Susan Tedeschi and husband Derek Trucks certainly don't need each other to put on a compelling show. But together, they literally define "power couple."
With Tedeschi wailing the blues in her sturdy soprano and Trucks shooting fireworks from his wine-red Gibson SG guitar, the Tedeschi Trucks Band performed a commanding set Saturday night at Gexa Energy Pavilion with some stiff competition from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings.
The 36-year-old Trucks is one of the greatest guitarists of his generation, having cut his teeth in the late '90s with the Allman Brothers, a band co-founded by his uncle, drummer Butch Trucks. Unlike a lot of his jam-band peers, Trucks doesn't jam aimlessly. On Saturday, he made every note count, from explosive slide-guitar overtures to esoteric lullabies that recalled Ravi Shankar.
Tedeschi played her own guitar solos in an earthy style that contrasted Trucks' cleaner approach. Her main instrument, however, was her gritty growl, and she moaned and roared through original tunes and well-chosen covers like Ray Charles' "Let's Go Get Stoned," Bobby "Blue" Bland's "I Pity the Fool," and a horn-driven version of the Beatles' "I've Got A Feeling."
The band's other 10 members added their own shades of R&B and jazz. Kofi Burbridge noodled too much on keyboards, but made up for with it with lovely flute solos. And Mike Mattison -- vocalist of the dormant Derek Trucks Band -- sang with just as much grit and verve as Tedeschi.
They all had a hard act to follow in soul singer Sharon Jones, who took the stage at sunset after an opening set by Dallas-born guitar wiz Doyle Bramhall II.
With temperatures hovering in the low 90s, the crowd sat still at first, trying not to sweat. But Jones was having none of that. Her legs a-blur and her backfield in constant motion, she shook and shimmied with wild abandon until the audience jumped up and danced along.
At times, Jones recalled a younger Tina Turner, and she even did a dead-on takeoff of Turner's famous spoken intro to "Proud Mary." Earlier, she paid tribute to Gladys Knight and sang "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" in the same feverish style Knight used before Marvin Gaye got his hands on the song.
The 10-piece Dap-Kings paid homage to the past, too, with a vintage Memphis soul sound they first made famous as backing musicians on Amy Winehouse's 2006 album Back to Black. Yet the show never felt like a dusty museum piece, thanks in part to strong originals like "She Ain't a Child No More," a stormy tale of child abuse written by bassist Gabriel Roth.
And there was nothing remotely retro about Jones, a 5-foot-tall whirling dervish who brought a sense of joy and triumph to every lyric she sang. Fittingly, she ended the set by testifying like a gospel preacher about her 2013 bout with pancreatic cancer.
"I told cancer to 'Get Up and Get Out,'" she howled as she launched into her 2014 song with that title. "I thank God I lived to be 59!"
Judging from the boundless energy she showed Saturday night, don't be surprised if Jones is still onstage shaking her tail feathers when she's 99.
Thor Christensen is a Dallas writer and critic. Email him at thorchris2@yahoo.com
