The Derek Trucks Band is a band started by slide guitarist prodigy, Derek Trucks, who began playing guitar and touring with The Allman Brothers Band, as early as eleven years old. Raised partly on tour with them throughout his youth, meeting and playing with famous musicians, Trucks was still unsure about his own future. He resolved to start his own band while still an adolescent. What first began as a side project, and a way for Trucks to explore his own creativity, has evolved into an eclectic band with some of the most talented musicians from the southeastern United States. Loosely based in his home town of Jacksonville, Florida since 1994-1995, since his mid-teens, the band has drawn upon the wide variety of the influences and tastes of its current band members, and has gained fame for playing blues, southern rock, jazz, indian classical, and a fusion of world music.
Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Derek Trucks took up the guitar at age 9, and it was quickly apparent that he was a child prodigy. He was playing with a band and touring within two years. His early repertoire was heavily blues-based, obviously inspired by The Allman Brothers Band, of which his uncle, drummer Butch Trucks, is a founding member. Older bluesmen like Howlin’ Wolf, jazz musicians Miles Davis, Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Charlie Christian and later Wayne Shorter and many others, became an influence for Trucks a few years later.
JOE BONAMASSA
Bonamassa was born and raised in New York State. His parents owned and ran a guitar shop. As a fourth-generation musician, he recalls knowing he wanted to be a musician as early as age four. With a great-grandfather and grandfather who both played trumpet, and a father who plays guitar, Bonamassa credits his parents with fostering an appreciation of music in his life as early as he can remember. When he was a young child, he would listen to his parents' large record collection. He recalls at age 7, sitting with his parents on Saturdays and listening to Guitar Slim; Bonnie Raitt; Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young; Eric Clapton; and Jethro Tull. Thus, he sees his music as an amalgam of all the various rock and blues he heard as a child.[1]
He received his first guitar from his father at the age of 4, and by age 7 he was playing Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix tunes note for note. At the age of 11, during a short period of being mentored by Danny Gatton, he learned such styles as country and jazz as well as Polka. During this time with Gatton, Bonamassa sat in with Gatton's band whenever they played in New York. He first opened for B. B. King at 12 years of age. After first hearing him play, King said, “This kid's potential is unbelievable. He hasn't even begun to scratch the surface. He's one of a kind.” At 14, he was invited to attend a Fender guitar event; during that trip to the West Coast he met Berry Oakley, Jr. Bonamassa and Berry founded the group Bloodline with Miles Davis's son Erin and Robby Krieger's son Waylon. They released one album which produced two chart singles — "Stone Cold Hearted", and "Dixie Peach." He has since played with other music greats including Buddy Guy, Foreigner, Robert Cray, Stephen Stills, Joe Cocker, Gregg Allman, Steve Winwood, Paul Jones, Ted Nugent, Warren Haynes, Eric Clapton, and Derek Trucks.
WOLF MAIL
Wolf Mail is a Canadian blues-rock guitarist/singer and songwriter. Wolf Mail has been described as “way out in front of blues guitarists around the world” (Linda Fisher, The Times), “...the missing link between Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan” (Pete Wallace, National Blues Review) and “...The undisputed heavy weight champion of electric Blues” states the L.A weekly.
Tom Bramson of Blues Rockers magazine says “Mail's guitar work bears the unmistakable marks of the normal SRV/Hendrix/Clapton influences. However, I pay him the ultimate compliment by saying that, though he has obviously been influenced by the normal guitar gods, he bears a striking resemblance to none of them, as his sound is strictly Wolf Mail.”
Born in Montreal, Canada, raised in the South of France and California, Wolf Mail grew up as a traveling nomad. “My main inspiration always came from discovering new cultures and people” he says. “My attempt is to translate those feelings into the music”.
Mail picked up the guitar at the age of 10, listening to Elmore James and Ray Charles records.One of Wolf’s uncle gave him his first electric guitar, a Fender Telecaster replica, similar to the one he is currently playing. He was self-taught until the age of 10 before convincing Canadian guitar master David Goodman to give him some lessons. He played his first professional gig at the age of fourteen and by seventeen was touring Europe. Restless touring have become the basis of Wolf’s hard work ethic.
It is with blues music that Mail paved his way through the music industry. He recorded two independent albums in the mid 90’s before signing up with ZKS records in 1999. Since then he has released three studio albums to critical acclaim. Solid Ground was universally praised. It contained the ballad “Hello” which stayed in the best selling music charts in Japan for three weeks and had fans declare their “favorite love song of all time”. Blue Fix followed this. Mail then embarked to the great North and recorded a live CD and DVD Live Blues In Red Square, which contains a great cover of The Sky is Crying. Mail’s fourth album Electric Love Soul was recorded last year in LA in the famous Doghouse studios by Grammy Award winner BB “Chung” King and legendary producer Dennis Walker.
Wolf averages hundreds of shows per year and when he says “I enjoy traveling to new places as much as I enjoy playing” he ain’t kidding . He’s been around the world several times, playing or promoting his band to audiences in more than 20 countries including the U.S, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Morocco, the Netherlands and Mexico.
His live performances are legendary. During one of his performances with the Fabulous Thunderbirds at the Narooma Blues festival in Australia, Tony Jagger from the [[]Southern star]] has said “Words simply cannot describe the intensity and clarity that comes out of this man’s guitar.” Ron Edmonds from Exclusive Management puts it “You always get something out of a Wolf Mail show.”
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