Florida's own Derek Trucks picked up the guitar at age 9, played his first gig at 11 and started his first band at 12. By 1994, the prodigiously talented Trucks was forming a permanent outlet for his music, the Derek Trucks Band, and enlisting help of bassist Todd Smallie and drummer Yonrico Scott. Keyboardist/flutist Kofi Burbridge joined the band in 1999, the same year Trucks — hailed as one of the greatest slide guitarists since Duane Allman — was invited to join the Allman Brothers in the spot formerly occupied by the long-deceased Duane. Trucks accepted his new role with ease and began touring with the Allmans, but he never stopped producing his own genre-bending music, which fuses the blues with elements of jazz, rock, Latin, Eastern Indian and other world music. Trucks' playing is clean, his tone pure and never altered with processing or effects, and though he may not be the most spirited performer, he's definitely worth seeing live, especially on a bill with his wife, singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi. See them both this Thursday evening at Tampa Theatre. Thurs., Dec. 28, 7:30 p.m., 711 Franklin St., downtown Tampa, $37.50-$46, 813-274-8982, tampatheatre.org.
This article appears in Dec 27, 2006 – Jan 2, 2007.