Melody Trucks: Roots Run Deep
photo credit: Samantha White Morrow
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Melody Trucks began her career later than most musicians, especially for someone born into a rich legacy. “I put my first band together when I was 45 years old. I didn’t start this part of my musical development until after dad died,” she says, referencing her father, founding Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks. “For two years before he passed away, I would go in and sit with Butch Trucks and The Freight Train but that was me singing like twice a year. It’s daunting to start this kind of career so late in life but I’m like, ‘If Sharon Jones can do it, then I can do it too’ because she was a badass!”
Since putting her first band together, Trucks has toured in various ensembles, though she is quick to note that her music is “very steeped in the influences that I come from. There’s a lot of Allman Brothers influence. There’s a lot of blues, a lot of rock.” But, she goes on to add, “I’m also starting to write some music that’s going to pull in some of that world music influence I had from college. [The Allman Brothers Band are] classified as Southern rock but they weren’t Southern rock. They pulled in blues, jazz and funk, and I’m doing it the same way, just with my own spin. I’m not trying to be The Allman Brothers Band, I’m not trying to be Tedeschi Trucks Band. I’m just trying to be me but I have the tendency to sound like them cause I came from the same roots. [Laughs].”
Since dissolving The Melody Trucks Band, due in part to a lineup change that resulted from the pandemic, the percussionist has begun putting together a new self-titled project, in addition to her frequent work with brother, Vaylor Trucks, in their group Brother and Sister. The ensemble’s name plays off of The Allman Brothers Band’s 1973 studio album, Brothers and Sisters, which boasts images of both of Butch Trucks’ children—Vaylor on the cover and Melody with her mother and the rest of the band’s family on the back.
For now, she’s focused on her dad’s Roots Rock Revival weekend and building connections with the next generation of talent, “Going forward, I want my project to be able to shine a light on these kids. I really think my dad would sign off on that.” She concludes, “If the future of music is going to be worth anything at all, we have to bolster those kids who truly have the talent to take it to somewhere greater than where it is right now.”
