A4

By ADAM BOWIE
bowie.adam@dailygleaner.com

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It can be a hard life for a guitar-slinging man of the road, but Derek Trucks says it's the only one he's known.

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TRAVELLIN’ MAN: Derek Trucks spends a lot of time on the road thanks to being in three bands. One of his bands, The Derek Trucks Band, will play two shows Thursday at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival.

Trucks plays lightning fast guitar riffs and bottle-neck slide in three hard-touring bands: The Derek Trucks Band; Soul Stew Revival, with his brother Duane and blues-singing wife Susan Tedeschi; and the legendary The Allman Brothers Band.

He also recently completed a tour playing guitar for Eric Clapton's band.

The Derek Trucks Band will perform two shows at this year's Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival. Both are scheduled for Thursday.

The 29-year-old musician said he's literally grown up on stage.

"I guess it's been close to 20 years on the road now, so that's pretty crazy," he said.

"I don't really know any other way."

He said he's looking forward to performing in Canada again. He hasn't been to this region, he said, since he was a teenager on tour.

Trucks said his career in music has allowed him to play alongside many of his musical heroes, but he hasn't had time to be star-struck.

"You get to work and learn the tunes, and I think more than anything you're so focused on the task at hand that you don't really have time to step back and figure out where it falls in the grand scheme," he said.

"But there were times on the Clapton tour where we'd be in Stockholm playing Derek and the Dominos tunes that I grew up listening to - my dad named me after that record - and I'd look over and say, 'Oh yeah, that's Eric Clapton playing this song.' "

Trucks, who was named to Rolling Stone magazine's list of the Top 100 Guitar Players of All-Time several years ago, said he tries not to get too caught up with people's opinions.

"I was actually more pumped to see (the magazine) listed Duane Allman (in second place), because he sometimes gets lost in the mix," he said.

"I was out on the road with The Allman Brothers at the time and you could see the pride it gave those guys considering that four of the guitar players on the list had been in (their band)."