Susan Tedeschi co-partner with  Derek Trucks in life and music is our guest this week.

We first talked to Susan in May when the first Moon album,  Crescent was released. This  is the rest of the story

Tedeschi Trucks Band has created “one of those albums” that will become the standard by which all other such albums are created.

It’s an amazing story and we are thrilled to have Susan share it with us .  It’s our complete 30-minute interview – with the tracks from the first album.

The concept behind I Am The Moon, the GRAMMY-winning band’s fifth studio recording, was suggested by TTB vocalist Mike Mattison in May 2020, two months after the band was forced off the road by the pandemic.

The 12th-century poem Layla & Majnun by the Persian poet, Nizami Ganjavi, was the title inspiration for Eric Clapton’s 1970 double-LP with Derek and the Dominos, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs – an influential album for Tedeschi Trucks Band.  Interestingly,  Ganjavi’s source material resonated with Mattison and the rest of the band in an altogether different way. Finding complex themes and storylines that inspired their creative process, they forged a new, modern interpretation of the vast 100-page poem.

The thought that started the project was “Instead of Majnun,  lets see this story through Layla’s eyes.

Operatic in scope, Tedeschi Trucks Band explores romantic relationships, collective struggle, faith, and the human experience on I Am The Moon.

“It’s amazing,” Trucks says, “because we wrote most of this music in a pretty short time span. There are even chord changes that mirror other tunes on the albums – themes and variations, lyrical allusions, that pop back up.” He continues: “You always want to do something bigger and thematic. This is the first time it happened naturally.”

 

The decision to sequence and release I Am The Moon in four distinct episodes came “when we started thinking of records we love,” Derek says, citing Axis: Bold as Love, the 1967 LP by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

“It’s 36 minutes long. That’s the way to digest a record.”

With that approach in mind, TTB will also present I Am The Moon: The Film, immersive visual companions to each album. The corresponding films will debut three days prior to each audio release, offering fans an early opportunity to digest each album in its entirety as a communal listening and viewing experience via the band’s YouTube channel.

TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND – I AM THE MOON: ALBUM + FILM RELEASE DATES:

I Am The Moon: I. Crescent Film Premiere: May 31 Album Release: June 3

I Am The Moon: II. Ascension Film Premiere: June 28 Album Release: July 1

I Am The Moon: III. The Fall Film Premiere: July 26 Album Release: July 29

I Am The Moon: IV. Farewell Film Premiere: August 23 Album Release: August 26

I Am The Moon – All Vinyl Configurations: individual LPs + the 4-LP Deluxe Box  now available

Tedeschi Trucks Band tour: October 21 – Oslo, NO – Sentrum Scene October 22 – Stockholm, SE – Cirkus October 25  – Berlin, DE – Verti Music Hall October 26 – Hamburg, DE – Edel-optics.de Arena October 27 – Prague, CZ – Forum Karlin October 30 – Rotterdam, NL – RTM Stage November 2 – Dublin, IE – The Helix November 4 – London, UK – The London Palladium November 5 – London, UK – The London Palladium November 6 – London, UK – The London Palladium November 9 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy November 10 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy Glasgow November 12 – Paris, FR – Le Trianon November 13 – Paris, FR – Le Trianon November 15 – Paris, FR – Bataclan