This double-live album by the Derek Trucks Band may end up being the last for this version of the group – at least for a while. Trucks and wife Susan Tedeschi joined forces in 2010 as the Derek Trucks-Susan Tedeschi Band. Some of the players come from Trucks' organization: Kofi Burbridge and singer Mike Mattison with bassist Oteil Burbridge, and drummer J.J. Johnson, among others. Which brings us to Roadsongs. Recorded in support of 2009's Grammy-winning Already Free, this set contains over 100 minutes of music from across his recording career.
Extremely limited box set containing the expanded two CD edition of the Layla… album, the remastered double disc edition of Derek And The Dominos: In Concert, an audio-only DVD featuring DTS 5.1 and Dolby Surround 5.1 versions of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, mixed by legendary engineer Elliot Scheiner, a double 180gm vinyl reproduction of the original album, a hardcover book, artfully designed with rare and never-seen photographs, and featuring four meticulously researched essays and facsimiles of Derek And The Dominos concert tickets and various promotional items, including the famous "Derek is Eric" button…
They made one of the most essential classic rock albums of all time and - lucky us - they also laid down some live stuff. Here's how it holds up to their studio genius…
For his first solo project after replacing Dickie Betts in the Allman Brothers Band, 23-year-old Derek Trucks pushes the stylistic envelope even further than on his last diverse release. Prodding into Latin, Indian, and fusion jazz, this stylistically varied effort exudes enough blues and funky R&B to keep the Allman Brothers Band fan's attention while expanding their boundaries – sometimes radically – beyond what the typical Southern rock fan might expect or even tolerate. It's a brave and largely successful experiment, due in part to the vocals of his guest stars, since Trucks himself does not sing. Opening with the title track, a funky Meters-style bubbler that employs a gospel chorus to frame Trucks' searing slide work, it sounds like the guitarist is working within borders he established on his two previous albums.
Layla stands as one of a handful of pillars of classic rock. The short-lived ensemble that was the Dominos provided an outlet for Eric Clapton to vent his then unrequited (and secret) passion for the wife of his best friend, George Harrison. Romantic anguish inspired Clapton to write and collect an embroiling and interconnected song cycle. Meanwhile, latecomer Duane Allman prodded Clapton to tear it up on guitar, so as not to be overwhelmed by his even more talented foil. Of course, Clapton eventually won the hand of his lady love. And then he divorced her. Sometimes real life messes up a good plot line. ~ Steve Stolder
Derek Sherinian and Simon Phillips relive their partnership on an album which shoots on all directions whilst remaining consistent and true to Derek’s style of composing and playing. Unashamedly organic and original, ‘The Phoenix” is a worthy addition to his catalogue, which will solidify his place in the highest echelons of keyboard players…
Twice GRAMMY-nominated composer and performer Derek Bermel studied with Henri Dutilleux, Dutch avant-gardist Louis Andriessen, and ragtime revivalist William Bolcom. In his music, seemingly antithetical qualities – classical and vernacular, comic and serious – merge and transform each other unpredictably, their inspiration ranging from theatre (Ritornello), to gestalt psychology (Figure and Ground), to meditations on cosmology (A Short History of the Universe). Thracian Sketches explores and reimagines Bulgarian folk music, while the Violin Etudes distill Bermel’s intellectual creativity into its purest form.