{"id":10580,"date":"2012-04-18T12:17:08","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T16:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=10580"},"modified":"2016-04-06T06:34:48","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T10:34:48","slug":"midweek-music-break-susan-tedeschi-and-derek-trucks-with-warren-haynes-id-rather-go-blind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/midweek-music-break-susan-tedeschi-and-derek-trucks-with-warren-haynes-id-rather-go-blind\/","title":{"rendered":"Midweek Music Break: Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, with Warren Haynes, &#8220;I&#8217;d Rather Go Blind&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KvtmEvXL1uw?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"smalltext\">[Video from <em>In Performance at the White House: Red, Hot, and Blues<\/em>]\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video above not working for you? In its place, I offer you the audio only:]<\/em><\/p>\n[mp3-jplayer title=&#8221;I&#8217;d Rather Go Blind&#8221; tracks=&#8221;idrathergoblind_tedeschitruckshaynes.mp3&#8243; captions=&#8221;I&#8217;d Rather Go Blind \/ Tedeschi Trucks Band w\/ Warren Haynes&#8221;]\n<p><em>[<a title=\"Original lyrics: 'I'd Rather Go Blind'\" onclick=\"javascript:wopen('https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/lyrics\/idrathergoblind_ettajames.html', 'new', 450, 500); return false;\">Original lyrics, by Etta James<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n<span class=\"su-dropcap su-dropcap-style-light\" style=\"font-size:2em\">I<\/span> first encountered the name <a title=\"Wikipedia, on Derek Trucks\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Derek_Trucks\" target=\"_blank\">Derek Trucks<\/a> within a few years after I&#8217;d moved down here. Some kid was doing a show at a club in town &#8212; an amazing blues guitarist, said the newspaper preview, and only a teenager: 14 years old or so. How amazing? He&#8217;d toured with Buddy Guy. He&#8217;d performed with the Allman Brothers. The kid was <em>hot<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px; padding-right: 30px; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.25em;\">[Aside: I&#8217;ve got something like a third- or fourth-order connection to him, too. His uncle, Butch Trucks, is the drummer for the Allmans. When Butch was in elementary school, he attended a dance with my Missus-to-Be on his arm &#8212; his very first date.]\n<p><a title=\"Wikipedia, on Susan Tedeschi\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Susan_Tedeschi\" target=\"_blank\">Susan Tedeschi<\/a> has had some kind of career of her own, dating back to her childhood. She grew up listening to blues and gospel music, and eventually played <em>Austin City Limits <\/em>and Lilith Fair.\u00a0(Her voice, says Wikipedia, has been described as a blend of Bonnie Raitt and Janis Joplin. I don&#8217;t believe even that does it justice.) She also\u00a0toured with the Rolling Stones, B.B. King, Bob Dylan, and, well, the Allman Brothers.<\/p>\n<p>Trucks and Tedeschi married in 2001, and continued their separate careers. Recently, wanting to minimize their kids&#8217; exposure a typical touring-musician family&#8217;s lifestyle, they set up a studio in Jacksonville, FL, and formed their own band, the <a title=\"Tedeschi Trucks Band home page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.tedeschitrucksband.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tedeschi Trucks Band<\/a>.\u00a0Their first album, <em>Revelator<\/em>, came out last June; it&#8217;s a killer, and I&#8217;d intended with this post to cover a couple of tracks from it for you.<\/p>\n<p>But in doing a little research about it I stumbled on the above recent performance on the PBS special\u00a0<em>In Performance at the White House: Red, White, and Blues<\/em>. Tedeschi and <a title=\"Wikipedia, on Warren Haynes\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Warren_Haynes\" target=\"_blank\">Warren Haynes<\/a> share the vocals while Trucks&#8217;s slide guitar tears up the instrumental lead, on &#8220;<a title=\"Wikipedia, on &quot;I'd Rather Go Blind&quot;\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/I'd_Rather_Go_Blind\" target=\"_blank\">I&#8217;d Rather Go Blind<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<span class=\"su-dropcap su-dropcap-style-light\" style=\"font-size:2em\">T<\/span>he song itself, co-written and first recorded by Etta James in 1968, holds legendary status as one of the best, most successful B-side recordings in pop-music history. The A side was an even bigger hit, &#8220;Tell Mama.&#8221; In her autobiography, <em><a title=\"Google Books: 'Rage to Survive,' by Etta James and David Ritz\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=4-5UFUZgAIQC&amp;pg=PA173#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\">Rage to Survive<\/a><\/em>, James says that she never liked &#8220;Tell Mama.&#8221; (&#8220;I didn&#8217;t like being cast in the role of the Great Earth Mother, the one you come to for comfort and easy sex.&#8221;) But about &#8220;I&#8217;d Rather Go Blind,&#8221; she relates this story of label executive Leonard Chess:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When Leonard heard the song the first time, he got up and left the room &#8217;cause he started crying. That touched my heart. Other cats I know would have wanted me to see them cry, just to show me how soulful they were. I liked that Leonard did his weeping in private. [&#8230;] When he came back in the room, he said, &#8220;Etta, it&#8217;s a mother&#8230; it&#8217;s a mother.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It does no disservice to James&#8217;s memory &#8212; she died shortly before the above video was recorded &#8212; nor to the talents of Tedeschi, Trucks, and Haynes, to say that this performance lives up to the song.<\/p>\n<p>Just for completeness, here&#8217;s the reference version &#8212; Etta James&#8217;s <em>mother<\/em>\u00a0of a performance:<\/p>\n[mp3-jplayer title=&#8221;I&#8217;d Rather Go Blind&#8221; tracks=&#8221;idrathergoblind_ettajames.mp3&#8243; captions=&#8221;I&#8217;d Rather Go Blind \/ Etta James&#8221;]\n<div style=\"border: 1px solid silver; margin: 0.25em 0.5em 0.5em; padding: 1em 0.5em 0pt; width: 400px; float: none; text-align: center;\" title=\"Click Play button to hear 'I'd Rather Go Blind'\">\n____________________________<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Note:<\/strong>\u00a0Hat tip (and a deep bow) to my little brother for introducing me to\u00a0<\/em>Revelator<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video from In Performance at the White House: Red, Hot, and Blues] [Video above not working for you? In its place, I offer you the audio only:] [mp3-jplayer title=&#8221;I&#8217;d Rather Go Blind&#8221; tracks=&#8221;idrathergoblind_tedeschitruckshaynes.mp3&#8243; captions=&#8221;I&#8217;d Rather Go Blind \/ Tedeschi Trucks Band w\/ Warren Haynes&#8221;] [Original lyrics, by Etta James] first encountered the name Derek Trucks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2252,74],"tags":[2951,2952,2953,2954,2956,2957],"class_list":{"0":"post-10580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-midweek-music-break","7":"category-music","8":"tag-blues","9":"tag-derek-trucks","10":"tag-susan-tedeschi","11":"tag-warren-haynes","12":"tag-etta-james","13":"tag-id-rather-go-blind","14":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-2KE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10580"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17910,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10580\/revisions\/17910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}