Tedeschi Trucks Band, Made Up Mind
Featured Album
Another platform for the couple to successfully showcase their respective skills
An 11-piece troupe, co-founded by guitarist Derek Trucks and his wife singer-guitarist Susan Tedeschi, and fleshed out by a steely horn section, backup singers and a pair of percussionists, Tedeschi Trucks Band bills itself as a multi-part roots-rock collective. Like their supple, stellar 2011 debut, Revelator, Made Up Mind is still largely a platform for Trucks and Tedeschi to showcase their respective skills. The Dixie-funk that defined the band’s debut remains ever-present: Tedeschi lets her moan throw bricks upon the swampy, slinky grooves of “Misunderstood” and the barroom burner “Whiskey Legs.” But it’s Trucks’s Duane Allman-channeling ax prowess upon which this project stays centered: extended slide-guitar dirges on the title track and a gruff whiplash fretboard frenzy during “The Storm” are inspired, if occasionally indulgent. Variety is not necessarily part of the recipe. But when Tedeschi lets trombonist Saunders Sermons share vocal duties on “Part of Me,” one of the most collaborative and inspiring charms this go-round, the band feels more like members and less hired guns.
