Derek Trucks bought his first acoustic guitar for five dollars at a garage sale in Jacksonville, Florida at age nine, played his first paid gig at 11 and by 13 was touring with a band called Thunderhawk and trading riffs on stage with Buddy Guy. This episode explains why he became a slide player in the first place: his hands were too small to fret an adult guitar, so a glass slide let him bypass the frets entirely, turning a physical limitation into the foundation of his voice. It also confronts the double-edged sword of his last name, as the nephew of Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks, and how he built an independent resume with the Derek Trucks Band from age 15, shared stages with Bob Dylan, Joe Walsh and Stephen Stills, and joined the Allman Brothers full time in 1999 while deliberately keeping his own band alive.

The conversatio ...