CONCERT PREVIEW
The Black Crowes and Tedeschi Trucks Band
With the London Souls. 6:30 p.m. Saturday. $35.50-$89.50. Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park, 2200 Encore Parkway, Alpharetta. 1-800-745-3000.
It is undoubtedly one of the most soulful pairings of the summer — the dirty blues rock of the Black Crowes matched with the organic rootsiness of the Tedeschi Trucks Band, fronted by Susan Tedeschi and her guitar wizard husband, Derek Trucks.
The dual outing, which comes to Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park in Alpharetta on Saturday, also boasts one of the largest combined band lineups (the Crowes and TTB are playing separate sets, though there might be some crossover).
Joining Atlanta-bred Chris Robinson in the Black Crowes are brother Rich (guitar), Steve Gorman (drums), Sven Pipien (bass), Adam MacDougall (keyboards) and Jackie Greene (guitar).
Tedeschi and Trucks, meanwhile, will be joined onstage by Oteil Burbridge (bass), Kofi Burbridge (keyboards), Tyler Greenwell (drums and percussion), J.J. Johnson (drums and percussion), Mike Mattison (harmony vocals), Mark Rivers (harmony vocals), Kebbi Williams (saxophone), Maurice Brown (trumpet) and Saunders Sermons (trombone).
Got all of that?
Last month, Chris Robinson and Tedeschi chatted with reporters on a conference call. Here are some of the topics they touched on.
On how the joint tour came together:
Susan Tedeschi: "I remember Derek and my manager and I sitting around thinking about, if you want to play with a bigger-style artist, who would you want to play with? Well Derek has very slim pickings on that. He doesn't really want to play with anybody, but he was really excited about trying to play with the Black Crowes and with Chris, and he really respects them and loves them and thought it would be a good mix."
Chris Robinson: "It's pretty much the same storyline on our side. When the idea comes up, it's a no-brainer, you know, like, let's go out with one of the deepest, funkiest, soulful bands out there … I think it's going to be interesting for people who are more demanding about their concert experience than just, we went and we took some pictures on our iPhone and bought a T-shirt or whatever."
On whether band members will sit in on each other’s sets:
Chris Robinson: "We haven't discussed but I would hope so. Ideally this is a music-oriented event, you know, as opposed to other things. So yes, in my mind, it would be great to get everyone up there and do the big soul revue at the end of the night."
Susan Tedeschi: "Yes, I hope we get to collaborate for sure. It would be silly not to at least try. We don't know exactly where or when yet, but we'll get together, start the tour out, see how it goes and probably start sitting in with each other."
On the possibility of new Black Crowes music:
Chris Robinson: "We're in a good place, so we're ahead of the game probably more so than we would've imagined six months ago.
“We’ve been playing a lot of songs that we feel the presentation’s powerful. So inevitably, hopefully (for new music). The only real part of if that’s an enigma is we don’t have any plans past December. It’s just typical Black Crowes world. So we won’t be on the road next year or anything. But that hopefully will open a window for us to hopefully get to some new music. I know Rich and I have discussed, so that would ultimately be the goal.”
On the Black Crowes’ Atlanta roots:
Chris Robinson: "No offense to the Varsity or anything, but I've lived in California for 23 years now. One thing the Black Crowes have done this year that we've never done are meet and greets with our fans. If I had been doing this forever, I probably would be annoyed. But because we never did it until 23, 24 years later, it's really a privilege to meet people, and the one thing when you meet people and you talk to them about their lives with your music, it's just like my life with listening to Alex Chilton records or Thelonious Monk.
“And that’s when something like being from Atlanta, having some time to run into friends and people come to the show like Danny Beard from Wax n’ Facts Records. I had to remind him like, I’m old enough that we played the 688 Club. You know what I mean? That was a big part of what we would become years later, just being able to get in there and stuff. So it will always be the fertile ground which hatched our seed — our wandering seed if you will.”
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