In an era of solo artists making hits inside a laptop, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks dissolved two successful bands to build a 12-piece ensemble with horns, two drummers, and a choir of harmony singers. This deep dive maps the biography of the Tedeschi Trucks Band, from the 2007 Soul Stew Revival trial run and the official 2010 launch in Jacksonville, Florida, to a debut album that peaked at number 12 on the Billboard 200 and won the 2012 Grammy for Best Blues Album.

We look at the mechanics of arranging a dozen musicians without producing sonic mud, the stage plot that resembles a small village, and the band’s role as curators of rock history with full performances of Mad Dogs and Englishmen and Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs at the Lockn’ Festival. We also cover the loss of founding keyboardist Kofi Burbridge on the day Signs was released in 2019, the four-part I Am the Moon project of 2022, and the 2026 album Future Soul.

• Why merging two headlining acts was a financial risk taken for purely artistic reasons
• How horns, vocals, and slide guitar compete for the same frequencies, and how discipline solves it
• Reuniting Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, and Claudia Lennear for the Joe Cocker tribute, plus Trey Anastasio on the Layla set
• Made Up Mind and the Blues Music Awards for album and band of the year
• How a 24-song concept album inspired by a 12th-century Persian poem was written collectively