Friday night I caught up with Butch Trucks after his show with his Freight Train Band, at the Tarrytown Music Hall an hour north of the famed Beacon Theater. Butch and the band started the show, as he often does, with the Allman Brothers instrumental “Hot ‘Lanta,” and continued the two hour set with fan favorites including “Trouble No More,” “Jessica,” “Dreams,” and many others. The audience immediately recognized the rumbling bass line when the band returned for an encore that began with a thunderous “Whipping Post” before segueing into “Mountain Jam” and back to conclude the evening. Butch didn’t just play Allman Brothers material though, playing original material from keyboard player Bruce Katz, and treating the audience to a cover of “Highway 61 Revisited.” Butch isn’t known as a singer, but as he said “it’s a Bob Dylan song, so I don’t give a shit!”   After playing “Statesboro Blues,” Butch took a minute out to quiz the audience on the authorship of the song (Blind Willie McTell) and making sure that the audience knew that Jesse Ed Davis (playing for Taj Mahal) was the first to play slide guitar on the song that became the Allman Brothers signature song. Continue reading →