Watch: Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks Preview SOULSHINE Performances at Samuel Waxman Foundation Benefit in New York

Photo Credit: Peter Shapiro

Last night, Nov. 21, the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation presented its 27th annual Collaborating for a Cure Gala. Staging at its longtime home of New York’s Cipriani Wall Street, the beloved benefit known familiarly as The Waxman continued a legacy of top-tier performances for a good cause, this time alluring the audience with a staging of Tedeschi Trucks Fireside Live featuring a “very” special guest.

Tedeschi Trucks Fireside Live is Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks’ stripped-down, intimate concert performance, first presented in 2021. Typically framing the Americana figureheads alongside a backing quartet–significantly reduced from the 12-piece Tedeschi Trucks Band–Thursday’s staging of Tedeschi Trucks Fireside Live followed a triumphant presentation at the 26th annual Waxman benefit in 2023. 

To celebrate this return, the band welcomed a sit-in from none other than Warren Haynes, Trucks’ former guitar counterpart in the Allman Brothers Band. Haynes’ connection with the SWCRF dates back to 2012, when he led the 15th annual Collaborating for a Cure Gala. Together, the great axemen and longtime collaborators served up a blazing treatment of the Allmans’ 1970 timeless classic “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”; watch the ripping final passage in a video below, captured by Relix publisher Peter Shapiro.

Haynes and Trucks’ connection onstage on Thursday followed a recent reunion in the studio for Haynes’ forth solo studio album Million Voices Whisper. For that landmark project, which arrived on November 1 via Fantasy Recordings, the guitarists teamed up for three tracks, marking their first sessions together since the Allman Brothers Band’s 2003 album Hittin’ the Note. Among those entries is “Real, Real Love,” an unfinished Gregg Allman original that Haynes completed and renewed with Trucks’ vocal and instrumental talents. “I finished it in a way that’s reflective of the way Gregg wrote and then invited Derek Trucks to be part of the recording process, which really took it to the desired next level,” Haynes shared in a press release. “I wanted to write it as if Gregg were singing it. Even in the way we approach the song as a band, and in the way I approach it as a singer, I had his presence in mind the entire time.” 

The explosive interplay at The Waxman also offers a window into what fans can expect this weekend at SOULSHINE, the highly-anticipated benefit concert to aid relief and recovery efforts in Western North Carolina and Florida in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Staging at New York’s iconic Madison Square Garden on Sunday, November 24, the expansive show will be led by the Warren Haynes Band, Dave Matthews Band, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats and Goose; special guests within the all-star bill will include Trucks, Tedeschi, Trey Anastasio, Mavis Staples, Robert Randolph and More. All proceeds will benefit the SOULSHINE Concert Fund at the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation which will support Habitat for Humanity’s 2024 Hurricane Recovery fund and non-profits on the ground in North Carolina and Florida. Visit soulshinemsg.com for tickets, more information and donations.

SOULSHINE will also be available to experience through a global livestream, set for 7 p.m. ET on Nov. 24. Read more here.