Black Crowes, Tedeschi Trucks team up

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It is undoubtedly one of the most soulful pairings of the summer — the dirty blues rock of the Black Crowes matched with the organic rootsiness of the Tedeschi Trucks Band, fronted by Susan Tedeschi and her guitar wizard husband, Derek Trucks.

The dual outing also boasts one of the largest combined band lineups (the Crowes and TTB are playing separate sets, though there might be some crossover).

Joining Chris Robinson in the Black Crowes are brother Rich (guitar), Steve Gorman (drums), Sven Pipien (bass), Adam MacDougall (keyboards) and Jackie Greene (guitar).

Tedeschi and Trucks, meanwhile, will be joined onstage by Oteil Burbridge (bass), Kofi Burbridge (keyboards), Tyler Greenwell (drums and percussion), J.J. Johnson (drums and percussion), Mike Mattison (harmony vocals), Mark Rivers (harmony vocals), Kebbi Williams (saxophone), Maurice Brown (trumpet) and Saunders Sermons (trombone).

Got all of that? Last month, Chris Robinson and Tedeschi chatted with reporters on a conference call. Here are some of the topics they touched on.

On how the joint tour came together:

Susan Tedeschi: “I remember Derek and my manager and I sitting around thinking about, if you want to play with a bigger-style artist, who would you want to play with? Well Derek has very slim pickings on that. He doesn’t really want to play with anybody, but he was really excited about trying to play with the Black Crowes and with Chris, and he really respects them and loves them and thought it would be a good mix.”

Chris Robinson: “It’s pretty much the same story line on our side. When the idea comes up, it’s a no-brainer, you know, like, let’s go out with one of the deepest, funkiest, soulful bands out there ... I think it’s going to be interesting for people who are more demanding about their concert experience than just, we went and we took some pictures on our iPhone and bought a T-shirt or whatever.”

On whether band members will sit in on each other’s sets:

Chris Robinson: “We haven’t discussed but I would hope so. Ideally this is a music-oriented event, you know, as opposed to other things. So yes, in my mind, it would be great to get everyone up there and do the big soul revue at the end of the night.”

Susan Tedeschi: “Yes, I hope we get to collaborate for sure. It would be silly not to at least try. We don’t know exactly where or when yet, but we’ll get together, start the tour out, see how it goes and probably start sitting in with each other.”