The long tour bus brakes at the gate with a loud grunt, late in the afternoon on an unusually chilly day for Jacksonville, Florida. Guitarist Derek Trucks and his wife, singer-guitarist Susan Tedeschi, step out, looking slightly bushed after the 12-hour drive from Washington, D.C. — they performed at the Southern Inaugural Ball for Barack Obama the night before — and walk briskly up the driveway to their two- story house, into the arms of an ecstatic welcoming committee: their...

Derek Trucks could very well be the best guitarist of his generation, and his sixth studio disc is his band's most accessible blues-rock set to date. Trucks hones the R&B, jazz and Middle Eastern influences of his previous outings into a tight groove on?Already Free. It kicks off with a gritty, swamp-boogie take on Dylan's "Down in the Flood" and stomps through a cover of the Southern-soul classic...

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The guitar has been the king of rock & roll instruments for more than half a century. What you are about to read are twenty reasons why the present and future of rock guitar are as exciting and explosive as its history. In attack, technique, lyrical ambition and experimental drive, these players are all descendants of the original heroes — including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman...