Tedeschi Trucks Band - I Am The Moon: IV. Farewell - 180g Vinyl LP

TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND - I AM THE MOON IV. FAREWELL  by David Fricke

 Farewell – the final record in the groundbreaking studio release by Tedeschi Trucks Band, I Am The Moon – concludes a remarkable adventure and new beginning for the group, now in its 12th year as America's premier rock & roll big band: four distinct and, at the same time, deeply connected albums with a total of 24 original songs capturing the power of devotion in a time of crisis and separation, with a renewed energy in collective songwriting and performance. Opening with the lusty confrontation of "Last Night In The Rain" and ending with the rousing benediction "Another Day," Farewell is "a wish of well-being at parting," as one dictionary defines that word – with more road and love ahead.

      The decision to initially release I Am The Moon as four, separate albums came from the explosive productivity triggered by singer Mike Mattison's concept for the songwriting: a new take on the crosscurrents of passion, tragedy and self-discovery in Layla and Majnun, a classical-Arabic legend best known in the 12th-century telling by the Persian epic poet Nizami Ganjavi. That story "was a starting point to generate ideas," says guitarist Derek Trucks, the group's co-leader with his wife, singer-guitarist Susan Tedeschi. "But it kept dragging us in because of the songs that kept appearing, the images in those songs. And it was so much material" – much of it informed, as well, by the parallels in pandemic life as I Am The Moon was written, recorded and refined over nearly two years from the late summer of 2020 into early 2022.

     "It took us a while to get our heads around all of the music we were making," Tedeschi says. "And sequencing is so important. It can change the way a song feels."

     "We started thinking about it as episodes," Trucks goes on, "and even putting visuals with them" – the companion movies, one for each album, that make up I Am The Moon: The Film, directed by Alix Lambert. The length of each album in I Am The Moon – in the manner of some of TTB's favorite rock and jazz albums from the Sixties and Seventies – was another factor. "If you think of the story arc in four parts, it fits perfectly."

     "We didn't have any preconceived notions about what this record would sound like," says keyboard player Gabe Dixon, part of I Am The Moon's principal circle of writers with Trucks, Tedeschi, Mattison and drummer Tyler Greenwell. "We just went for it. That's the nature of the band." But, Dixon insists, "If you don't have a song – a compelling lyric idea, that extra dimension – you might as well just play an instrumental. We have, with this record, compelling songs that showcase the groove and feel, the playing, of the whole band."

     TTB – which includes bassist Brandon Boone; drummer Isaac Eady; singers Mark Rivers and Alecia Chakour; and, on horns, saxophonist Kebbi Williams, trumpeter Ephraim Owens and trombonist Elizabeth Lea – are taking I Am The Moon on tour, and Mattison says they have talked "about the idea, in our two-set shows, of doing an episode in one set." Also on the table: performing the entire project live. "Sue was talking about it yesterday," Trucks says, laughing. "And I do like the idea – at some point, performing it top to bottom."

     Mattison – who set the wheels in motion when he read Layla and Majnun, then passed it around – believes that I Am The Moon has profoundly changed Tedeschi Trucks Band as a creative family affair. "I think we did break down the barrier about how we conceive what we write. It will be helpful going forward."

     In fact, he notes, "We have more concepts and ideas we're thinking of writing. That's part of our vocabulary now."

     And now, song by song, the final chapter of I Am The Moon – Farewell.

"Last Night In The Rain"

     Dixon's electric piano enters like the pensive march in John Lennon's "Isolation," from 1970's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band – a fitting echo for a song about the loneliness of long-distance dedication – before turning to the big sky and open ground of a George Harrison solo epic. "I could be there in an instant," Tedeschi sings, as much in challenge as anguish. You don't know, boy/What you're missing.

"Soul Sweet Song"

     "That was Gabe," Trucks says of Dixon, who co-wrote this song with the guitarist and Mattison. "He had the idea of writing it about Kofi" – original TTB keyboard player Kofi Burbridge, who was ill when Dixon joined in late 2018, at first on a temporary basis. (Burbridge died in February 2019, on the day his last album with the group, Signs, was released.) "Gabe writing lyrics about Kofi (I feel your rhythm moving me/'Cause your soul's sweet song's still singing) – that one hit me between the eyes."  A special guest on congas, Marc Quiñones – a longtime bandmate with Trucks in the Allman Brothers Band – adds a decisive and familiar, rhythmic element to the celebration.

"D'Gary"

     "A pretty wild tune," Tedeschi says of this extended trip through Saharan blues and spiritual jazz, named by Trucks after one of his favorite guitarists, an acoustic virtuoso from Madagascar first heard in the U.S. in the early Nineties. After Trucks wrote the music and the band started to play it, "I had all these visual ideas for lyrics," Tedeschi goes on. "They just came out while we were recording. I sang it as I wrote it." She points to singer-songwriter John Prine – who died in April 2020, in the first weeks of the pandemic – as an inspiration. "I was thinking of him, the way he wrote, which was so visual" – and, she adds, of the renowned Japanese writer Haruki Murakami "because Derek had been talking to a friend whose godfather is Murakami. I was thinking of the two of them, with Derek's music, and it all just popped out." 

"Where Are My Friends?"

     This song was the second of Mattison's initial demos for I Am The Moon ("Fall In" on Crescent was the other), sent to Trucks and Tedeschi as, Mattison says, "examples of where I could go" with the lyric possibility in Layla and Majnun. "I had just finished reading it," Trucks says of Layla and Majnun, "about the time he sent that tune. And I had just been thinking about people in our own circle" – the stress on families and relationships as the pandemic wore on. "It felt like Majnun after he had fully spun out – the love-sick rock star – and then he was just alone." This quiet R&B storm features guitarist Eric Krasno – who has written and played with TTB and the Derek Trucks Band – with a pictorial flourish at the end in Trucks' crying slide guitar.

"I Can Feel You Smiling"

     This sparsely arranged ballad "was fun to write," says Trucks, who "woke up in the morning, had the tune and put it on my phone. It reminded me of something Oliver Wood" – singer-guitarist in the Wood Brothers and a longtime friend of TTB – "would have written, so I sent it to him. He wrote back, 'Man, I woke up the last few days with that melody in my head. Do you mind if I write something to it?' I'm like, 'Have at it, man.'" Wood sent back "this beautiful recording with one verse and a chorus, and I was like 'Okay, that song's done!'" Dixon contributed as well, underscoring the group work ethic – in composing, arranging and performance – that produced every song on I Am The Moon.

"Another Day"

    "One of the questions," Trucks says, "was, 'Do we end on a hopeful note or not?'" Layla and Majnun does not; in Ganjavi's poem, Layla dies of lovesickness, and Majnun joins her, at her grave. "But you know what? We can't help but end on a hopeful note – it's just the way we operate," Trucks contends. In "Another Day," there is no reunion but also no end to the power of love that has driven the story of I Am The Moon. "I am sure you'll find your way," Tedeschi sings in the chorus, the full band and Trucks' slide guitar pressing forward with her – the sound, as Trucks says, "of one foot in front of the other."