There is a saying that goes, “Many hands make for light work.” It’s certainly the case with the Tedeschi Trucks Band, a 12-piece that’s been driven by the marital tandem of Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks dating back to the band’s Grammy Award-winning 2011 debut “Revelator.” Since then, the rock and soul-fueled outfit has not only pumped out five more tasty albums (including a 2022 four-album opus “I Am The Moon” that counts as one release) that have earned them a rabid and loyal fanbase, but they’ve further cemented this relationship via a storied reputation as one of rock’s best live acts.
Never a band to rest on its laurels, TTB is back with its sixth studio album, “Future Soul,” for which they tapped Mike Elizondo (Eminem; Carrie Underwood; Sheryl Crow) to co-produce this project with Trucks. The latter brought Elizondo into the fold after crossing paths with him a number of years ago while Trucks was working with Eric Clapton.
Having seen the producer play in a band with Doyle Bramhall II and Abe Laboriel Jr., the Florida-born Trucks was keen to get into the studio with Elizondo. Tedeschi quickly agreed with this choice and was more than happy with the co-producer’s contributions to this latest batch of songs.
“Mike is just such an incredible musician and we’d heard such great things about him,” she explained in a mid-May interview. “He came up in the mix and we thought we needed to [work with him]. He’s just so sweet, easy to get along with and an incredible musician. He’s super musical and has really great ideas on arrangements, sounds and adding cool keyboards and different weird things — and how to get cool tones from all different kinds of amps. It was a lot of fun.”
For Tedeschi, who is quick to admit to not being enamored with the recording process, this particular experience was rich and rewarding. It took place at the TTB spread in Jacksonville, Florida, where beyond Elizondo’s contributions, a large part of Tedeschi’s enjoyment came from the collaborative nature that not only birthed the new record, but a currently unnamed EP set to drop later in the year.
“I really enjoyed making this record with Mike Elizondo,” Tedeschi said. “I liked how he was so punctual. Each day he had a plan where we’d go in, work on a couple of tunes and see where they went. He was really efficient and really great at leading all of us and giving us direction. I usually don’t like making records because I’m so neurotic in the studio. I’m so used to performing that it’s such a different thing. But it was a really fun record.”
She added, “I really enjoyed all the songwriters and all their contributions to this record. Some of these songs came about naturally and organically, just sitting around and getting some ideas. Derek would have an idea and he’d play it, I’d sing something and it would go one place. Somebody like Gabe [Dixon] comes in and helps finish the lyrics, because he’s such an incredible lyricist. I think we made a really nice record. It’s fun to listen to and to play live. I’m just really excited about the songwriting on this record for sure and the playability of it.”
Part of “Future Soul’s” charm comes from the odd creative quirks that sparked collaboration within the band’s ranks. A longtime Bob Dylan fan who can trace that icon’s influence back to a childhood obsession with 1964’s “The Times They Are a Changin” (“I’d say that [album] was absolutely instrumental in making me who I’ve become in a lot of ways,” Tedeschi said), Tedeschi’s love for the artists playfully nicknamed by some as “Blind Boy Grunt” popped up on this new record via the song, “Who Am I.”
“My idea behind the lyrics at first was that I’d had a dream the night before about Bob Dylan,” Tedeschi explained. “It was like I was on a date with Bob Dylan in the ‘60s. I was like, ‘You had me at hello/poetry and the wine flow/And in the dream you were mine.’ Then Gabe said it must be about me and Derek, so then it became more of a love song in that way.”
With the creative rocket fuel of new material to bring to the world, TTB is loaded for bear on this tour. Upping the ante are a number of dates with a host of famous friends — including The Black Crowes, Alabama Shakes, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Sheryl Crow, JJ Grey & Mofro, Lukas Nelson and Molly Tuttle — also on the bills. Given how TTB generally spend on the road for upwards of 200 days a year, Tedeschi embraces the idea of being in full live music mode and promises wildly varying set lists, particularly given the wealth of music from which the band can now draw.
“[Fans] can expect to hear some stuff from the new record, which we really enjoy playing,” she said. “We’ve been mixing it up so the set lists are very different every day. There’ll be a mix of this new record mixed in with past hits like ‘Midnight in Harlem.’ Some nights you’ll get that and you’ll get ‘Bound For Glory’ and some of the old classics. But you’re going to get a lot of the new stuff and you’ll get maybe some deep cuts from some other albums that maybe you haven’t heard in a while, along with some new fun covers.”
Regardless of how many moving parts may make up the 12-member ensemble, both inside and around the band the common ground of loving music and working toward the same creative goals is at the crux of the band’s longevity, according to Tedeschi.
“We’ve managed to make it work for so long because we’re a well-oiled ship and plus, my husband is an excellent band leader,” she said. “We just have a lot of great musicians and people seem to really like it. I think it’s just a lot of hard work, a lot of great people with a lot of great minds coming together, plus we’ve got a lot in common. I think it’s one of those things that works. We keep on creating, so we’re never really stale. So that keeps it going. And also, we never take time off so we don’t have time to think about not being together. We just work every year — like 200 days a year.”
Tedeschi Trucks Band
Sat, Aug 8 6pm
Hayden Homes Amphitheater
344 SW Shevlin Hixon Dr, Bend
bendconcerts.com/
$78.25+
This article appears in the Source July 2, 2026.
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