‘Living in the moment’: One of the world’s best guitarists comes to Chicago

Imagine that legendary Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts calls up to say they’re getting the band back together, and they’d like you to join.

Guitarist Warren Haynes got that call back in the late 1980s.

“It was quite a shock,” he said.

Also, a testimony to the talent and soul Haynes brings to his playing and songwriting. Haynes’ work graced the Allman Brothers Band for the better part of 15 years.

“I’ve always said that, if I were going to go in a band that I grew up listening to, the Allman Brothers would be at the top of that list,” the Grammy Award-winning musician said from his home in Westchester, New York, still with an accent ingrained from his native North Carolina.

Along the way, however, Haynes temporarily broke away from the Allmans to start his own band, Gov’t Mule.

Celebrating 30 years since its self-titled 1995 debut, and with more than 20 studio and live recordings since, Gov’t Mule will play Tuesday, Sept. 9, at Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island in Chicago. Nolan Taylor opens the show.

Gov’t Mule is co-headlining with the Tedeschi Trucks Band, a group also with Allman Brothers bloodlines, literally.

“Our plan was to make one low-budget record, do a tour and support it, and then go back to what we were doing, which was as full-time members of the Allman Brothers,” said Haynes, whose group features Matt Abts on drums, Kevin Scott on bass, and Danny Louis on keyboards, guitar and backing vocals.

“It kind of caught fire on its own and turned into a real band, which we weren’t expecting. So here we are 30 years later,” said Haynes, who originally formed the group as a Cream-influenced power trio with Abts and the late Matt Woody on bass.

Gov’t Mule’s 12th studio album, “Peace … Like a River,” came out in 2023.

A nine-time Grammy Award nominee overall and a 1995 winner for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for “Jessica” with the Allman Brothers Band, Haynes has twice received Grammy nods with Gov’t Mule.

The band earned a nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album for 2021’s “Heavy Load Blues” and for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for the song “Sco-Mule” off the 2001 album “The Deep End Vol. 1.”

In 2024, Haynes also released his fourth solo album, “Million Voices Whisper,” followed by a deluxe version this April under the Warren Haynes Band project he launched in 2010.

This tour will focus on Gov’t Mule songs. There’s more than enough to pull from.

“Every set list is different. Every show is different. So, over the course of a tour, we usually play over 100 songs,” said Haynes, who is paired six times with Tedeschi Trucks on Gov’t Mule’s “Back in the Saddle” tour through Nov. 1.

In choosing songs, Haynes described a blend of reviewing the band’s set list the last couple of times it played a specific market, songs from the last few concert dates, “and what we feel like playing,” Haynes said.

Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, they’ll scrap the script, “call an audible” and go from the gut.

“For us, it’s more about improv and kind of living in the moment and seeing what happens,” Haynes said.

One thing bound to happen is interplay with Tedeschi Trucks Band, a 12-piece rock, blues and soul outfit headed by the married couple of virtuoso guitarist Derek Trucks and singer-guitarist Susan Tedeschi.

Haynes, Tedeschi and Trucks all are among the top 139 of Rolling Stone’s most recent 2023 ranking of the top 250 guitarists in history.

Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks have garnered a combined 13 Grammy nominations with three wins, including one for the band’s 2011 blues album, “Revelator.”

Trucks, nephew of Allman Brothers drummer and co-founder Butch Trucks, joined the Allman Brothers Band in 1999. He and Haynes played with the group until its run ended in 2014.

“We were together in the Allman Brothers for about 15 years, but we had played hundreds of times on stage together prior to that. I’ve known Derek since he was 11 years old,” Haynes said.

Despite nearly a generation between Haynes, 65, and Trucks, 46, they find common ground in performance. There is no ego in their collaborations.

“A healthy dose of rivalry can be a part of that, it just can’t be trying to outdo each other,” Haynes said. “We both come from a world in which we listen to a lot of the same music and love the same styles of music and the same approaches to music, so we’re kind of looking for the same result from what we are doing.”

It can be heard in a song such as “These Changes,” one of three tracks to which Trucks contributed on the Warren Haynes Band’s “Million Voices Whisper” and which will be released Sept. 12 on the stripped-down “The Whisper Sessions.”

“Once that chemistry is established, being able to build upon it and play together week after week, month after month, year after year, takes it to a completely other level,” Haynes said.

That’s the level of mastery Haynes is at — with not only a signature Gibson Les Paul guitar in production, but also with his own bobblehead.

“Having the guitar feels great,” Haynes said. “I have mixed emotions about the bobblehead.”

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Tedeschi Trucks Band & Gov’t Mule: Live In 25

With opener Nolan Taylor

When: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9

Where: Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, 1300 S. Linn White Drive, Chicago

Tickets: $61-$255 at ticketmaster.com/