Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks are seasoned blues-rockers who’ve put out more than 20 albums as solo artists and with the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Yet it wasn’t until recently that they truly learned what it means to sing the blues.
In the past three years, the married couple has mourned the deaths of a half-dozen close friends, including their band’s keyboardist, Kofi Burbridge, Derek’s uncle Butch Trucks (drummer with the Allman Brothers) and Col. Bruce Hampton, the jam-band pioneer who suffered a fatal heart attack onstage during a show that featured Tedeschi and Trucks.
They’ve soldiered on with a new album, Signs, and a tour that includes concerts Thursday and Friday night at the Majestic Theatre.
We recently caught up with the 48-year-old Tedeschi by phone from Jacksonville, Fla., where she shares a home with Trucks, 40, and their two teenage children.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You sing about Hampton’s death in the new song “The Ending.” What have you learned about the grieving process from his death and all your other losses?
I’ve learned it hits you at the most unexpected times … and it really makes you take things less for granted and say, “I love you, I care about you,” to people maybe you wouldn’t have said that to.
I was kind of desensitized for a few months after Kofi died in February. It was a really dark time for me. Sometimes I feel like I’m in a dream and a nightmare at the same time. But we have kids, and we have to try to be positive for them, and one thing that really helps is playing music.
You can cry and write about it and get up and sing about it and tell the story, and it’s a really beautiful, emotional release.
There are some heavy topics throughout the new album. You sing about social and environmental issues in “Signs, High Times” and “Shame.”
“Shame” is about power and how people manipulate it — anything from political power to sexual aggressors, where girls who speak up are put down and shamed.
We’ve also seen massive floods and huge hurricanes, and now these fires in California … some people still don’t believe in climate change, and there’s a lot of division, politically. But people do come together in a time of crisis. We really have to learn to push that other stuff out of the way, stand up for the stuff that you do have in common, and find the greater good.
As someone who started out in musical theater, how did you get so good at playing the blues and soul music?
When I was 18 and going to Berklee College of Music, I started singing in a 60-person gospel choir where almost everyone was African-American. I grew up in a very white town [Norwell, Mass.], and it was very exciting seeing how people poured their whole heart and soul into it.
Sometimes we would have guests like Shirley Caesar, who was incredible … she conducted that whole choir with her little pinky, and it really opened my eyes to see a strong woman being able to lead all these men, women and children.
Singing gospel made me feel badass. I was like, “How am I, as a white girl, going to be a gospel singer?” Then my friends were doing a blues jam, and they needed a singer, and I realized the blues and soul music was really close to gospel, so I just fell in love with it and started playing electric guitar, and I discovered people like Big Mama Thornton, Koko Taylor, Etta James, Johnny “Guitar” Watson and B.B. King all just playing the heck out of their guitar and singing their faces off. If it wasn’t for blues and gospel, I don’t think I would be who I am.
Since you emerged in the late ‘90s, more women seem to be playing blues-based electric guitar. I’m thinking of young stars like Samantha Fish, Ana Popovic and Ayla Tesler-Mabe.
When I was in college, I didn’t know a lot of female guitar players. It was Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, Lita Ford, Joan Jett. Those were the only four women I could name.
That’s changing, and I think that’s true for every instrument. I think just getting to see women do it gives young women the idea that, “Hey, I can do that, too!”
YouTube has definitely changed the culture, too. If you want to learn how to do something, you just go on YouTube, and kids get the confidence to tape themselves and put it out there.
Debbie Davies, who played guitar with the late Albert Collins, once told me blues is more sexist, and more dominated by machismo, than other genres. What’s been your experience?
She came up in a time where she would have seen more of that than I did … But I do know what she’s talking about.
I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting so many of my idols, like Little Milton and John Lee Hooker and B.B. King. I knew I was lucky to be a woman in pretty much a male world, so I treated it with respect, and humbled myself and worked really hard to fit in the best I could.
How hard was it to fit in with legends like that?
You know, they all flirt with you. But you have to know how to hold your ground and be able to flirt right back without it being weird. They’re not all dirty old men, you know? [laughs] You just gotta know how to work with them.
You launched your career as a bandleader. In the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Derek is the bandleader and lead guitarist, while you’re the lead singer and second guitarist. How has that shift affected you?
When I had my own band and was my own boss, it was pretty sweet, because you can pick and choose when you tour and make records. But when we started the band together [in 2010], that was a big change. I’m not my own boss now. I can’t pick all my songs, and I can’t decide when I want to solo and when I don’t.
What has that done to your ego?
It’s made more humble, that’s for sure, and it’s made me work harder at being a better musician and a better listener and knowing what your strengths are.
I really don’t mind not being the leader anymore. Derek is an incredible bandleader. I trust him. And I see the bigger picture, where I realize how unique this band is. It’s a 12-piece band that’s like an all-star team.
It’s just really, really cool to be part of something that’s way bigger than you. At the end of the day, I’m really lucky to be in this band.
The Tedeschi Trucks Band and opening act Southern Avenue perform at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7 and Friday, Nov. 8 at the Majestic Theatre, 1925 Elm St. www.ticketmaster.com