In January, drummer Yonrico Scott traveled to Los Angeles, CA to attend the GRAMMY awards ceremony on behalf of The Derek Trucks Band. He came home with some extra hardware in tote. This is his story, in his words, of the trip of a lifetime. Click here to read Part I.

We get to our category and I’m just thinking to myself, “well here we go.” I knew we were up against some great stars, like Mavis Staples, Robert Cray, Ruthie Foster and of course Susan Tedeschi. Then before I knew it, Jimmy Jam (the presenter) was opening the envelope.

“The winner is… Already Free.” And it was like, “nooooooo!” One person screamed and I just couldn’t believe it! I had a prepared speech (written by Mike & Derek), which was basically, “on behalf of the dTb, we’d like to thank all our fans who have stuck with us so enthusiastically through these 16 years. We’ve been around the world and we’d like to thank the recording academy for this award.” But I had to add in one thing – the names of the guys in the band. I wanted to recognize each man and their families for their incredible efforts.

I get the award and I’m trying to stay composed on stage but in my mind, I’m freaking out! A lot of the other winners seemed so relaxed when we won, but for me it was just such a huge deal. I had this GRAMMY in my hand and I was just blown over! Right now I still think it’s a dream and I just wonder when the dream will be over.

So after you get the award you get personally escorted through the room of interviews. It’s several rooms of just interviews and photo shoots. They asked some really good questions, even technical stuff like “what format did you record the album in?” So I talked about the new studio, and how this was the first album Derek produced, and how we installed the mixing board ourselves. We’d recorded in LA, Louisiana, Bearsville, Nashville… We’ve practiced in St Louis, Philly, The Blue Ridge Mountains… They are all great places to work and encourage new ideas, but the place that gave birth to the most new ideas and sounds is at Derek’s house in JAX. They asked me about the music and I explained that even though we play blues, we cover a lot of other styles, from Indian to jazz. Then they asked about my drumming influences and I said George Hamilton was my first teacher; I studied with Art Blakey & Roy Brooks. I told them I started playing at 5 years old, started playing in church at 7. One day at church I played a groove (same one as Joyful Noise and Sweet Inspiration) – a man got the holy ghost and just started destroying chairs.

Then came the photo shoots. There was one where they had me posing in all kinds of ways. Then you stand in front of a wall of photographers and they say are you ready and just start snapping away for 20 minutes. At that moment I thought to myself, this is probably why Derek didn’t come!

Then it was time to head to the Staples Center for the televised portion, and that meant I got to walk the red carpet again. I walked in with Ringo Starr on my right and Mick Fleetwood (who was a presenter at the pre-telecast portion) on my left and thought to myself “I really have grown!” So then I take my seat for the televised, which was on the floor near Clive Davis and many others. I only stayed at the after-party for a bit – I was glowing all night, but I was exhausted and headed home.

First, I had to call Derek and let him know. He said “how about that?” Everyone behind him was screaming and even though DT was cool about it, you could tell he was really proud and thrilled by the moment. He texted me during the show to make fun of my suit, and then after the show when we spoke he said the best part was just seeing me on-stage with Jimmy Jam!

Mike texted me before the awards to “bring back the gold Ricky!” Afterwards we spoke and he was just overjoyed. Kofi was almost beside himself with joy too, Todd was in total disbelief and wished he had went to LA, and I told him that he deserved the recognition. We were all so moved and we just couldn’t believe it happened after all this time. One thing that was really refreshing was Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s speech – he said it cost him more to validate his parking than to make his award-winning record. A light went off in my head – this is really happening! We worked hard, and stayed true to the music we love, and it just showed me that regular people can do great things.

Aftermath:

If we just had been recognized as nominees, we would have been proud of that. I’d been walking on air since we found out about the nomination. For us this is like the Super Bowl; it’s like our Nobel Prize. I thought it would be hard to live up to it but let me tell you I lived it and loved every second of it. I was playing at the club the other night and a lady asked me why I was playing for 30 people… Well I’m just keeping it real. This is where it started! One thing about dTb is we would play anywhere that would let us, wherever there were people there to listen… It’s all about the music.

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