The legendary Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt said there’s only two kinds of music: the blues and “Zippity Doo Dah.” My own spin on that is that it all breaks down to good music and bad music. Trying to categorize the Tedeschi Trucks Band or Lukas Nelson is a pointless exercise: They draw from all the rivers of American music, and even beyond. Moreover, they do it with the utmost skill. Friday night’s show at Wolf Trap was full of great songs, soaring vocals, and brilliant playing.
Tedeschi Trucks Band came on at 8:30pm on August 28 and played a marathon set, going until curfew. They paid tribute to Dolly Parton with a cover of her “Wildflowers.” This was one of several covers they did, beginning their set with Ann Cole’s “Got My Mo-Jo Working (But It Just Won’t Work on You).” Just the covers they played ranged over many styles of music, from blues (Bessie Smith’s “Gin House Blues”) to jazz (“Afro Blue,” by Mongo Santamaria, who, along with Alex Karras and Steve McMichael, is one of my favorite Mongos), weirdo art rock (Frank Zappa’s “Willie the Pimp”), and R&B (Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “That Did It.”) We got a couple of Sly & the Family Stone songs, “You Can Make It If You Try” and “Everyday People.” For their encore, they were joined by Nelson and his band for the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young classic “Helpless” and Matthew Moore’s “Space Captain,” which was new to me.
Though they released a new album this year, Future Soul, they played just three songs from it: “Hero,” What in the World,” and “Who Am I,” which made me recall the late Admiral James Stockdale’s opening line in the 1992 vice-presidential debate: “Who am I? Why am I here?”
Explore the story behind the song “What in the World” with Tedeschi Trucks Band on YouTube:
The rest of the set drew from across their catalog: “Playing With My Emotions” and “Sweet Soul Song,” from the four-part I Am The Moon series, which was inspired by a Persian tale of two lovers; “Do I Look Worried,” from Made Up Mind (in my case, probably); “Shame,” from Signs; “Anyhow” and “I Want More” from Let Me Get By; and “Bound for Glory,” from their debut, Revelator, which closed out the main set.
TTB always chooses great opening acts, and they give them enough time to show what they can do. In the case of Lukas Nelson, the son of the iconic and beloved Willie Nelson, he can do a lot. Given a full hour to work with Nelson was able to include a couple covers of his dad’s (who he referred to as “one of my favorite songwriters”) songs, a solo, acoustic cover of “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” and “Bloody Mary Morning.” The former showed how, while Lukas shares his father’s talents on the guitar, he also has knows when to show restraint; at times, he totally stopped playing so he wouldn’t to make his voice fight with his instrument. As the old saying goes, it’s the notes you don’t play.
Nelson also dedicated a cover of Tom Petty’s “American Girl” to the memory of Dolly Parton. He got the night start with “Fool Me Once,” a song from his days fronting Promise of the Real, who also served as Neil Young’s band for several years. His set continued with “Every Time I Drink,” “High Trees,” “The Last Wild River,” “Pretty Much,” and “Just Outside of Austin,” a tribute to his hometown. “Wrong House,” he explained, was about the shenanigans one can get up to in a drunken state. He also played “Ladder of Love,” “Carolina,” and “Die Alone,” finishing with the reggae-inflected “Find Yourself.”
Friday evening was a long night of music, but it was more than worth it. I can be picky when it comes to jam bands, but TTB has one of the greatest guitarists working today in Derek Trucks and one of the best vocalists in Susan Tedeschi. The whole crew are first-rate, and they absolutely killed it, as did Lucas.
