Zambi Lives! Remembering Yonrico Scott’s Embracing Smile
The year was 1995, and I had just made my first connection with tapers, scoring a copy (on cassettes, of course) of the last Grateful Dead show in Tampa and several Widespread panic shows. Later in the year, I received tapes of an Allman Brothers Band show from Gainesville, I think, along with the opening set by the Derek Trucks Band. I was totally knocked out by the Trucks set, especially a great long song where the drummer joyfully sang that he was “40 years old! 40 years old!”
The drummer was Yonrico Scott, who had just joined the Trucks Band and would anchor that group up until Trucks dissolved the band to join forces with his wife, Susan Tedeschi, to create the juggernaut Tedeschi Trucks Band.
Yonrico left us yesterday (09.19.19), just shy of his 64th birthday (10.06.55). And we are once again reminded just how fragile this thing called life is. Only a few days ago he had posted joyous pictures of his daughter.
I had the good fortune to see Yonrico perform a number of times, primarily with the Derek Trucks Band, often at the Wanee Music Festival (some incredible late-night Mushroom Stage shows). He also played Wanee more recently with Royal Southern Brotherhood, with Charlie Wooton on bass; those two performed often as a magnificent rhythm section. RSB famously also included Devon Allman, Mike Zito, and Cyril Neville.
In June of 2009, Wooton and Yonrico were backing Australian blues guitarist Geoff Atchison at the Bradfordville Blues Club outside Tallahassee. Yonrico and I got into a wonderful conversation so engaging that they had to holler at him to get back on stage for the second set!
More than anything, I will remember his smile. He wasn’t Only a Smile (his last album from 2015), but that was the first thing I saw and the last thing I’ll remember about him.
Zambi lives!