Derek Trucks Band Roadsongs This Week

After touring non-stop around the world for 16 years, The Derek Trucks Band announced in November that they are taking a hiatus for 2010, but now, fans won't have to wait to hear the band "live."

Roadsongs was recorded over two nights at Chicago's long-standing rock palace Park West in 2009, with a full horn section added to the group's six-piece lineup. The band's first full-length live album since 2004's Live At Georgia Theatre, Roadsongs will feature some classic DTB arrangements and extended guitar riffs, including an awe inspiring 14-minute rendition of "Afro Blue," a song popularized by John Coltrane and Derek's scorching guitar work on the gritty DTB original "I'll Find My Way".

The album, fueled by a road-honed balance of spontaneous urgency and collective precision, represents the culmination of sixteen years of relentless touring and musical progress, a journey that began in small Southern blues clubs, and has led to theaters, stadiums and arenas around the globe. The band's concerts have evolved into consistent, rafter-raising events performed with gospel-revival intensity, all highlighted by Trucks's dazzling, daring solos. For all those who have experienced the DTB's walk-in, crawl-out concerts, the group's new double-album Roadsongs stands as the most accurate document to date of the group at its synergistic, versatile height, onstage and under the lights. And for those hearing the group for the first time, Roadsongs promises to expand their audience and draw greater attention to the DTB � and Trucks himself.

"In 16 years of touring with the DTB, I rarely check out our own live recordings, mainly because I'm hypercritical of our performances � especially mine. But now and again I have, and been able to find something that made me pleasantly surprised. I remember that second night in Chicago. It was kind of rare thing, we all came off the stage and, independently of one another, said 'That was great � we really got there'! 'If we ever do a live album, that was it right there.' I could tell everybody was playing better than they normally do. There was continuity to the music, one song to the next. We were doing a few older songs and had all of the new material down too. All the solos had teeth on it," said Derek Trucks. "I remember listening to tunes like 'Sailin' On' and 'Rastaman Chant' and thinking how the addition of the horns were a nice twist, that made these songs sound fresh again. We worked out the arrangements right there at the club."

Roadsongs also features many of the tracks from their critically acclaimed album Already Free, including album's first single, a stirring cover of Bob Dylan and The Band's "Down in the Flood" from Dylan's album The Basement Tapes. Already Free, praised by Rolling Stone Magazine as their "most accessible blues-rock set to date," is one of the band's most successful efforts. Just last year, after seven critically praised albums to his credit, Trucks earned his first Grammy with Already Free, which cracked the Billboard Top 20 the week of its release and marked his personal best for radio spins and overall CD sales.

The band consists of Derek Trucks on guitar, bassist Todd Smallie, percussionist Count M'Butu, drummer Yonrico Scott, keyboardist Kofi Burbridge and singer Mike Mattison; with the addition of trumpeter Paul Garrett, saxophonist Mace Hibbard, and trombonist Kevin Hyde for these special performances.