trey anastasio was scheduled to join derek and susan’s band for an upcoming 2019 show at the lockn’ festival. they were looking for songs for their set, and when a couple of selections from the legendary ‘layla’ album by derek and the dominoes came up for discussion, someone said ‘why don’t we do the whole album?’. and so they did.

‘layla and other assorted love songs’ was recorded in 1970 and featured eric clapton and duane allman on guitars. clapton admitted later in life that ‘layla’ was actually inspired by his infatuation with his friend george harrison’s wife, pattie boyd.

the album figured prominently in young derek’s life. it was played often in the household, partially because his uncle butch was one of the drummers for the allman brothers band. his namesake comes from the title. derek primarily plays slide guitar, and duane is widely considered to be one of the greatest slide guitarists in rock and roll history.

although a few songs from the album have figured prominently in tedeschi trucks setlists over the years, they had to do some rehearsing to get themselves and trey up to speed on the lesser known songs, not to mention create horn charts. but tedeschi trucks is quite simply one of the best touring bands in the country right now, and they rose to the occasion. doyle bramhall also sat in on guitar, and so with him, trey, derek and susan playing rhythm and/or lead, the jams can get a tad cacophonous at times. but they all treat the source material with great respect and energy. that would have been a great show to see. i have embedded a few selections below.

one last note (taken from derek’s liner notes – another reason i still like to buy the physical cd if possible). when derek and susan were doing some research for who wrote one of the songs, derek got a chill when he saw the official release date of ‘layla’ – november 9th, 1970. the day susan was born.

mrs. redeyegin and i are contemplating going out to red rocks to see them in a couple of weeks. if we make it i will let you know.