song by saying, “We’re all made of the same stuff inside.” Well, there’s stuff and there’s stuff.

Although there was a Deadhead vibe to the Beacon audience, which skewed older — and we were treated to a rousing rendition of Jerry Garcia’s “Sugaree” — it was the Allman Brothers who seemed to hover over the band, much like the gauzy lights that moved about the stage. For one thing, Trucks has cited Duane Allman as a great influence from an early age, “almost a mythical figure in my house,” as he told Guitar World. For another, the consummate southern-rock band had made the Beacon their NYC home, doing their final show (including both Butch and Derek Trucks), their 238th, at the theater in 2014. TTB has followed suit. Saturday was its 56th appearance at the theater, and that night they performed Gregg Allman’s melancholy “Dreams” — with a swooning slide solo by Trucks and soulful vocals by Gabe Dixon, the keyboardist, and Tedeschi — as well as “Statesboro Blues,” an Allman Brothers staple.

Trucks also cites Duane’s playing on “Blue Sky” as an inspiration for his solo on “Midnight in Harlem,” perhaps TTB’s most popular song (also from Revelator). On Saturday, however, Trucks, standing in a wavering cone of light, began that tune with a yearning, sitar-like guitar line that seemed to be imparting an ancient message. When he stopped, the light moved away to envelop saxophonist Kebbi Williams, whose low, somber tone soon erupted into jazzy, jittery notes (at one point, he looked ready to lift off) that had the audience calling out his name. Tedeschi, with two spotlights singling her out, wrapped her resonant voice around lyrics we could relate to, a tale of New York: “Well, I came to the city / I was running from the past…” And then Trucks performed the more Allman-esque solo, traveling all the way down the neck of his Gibson to pluck notes from the stratosphere. (His calm, beard-stroking manner in interviews belies his electrifying playing.) 

Tedeschi growled, preached, pointed, screamed, and perhaps threw the earth off its axis a little bit.

Rooted in the 1960s and ’70s, TTB draws from several American genres — rock, blues, jazz, country, gospel. The group mines those songbooks while also writing music inspired by them. The set list Saturday was about equal parts covers (e.g., Aretha Franklin’s “It Ain’t Fair,” Derek and the Dominos’ “Bell Bottom Blues”) and originals, including the catchy “Anyhow,” currently livening up a Chevy commercial that features a red Silverado pickup truck. TTB has recorded many songs written by band members in various combinations, including the 24 from their 2022 four-album series, I Am the Moon.

The band performed a couple of those on Saturday, notably “Take Me As I Am.” This all-about-the-music band is light on patter, but Tedeschi introduced that song by saying, “We’re all made of the same stuff inside.” Well, there’s stuff and there’s stuff. Tedeschi’s vocal power is unusual (whereas her speaking voice is tiny and polite), but she also draws on a deep well of feeling in putting across a song. When she wailed “Don’t take away my life” on the last verse, she appeared almost unable to contain that inner force. Matching in musical intensity, Tedeschi and Trucks seemed to derive strength and a sort of grace from each other, and on that song her voice and his guitar intertwined beautifully.

But Tedeschi really took off on the three encore songs. For the Leon Russell perennial “Song for You,” she was accompanied only by Gabe Dixon — when that initial familiar, gorgeous piano cascade rang out, someone in the audience said loudly, apparently in disbelief of her good fortune, “Are you kidding me?!” Tedeschi, her voice especially warm and lustrous, did a moving, gospel-tinged rendition heightened by a personal connection with Russell — she emphatically sang the line, “You are a friend of mine.”

Russell died in 2016, and three years later TTB lost its keyboard player Kofi Burbridge. Dixon and guitarist/vocalist Mike Mattison had written the second encore number, “Soul’s Sweet Song,” as a tribute to Burbridge. Tedeschi strapped on her aqua Telecaster — autographed by the likes of B.B. King and Kris Kristofferson — as Kebbi Williams began to play dissonant flute phrases, and chandeliers, bathed in pink light, descended from the ceiling. When Tedeschi sang in a velvety tone, “I feel your rhythm moving me / ’Cause your soul’s sweet song’s still singing,” we could believe it. (Trucks has said of those lines, “That hit me between the eyes.”)

Having opened with a Joe Cocker song, these road warriors sent us off with one too — “Space Captain” (1970). In an inspired delivery that crescendoed with the repeated lyrics “Learning to live together / Until we die,” Tedeschi growled, preached, pointed, screamed, and perhaps threw the earth off its axis a little bit. At times she moved somewhat jerkily, as though channeling Cocker, but in a more genteel form. Those both onstage and off provided that song’s “whoo”s; Trucks “dueled” with trombonist Elizabeth Lea as Williams and trumpeter Ephraim Owens held back, waiting for more; and the harmony singers — Mattison, Alecia Chakour, and Mark Rivers — added their own embellishments. After a rousing extended ending, Tedeschi said, “Love y’all,” and waved, and Trucks took off his guitar and exited, his long ponytail lit in a soft glow.  ❖

Mary Lyn Maiscott, an NYC-based singer-songwriter, has played such clubs as Pianos, Bowery Electric, and La Tregua (Seville); her latest recordings are “Alithia’s Flowers (Children of Uvalde)” and “My Cousin Sings Harmony.” She’s written about music for Vanity Fair and other publications.