Photos: Tedeschi Trucks Band at the GSR highlights a month of the blues in Reno

Fans of excellent guitar talent, notably in the blues genre, have been treated to quite a month in Northern Nevada. Beginning with Marcus King’s appearance at the Grand Sierra in mid-May, Mike Zito at the Peavine Taphouse, and Alistair Greene at Midtown’s Cypress, air guitarists have been making stink faces and imaginary wailing string bends until their fingers froze.

The crown jewel of this great blues run occurred Tuesday, June 4, 2024, when the Tedeschi Trucks Band treated a sold-out house to a two-plus hour show centered around the guitar work of Derek Trucks and the soulful vocals of his wife and bandmate Susan Tedeschi.

Opening the show was not your average warm-up act. Legendary outfit Little Feat, retooled by necessity since their inception in 1969 – after the late founding member Lowell George was fired by Frank Zappa and told by his former boss to form his own band.

The Tedeschi Trucks Band performs at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, NV on June 4, 2024 (Michael Smyth / This is Reno)

Arriving in Reno with a mix of new and long-time members, including drummer Tony Leone (Chris Robinson Brotherhood), guitarist and lead vocalist Scott Sharrard (Gregg Allman), and the great Billy Payne (The Doobie Brothers) on keys, Little Feat treated a large crowd of enthusiastic early arrivals to a full hour of Feat classics, closing with a rousing version of perhaps their most widely known tune, “Dixie Chicken.”

Little more than thirty minutes later, with the Feat crowd gathered, and the rest of the GSR’s Grand Theater now packed, the 12 members of the Tedeschi Trucks Band (TTB) took the stage with Trucks as always, entering with his trusty Gibson Signature SG already suspended from his left shoulder.

Moments later, Susan Tedeschi and the band launched into “Playing With My Emotions” and then “Ain’t That Something,” both from the band’s outstanding four-LP 2022 release “I Am The Moon,” and they were off and humming.

After two days off, Tedeschi’s voice was a blissful mirepoix of soul, power, and tenderness. Paired with Truck’s guitar work, his exquisite slide control adding what was akin to another vocal part, TTB wove a mix of 10 originals and nine covers in their quickly paced set.

After an instrumental interlude of Led Zeppelin’s “What is and What Should Never Be,” Trucks and Tedeschi, led by dual drummers Tyler “Falcon” Greenwell and Isaac Eady, decided the water was just fine and turned things up a notch, rising to a loud crescendo with a powerful “Do I Look Worried.”

Four of the next five tunes would be TTB staple covers of blues and blues-rock classics from the catalogs of Bob Dylan, Derek and The Dominoes, and the great Bessie Smith. The husband-and-wife tandem has spoken at length about covering artists in their live show as a show of appreciation and tribute, not imitation.

Fan favorite “Midnight in Harlem” kicked off a three-song run of TTB originals before closing the main set with Carlos Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice,” providing another canvass for the versatile Trucks to show off his immense talent with a guitar under his wing, but also the virtuosity of Greenwell and Eady behind him.

Throughout the main set, TTB showed why they may be the best all-around band on the road these days.

Mark Rivers, Mike Mattison, and Alecia Chakour have the vocal chops to lead their own bands but lend themselves instead night after night to incredible vocal harmonies and occasional lead cameos behind Susan Tedeschi.

TTB’s three-piece brass section, with saxophonist Kebbi Williams drawing the majority of the solo slots, also includes trumpeter extraordinaire Ephraim Owens and the always grooving figure of Elizabeth Lea on Trombone.

After a brief intermission, Tedeschi returned to the stage with only keyboardist Gabe Dixon, who joined the band after original keyboardist Kofi Burbridge’s passing in 2019, for a cover of “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

Tedeschi’s tonal similarity with Bonnie Raitt, who had a massive hit with the Mike Reid-penned ballad, is as striking as it is beautiful. Dixon is a talented vocalist in his own right, and I hope they try this as a duet at some point in the future.

The evening ended with an all-hands tour de force cover of Joe Cocker’s “High Time We Went,” where only bassist Brandon Boone did not catch Derek Trucks’s eye as he moved around the stage, calling out solos.

Culminating in a 12-piece cacophony, TTB gave the full house everything they came for, and with a classic opener like Little Feat, maybe even more.