Most people would celebrate an $11.5 million guitar sale with a stiff drink at a bar. Derek Trucks had plans to do exactly that.
Then his phone rang, and the night took a turn.
It was the night Jerry Garcia’s “Tiger” guitar sold at Christie’s in New York to one of his Ass Pocket Whiskey partners. Everyone was fired up. “We were gonna go out and have drinks,” Trucks tells BroBible in an exclusive interview. “And then I got a call from my wife.”
Cyndi Lauper lives near the Beacon Theatre, where the Tedeschi Trucks Band was in the middle of its annual residency, and she’d been coming out to shows.
She wanted to cook.
“I was like, ‘Sue, I think I’m gonna go out,'” Derek said. “She’s like, ‘Cyndi really wants you to come by. We’re making ravioli.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I can’t pass that up.'”
Any of us would have made the same call.
I heard this one at Bourbon & Beyond in Louisville, where Derek and I sat down for an episode of BroBible SIDE QUESTS with a few bottles of The Search, his annual Ass Pocket Whiskey collab with festival producer Danny Wimmer Presents. You can now buy APW’s “The Search” and other limited releases over on their website, with bottles starting at $32.50.
Trucks’ story might be the best “what I did after the auction” story ever told, especially because the following night he played Garcia’s Tiger guitar on the stage of the Beacon Theater in New York City and broke two of the strings while ripping through “Statesboro Blues.”
Here’s the clip from our conversation:
Cyndi Lauper’s Fillmore East Stories
“So I went from the Garcia guitar auction to Sue and Cyndi Lauper making an Italian dinner at her place in New York with her husband,” Derek said.
Over dinner, Cyndi started telling stories about the Fillmore East, Bill Graham’s legendary New York venue where the Allman Brothers recorded their famous live album. “First time I was at the Fillmore, I saw the Allman Brothers and Elvin Bishop,” Derek recalled her saying. “I was like, ‘What?'”
It got better. Cyndi knew Red Dog, the Allman Brothers’ legendary roadie, who Derek describes as “the quintessential roadie.”
One night, Red Dog spotted a young Cyndi backstage and assumed something. “He thought I was a background singer with Elvin Bishop,” Derek said, retelling her story, “and told me to go on stage.”
“She remembered all these stories,” Derek said.
Then Steve Earle Showed Up
The next night at the Beacon, Steve Earle came by. He and Cyndi go way back, and before long the two of them were trading Allman Brothers stories, including some about Derek’s late uncle, founding Allmans drummer Butch Trucks.
Then Cyndi asked the question every Allmans fan has wondered about for 50 years.
“She was like, ‘What did Dickey and Butchy fight about? Like tempos?'” Derek said. “And Steve Earle’s like, ‘I think it’s more than that.’ I was like, ‘I’m out of here. Let’s get a little close to home, guys.'”
Nothing like hearing two rock legends speculate about your family drama at the Beacon Theatre.
Derek is a guy who played with the Allman Brothers for 15 years, toured with Eric Clapton, and stood beside B.B. King. Even so, that week in New York stuck with him.
“That whole few days was just a whirlwind and just fascinating,” he said. “At those moments, you’re like, never thought this would happen in my lifetime.”
Watch Derek Trucks’ full SIDE QUESTS interview on BroBible’s YouTube channel below. And for the best piece of wisdom he shared, courtesy of the late Col. Bruce Hampton, read “12 Life Lessons From Derek Trucks” on my Substack, Wenerd’s World.