Susan Tedeschi brings her soul-stirring songs to Keswick

Susan Tedeschi, whose heart-to-heart vocals range from tender to tough love in ways that leave her Tedeschi Trucks Band fans shaken and stirred, concedes that, yes, that's her in the Facebook photo, all dressed up, holding her Fender guitar in one hand and doing laundry with the other.

Her face is as intense about getting those clothes into the dryer one-handed as it is when her voice is wringing every ounce of scorn out of "I Pity the Fool," every ounce of tender longing out of "Always," and every street-tough blues chop out of that Fender.

"That's real life," Tedeschi said on the phone, laughing, taking a break at her and husband Derek Trucks' Jacksonville, Fla., home before heading north to a Thursday-through-Saturday gig at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside.

"We were in Austin, Texas," she said. "They had a laundry backstage. I had my kids out [on tour] at the time. Kids go through laundry like it's going out of style, especially my daughter, who changes clothes like three times a day.

"I was just about to go on stage," Tedeschi said, "when I remembered, 'Oh, I didn't put this stuff in the dryer.' It was the three-minute call. I said, 'Wait! I need a minute and a half!' I'm like a full domestic mom. I like cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids."

Tedeschi, as warm and down-to-earth offstage as she is onstage during her sweet to sweat-stained solos and beefy blues guitar riffs, added a Hollywood ending.

"Renée Zellweger took that picture," she confided. "She dates" guitarist Doyle Bramhall II.

The Tedeschi-Trucks marriage made in soul-music heaven was born on the NASCAR Rocks tour in July 1999. Tedeschi's blues band was opening for the Allman Brothers Band, which had just added a dazzling 20-year-old slide guitarist named Derek Trucks, who also fronted a blues band of his own. (Derek's uncle, drummer Butch Trucks, was a founding member of the Allman Brothers.)

"We'd both played similar circuits for a long time, like Manny's Car Wash in New York City, and never ran into each other," Tedeschi said. "I'd see his name all the time. I heard him on the radio. I thought, 'Oh, another guitar player. He's way too young for me.'"

Tedeschi, 45, who is nine years older than her husband, laughed - musically, of course.

One fateful night in New Orleans, she changed her mind about Trucks.

"My problem with dating musicians in the past was they were just into music and not into other things," she said. "But Derek was into sports like I was. We both love football and baseball. When we first started dating, we'd play one-on-one against each other in basketball. I guess I was tomboyish. I was being a woman not to mess with."

She laughed again. After 15 years of marriage, a son, a daughter, and six years of fronting the Tedeschi Trucks Band together, the couple still exchange intimate little looks while they trade big bluesy solos on stage.

Trucks has often said that Tedeschi's voice, which effortlessly ranges from woman-on-the-warpath wails to looking-for-love pleas, just blows him away.

Tedeschi feels the same way about Trucks' sizzling slide guitar.

"There are huge audiences for guitar players who can do the flash stuff," she said. "It's really fast and kind of technical. But musically, I don't feel it's moving. It's just wheedle, wheedle, wheedle.

"Derek sounds more like a vocalist," Tedeschi said. "When he plays his lines, you can almost sing the solo. They are gorgeous and flowing, and then they build. He tells a story. It goes somewhere. It's almost a lost art form.

"On 'Midnight in Harlem,'" she said, "he gets it to this place where it gets really emotional. I'm almost crying. And I see it in the audience. The arms start coming up, and the tears start coming down. It's pure joy. That's what music is."

Tedeschi's soaring voice may be traceable to her great-aunt Josephine Sabino, a classical opera singer.

"Aunt Jo starred in Europe in Verdi operas," Tedeschi said. "She taught me how to breathe properly when I was 10. If you can support your singing with your breath, the odds are you're not going to strain your voice.

"Aunt Jo could hold a note for 32 beats. Holy mackerel! I'm happy if I can do 16."

If past history holds true, there will be surprises on the Keswick stage when Tedeschi Trucks' 12-musician all-star band plays songs from the new album, Let Me Get By.

There may be an otherworldly sax solo to segue from "Don't Know What It Means" to pop classic "The Letter." The backups may sing an old-timey gospel hymn, "Anyhow," before launching into the band's very different song with the same name.

Tedeschi and Trucks are generous about giving song credits to every band member who contributes. Tedeschi, the only woman in those songwriting sessions, said she had no trouble being heard.

"Derek says I'm tough, but I'm just used to being around boys," she said. "I like being around men because there's no nonsense, no drama, no weirdness. You just get right to work."

She said the most difficult thing about being a guitar woman was the wah-wah pedal.

"Being a woman and playing wah-wah in heels is like doing yoga on one foot," Tedeschi said. "Your weight's on one foot while the other foot's going up and down. You've just got to be coordinated. And I'm not always coordinated."

She laughed. "Sometimes, I keep it together."

Tedeschi Trucks Band, 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside, $39.50-$99 (Friday and Saturday shows sold out), 215-572-7650, keswicktheatre.com.