From the moment he joined The Derek Trucks Band in 1999 until he died on the same day that Tedeschi Trucks Band released its 2019 album, Signs, two-time Grammy winner Kofi Burbridge was always the best musician in the room.
“You always had that feeling, and everyone knew it wherever he was,” Derek Trucks, told CL. Susan Tedeschi, who fronts Tedeschi Trucks Band with her Florida-born husband, said that Burbridge was humble about his talent and added that there was one instance when the flutist and keyboard genius wasn’t the most gifted prodigy in the building.
“When he was hanging out with Herbie, they were the same,” Tedeschi, 48, said. Trucks, 40, agreed about Herbie Hancock, saying that was, indeed, the only time that Burbridge actually stood shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone of his peerage. Burbridge, who at 10 years old played flute alongside Duke Ellington, died in February 2019, a month after suffering a health setback set in motion by a 2017 heart attack that forced him to sit out of Tedeschi Trucks Band for three months. His presence, however, is stamped all over Signs and the tour supporting it.
His Rhodes, electric piano and Hohner Clavinet appear on “Still Your Mind.” A Wurlitzer flourishes in the background on “Hard Case,” and Burbridge lays down a menacing mellotron part on the incendiary “Shame,” which doesn’t pull any punches in criticizing a flawed system and the leaders who’ve broken it.
He even charted strings on four of the album’s songs; the Jacksonville Symphony played those arrangements, effortlessly bending and moving their playing to adjust to Burbridge. After hearing of his death, members of the ensemble immediately reached out to Trucks and Tedeschi to offer condolences.
“I thought that was pretty great. I know that day meant a lot to Kofi,” Trucks said.
It’s hard to measure what Burbridge meant to the band he co-founded nearly 10 years ago, but Tedeschi and Trucks see and feel it every night on tour. When he talked about the job that new members — touring keyboardist Gabe Dixon and bass guitarist Brandon Boone — have been doing in trying to replace Burbridge and Tim Lefebvre (who played bass in the group from 2013-2018), Trucks admitted how tough it still is to get through shows without Burbridge. The band leaned on Dixon and Boone to get through those initial performances.
“We found out about Kofi two hours before the first gig of the tour, and it never let up. It was just nonstop, every night — and it’s going to be this way for a long, long time,” Trucks said. Tedeschi mentioned the shock of it all and the wave of emotions she gets at the sight of the “Kofi” signs and shirts in the crowd.
“It’s a lot of peoples’ first time to have a direct chance to grieve. You see his rig. People are showing up with flowers every night and placing them at his B3, so it’s intense,” Trucks explained. The band won’t even play Signs emotional highlight “The Ending.”
The song — written about Colonel Bruce Hampton, who died after having a medical emergency onstage at his 70th birthday concert, where Tedeschi and Trucks were playing — just cuts too close to the bone.
“When you make a record like that, you can’t escape what it is. You gotta live with it because it’s part of the narrative,” Trucks said. “Obviously, that changes with Kofi. In every way, it just makes it more about him since he passed on the day the record came out.”
But for all the pain surrounding Burbridge’s death, the band still plays many of the tunes that their friend was a major part of. Tedeschi admitted that she can’t make it through “Bound For Glory” and “Midnight in Harlem” without crying. For Trucks, one of those tunes is “Strengthen What Remains,” where Burbridge added grand piano and flute.
“That one’s hard. It’s emotional,” Trucks said. He gets especially moved when working through “Idle Wind” from a 2013 album, Made Up Mind.
“Those are going to take a long time to not be tough to play, but you keep you keep playing them. Standing next to him for 20 years, you can hear him and feel him. That’s not going to change.”
“He’s just there naturally in the music,” Tedeschi said.
Trucks feels Burbridge’s presence even more deeply when he’s onstage and finally able to let everything go as a song unfolds. In our conversation, he recalled times when bands on tour with Tedeschi Trucks would gather around Burbridge’s B3 to see a virtuosic explosion of sound. Trucks goes back to the instrument at certain points in the set.
“You start playing and you close your eyes. You kind of get away from it for a second. And then you smell the flowers. And you remember what’s going on. It’s an intense place to be,” Trucks said.
The deaths of his uncles — Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks — and the passing of the Colonel have made the last few years hard for Trucks to bear. Burbridge’s death is even worse because Burbridge was there with Trucks every step of the way.
“Every record we made, every tune we wrote, Kofi was in the room. Kofi is as big of a part of this as Susan and I are,” Trucks said. “He was the resident genius that just made shit sound cool.”
But if you close your eyes and open your ears, you still might feel Kofi there. Just step closer to the flowers, and breathe in deep — you’ll see.
Read our full Q&A and then get more information on the show below.
Tedeschi Trucks Band w/Blackberry Smoke/Shovels & Rope. Sun. June 30, 6:30 p.m. $22.25-$125. Al Lang Stadium, 230 1st. St. SE., St. Petersburg. themahaffey.com.
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This article appears in Jun 20-27, 2019.