Midweek Music Break: Tedeschi Trucks Band, “Anyhow”

[Tedeschi Trucks Band. Photo by Mark Seliger.]

We first encountered the Tedeschi Trucks Band here just about four years ago, following the release of their first album, Revelator. They haven’t been sitting on their hands since then, not at all: “Anyhow” is the first single from their newest (third) album, Let Me Get By. [Lyrics here.]

Of today’s musical selection, No Depression writes:

On “Anyhow,” Tedeschi starts out moaning like a lost soul but ends up soaring, channeling the spirit and sound of Bonnie Raitt, while Derek conjures up Duane [Allman] behind her.

Yeah, that. I’m not 100% sure I buy the specific comparisons. But if any voice could match Derek Trucks’s guitar work for sheer forceful power, it’s Susan Tedeschi’s. The woman can flat-out sing — and soaring is dead-on.

I found a high-quality video of the band performing the song in their Swamp Raga Studio in Jacksonville. I have no idea if this specific recording made it onto the album. But what especially interested me is that from the audio alone, I’d never have guessed that almost everyone performing is sitting down. Tedeschi Trucks has a solid reputation as a live band (I myself have never seen them in concert); you might think, y’know, Boy, that group must really move when they’re alone and into their music. Not so, apparently. (Which doesn’t bother me, I hasten to mention; I think what we’re seeing in that video is discipline. “Things” happen in live performances, and they’re not all happy things: people can trip over wires, bump into microphones, get distracted by bees — certainly not the kinds of events you want to capture in a studio recording.)

This reminds me a little of a conversation I had with a guy I used to work with, back in 1990-91. At the time, I’d taken a leave of absence from my stable job in New Jersey, moving to Virginia to see if I could write and publish a book. (I could, as it happened.) On a visit back to Jersey, my friend John B asked me about my workday as a writer. He couldn’t picture the act of writing. (Back then, I didn’t do first drafts via computer, but via good old pencils and paper.) “What do you do — you just sit at a table and… and you, uh, write?” I wonder what I do look like when I write. Come to that, I wonder what any writer looks like when in the act? It feels to me as though there must be an awful lot of staring into space involved.

“Anyhow” is certainly soulful. At the other end of the energy — and danceability — spectrum, though, I could pick any of a handful of other songs from the album (which this time around, includes all original material). Let’s follow up “Anyhow” with… oh, say, with “Don’t Know What It Means.” I wonder if they all sat still in the studio for this perky bit of sheer funk?

[Lyrics]