Songlines, is the first new recording by The Derek Trucks Band in nearly four years, and the first studio album to feature the full-throated, impassioned vocals of newest DTB member, Mike Mattison. Songlines signals the DTB's arrival at a spiritual plateau after a decade long journey of musical discovery, and cements Trucks' reputation as one of the greatest guitarists of his generation. While Songlines embraces the group's big-eared love of rock, jazz, blues, latin and world music, it is unquestionably their most cohesive album to date. Columbia. 2006.
Just in his mid-twenties when this album was released in early 2006, the guitar tone of Allman Brothers Band guitarist Derek Trucks (nephew of founding drummer Butch) has become one of the most recognizable sounds to be squeezed out of the instrument. Snake-like, swampy, and filled with tense soul, his slide work has been compared to Ry Cooder's, and perhaps inevitably, to Duane Allman's. On his first album of new studio material in four years, Trucks steers his malleable band through a heady blend of jazz, Jamaican, gospel, blues, and world music, occasionally even combining styles in a single track. Any disc that covers deep soul man O.V. Wright, Pakistani music legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and reggae journeyman Toots Hibbert can't help but swim in eclectic waters. But Trucks pulls it all together with a sure sense of flow and arrangements that never let the tunes descend into free fall.
Soul singer and newest band member Mike Mattison acquits himself admirably, bringing a tough gospel edge to "I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to Be Free)," an airy, ethereal quality to the floating "This Sky," and gruff spirit to the original rocker "Revolution." Although there are plenty of solos, Trucks's structured approach never lets the tunes sink into aimless jams, navigating his lines around the verses rather than vice versa. As classy and controlled as his rather stoic stage presence, Songlines confirms Derek Trucks's status as one of music's most innovative, fearless and affecting guitar players, regardless of age.
-Hal Horowitz
