DEREK TRUCKS

Considered by many to be the greatest slide player alive right now, it should come as no surprise that Derek Truck’s earliest musical memory was hearing Duane, as well as the slide pioneer’s contributions on by Derek And The Dominos. There was something about the power of a slide guitar, he once told this magazine, and its ability to emulate the human voice. A big part of that came down to the microtones available to slide players – those notes in between the semitone divisions across the fretboard. “There’s no distinction between one note and the next: you’re hearing every inflection in between,” he once noted, while also admitting picking up a slide came with its own unique challenges. “I think it’s a lot harder to bullshit people as a slide player, as opposed to straight playing, because it’s so raw and honest. Y’know, you can sit in a room, practise all day, learn your scales and blaze blues riffs: it’s easy to hide behind that. But I think with the slide, it’s a little bit tougher. And I’ve certainly heard people play that are bullshitting!”