What: Derek Trucks Band

Where: Royal Theatre

When: Sunday, June 28

Rating: 5 stars (out of five)

Guitar star Derek Trucks has figured out the right balance between structure and looseness. And in a jam-style Southern rock band, that’s a great thing.

Trucks and company offered a great big dollop of soul, rock and R&B Sunday night at the Royal Theatre. Yet it was during his interpretion of a jazz standard, My Favourite Things, that the pony-tailed Trucks proved he’s a master of the controlled free-for-all.

On My Favourite Things the guitarist, clad simply in jeans and an untucked shirt, stretched out well beyond the blues-based tunes that had come before. With his band providing a jazzy, rumbling underpinning, Trucks tipped his hat to the familiar melody before offering a variety of solo ruminations. Early on, he played some beautiful, woody-sounding note clusters low down on the neck. For the finale, as the band roared with cymbals crashing and white lights flashing, Trucks crescendoed with a wild slide work-out that pivoted on the exact spot between chaos and control.

This is the sort inventive, virtuoso playing that distinguishes Trucks as being well beyond merely proficient guitarists found in so many jam bands. It’s telling, too, that he’s just as happy to function as a deft rhythm player, adding the odd flourish but keeping his support appropriately subtle.

The Derek Trucks Band received a warm welcome at the over-heated Royal Theatre (where staff seemed to have decided to save money by turning off the air conditioning). He played songs from his new disc, Already Free, as well as well as older selections.

Some find singer Mike Mattison — he of the medium-sized Afro and jumbo-sized Joe Cocker rasp —to be an acquired taste. It’s true Mattison’s singing often sounds like coarse-grade sandpaper, however, I like it and find it a dynamic contrast to Trucks’s often sweet slide playing.

Mattison sounded particularly fine during Soul Serenade, interpreting it with a gritty, soulful falsetto. And when Trucks — wielding his favourite burgundy Gibson SG — charged in with his solo, it sounded like a jet plane taking off. The guitarist then changed his approach, playing a high-register slide melody that suggested the entreaties of an imploring lover.

Trucks’ approach is somewhat unusual in the rock world, in that he finger-picks rather than using a plectrum. Playing mostly with a glass slide, his sound is tremendously flowing and lyrical, with an emotive quality that suggests the human voice. At the same time, Trucks effortlessly provides a wide array of timbres, ranging from greasy, overdriven riffs to angelic high notes.

He and his band —including Hammond organ, bass, drums and congas — make terrific use of a simple device. Often, Trucks and company will build to a flashy crescendo, then suddenly shift to a soft, delicately played passage. Oddly, few rock bands do this (Nirvana used to do it well too) yet it’s awfully effective.

Although he plays mostly slide guitar, Trucks is equally proficient with non-slide techniques. Even when he solos in this manner, as in Find My Way, his sound remains remarkably fluid and legato.

One of the evening’s fine moments was the Derek Trucks Band’s interpretation of the old Dan Penn/Spooner Oldham song, Sweet Inspiration. A gospel-style number with a secular message (“Baby, I need your sweet inspiration”) Trucks and friends imbued it with a righteous Delaney-and-Bonnie groove.