{"id":9430,"date":"2013-09-23T12:32:26","date_gmt":"2013-09-23T17:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=9430"},"modified":"2013-09-26T11:22:21","modified_gmt":"2013-09-26T16:22:21","slug":"the-wood-brothers-bio-live-tuesday-september-24-at-proud-larrys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-wood-brothers-bio-live-tuesday-september-24-at-proud-larrys\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wood Brothers Bio – LIVE Tuesday, September 24 at Proud Larrys’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wood-header2\"<\/a>Chris Wood<\/strong> had a scrap of a song \u2014 seemed like a chorus \u2014 scribbled in a notebook. He played it for his older brother, Oliver<\/strong>, who\u2019d had a verse lying around he didn\u2019t know what to do with. The two pieces, composed months apart, one in urban Atlanta and the other deep in the Catskills, dovetailed musically and lyrically: the verse about a man regretting chasing unattainable women, the high-lonesome, harmony-driven refrain of \u201cWhen I die, I wanna be sent back to try, try again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNeon Tombstone\u201d wasn\u2019t the first song that Chris, a founding member of jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood<\/strong>, and Oliver, formerly Tinsley Ellis<\/strong>\u2019 guitarist, had written \u2014 since 2006, they\u2019d released three studio albums of Americana as The Wood Brothers<\/strong>. But it was the first one they\u2019d written like this. \u201cThis is how a song is supposed to come together,\u201d Oliver remembers thinking. \u201cThere was some chance, some randomness, to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience marked a deeper level of collaboration for The Wood Brothers, a newfound fraternal synchronicity that\u2019s captured on their latest album, \u2018The Muse.\u2019 Within the first few bars of opener \u201cWastin\u2019 My Mind,\u201d which could pass for a lost cut from \u201cThe Last Waltz,\u201d it\u2019s clear the brothers are operating on a different plane than when we last heard them, on 2011\u2019s Smoke Ring Halo<\/em>. The components are similar: the dialed-in vocal harmonies, Oliver\u2019s gritty acoustic guitar, Chris\u2019s virtuosic upright bass, the warrior poet lyrics. But here there\u2019s a glue \u2014 a yellowy carpenter\u2019s glue, one imagines \u2014 holding it all together.\u00a0The cohesion comes from the brothers having spent the last two years on the road with new full-time member Jano Rix, a drummer and ace-in-the-hole multi-instrumentalist, whereas they relied on session musician-friends to fill out previous albums. Jano\u2019s additional harmonies give credence to the old trope that while two family members often harmonize preternaturally, it takes a third, non-related singer for the sound to really shine. And then there\u2019s Jano\u2019s work on his literally patented percussion instrument, the \u201cshuitar,\u201d a shitty acoustic guitar rigged up with tuna cans and other noisemakers, which, in his hands, becomes a veritable drum kit.<\/p>\n

Starting with debut Ways Not To Lose<\/em>, which NPR described as a collection of \u201cgracious little songs [that] sound like they were born on a front porch during a beautiful sunset,\u201d The Wood Brothers have made albums like you\u2019re not supposed to anymore \u2014 recording mostly live, warts and all. But on \u2018The Muse,\u2019 they double down on the production values of a purer time. Whereas \u2018Smoke Ring Halo\u2019 was tracked with the musicians playing in separate rooms, here Chris, Oliver and Jano often circled around a tree of microphones, a couple feet apart from one another, and simply played the songs, with even the lead vocals being recorded on the spot. The arrangement is a producer\u2019s nightmare \u2014 the different sounds bleed into the various mics, limiting mixing options and ruling out the possibility of fixing mistakes \u2014 but the band had two willing accomplices: legendary country musician Buddy Miller<\/strong>, who produced the album, and Nashville studio vet Mike Poole<\/strong>, who engineered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love how Mike and Buddy really embraced that idea,\u201d Oliver says. Miller, an award-winning producer, guitarist and solo artist, has performed and recorded with icons such as Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Oliver continues, \u201cI hear little things that are out of tune or imperfect, and I love it. That\u2019s what I like about old recordings \u2013 they just did it, and that\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

From early in their childhood in Boulder, Colorado, Chris and Oliver were steeped in American roots music. Their father, a molecular biologist, would perform classic songs at campfires and family gatherings, while their mother, a poet, instilled a passion for storytelling and turn of phrase. The brothers bonded over bluesmen like Jimmy Reed and Lightnin\u2019 Hopkins, but their paths, musical and otherwise, would diverge. Oliver moved to Atlanta, where he played guitar in cover bands before earning a spot in Tinsley Ellis\u2019s touring act. At Ellis\u2019s behest, Oliver began to sing and then founded King Johnson, a hard-touring group that would release six albums of blues-inflected R&B, funk and country over the next 12 years. Chris, meanwhile, studied jazz bass at the New England Conservatory of Music, moved to New York City and, in the early \u201890s, formed Medeski Martin & Wood, which over the next two decades would become a cornerstone of contemporary jazz and abstract music.<\/p>\n

After pursuing separate musical careers for some 15 years, the brothers performed together at a show in North Carolina: Oliver sat in with MM&W following King Johnson\u2019s opening set. \u201cI realized we should be playing music together,\u201d Chris recalls. Soon after, the pair recorded a batch of Oliver\u2019s songs, channeling the shared musical heroes of their youth while seizing on their own individual strengths \u2014 Oliver\u2019s classic songwriting, Chris\u2019s forward-thinking musicianship. A demo landed them a record deal with Blue Note, who released Ways Not To Lose<\/em> in 2006. Follow-up Loaded<\/em> came in 2008; after covers EP Up Above My Head<\/em> the next year, the band moved to Zac Brown\u2019s Southern Ground Artists for Smoke Ring Halo<\/em>\u2019 and then 2012\u2019s Live, Volume One: Sky High <\/em>and Live, Volume Two: Nail and Tooth.<\/em><\/p>\n

On The Muse<\/em>, following the opening one-two of \u201cWastin\u2019 My Mind\u201d and \u201cNeon Tombstone,\u201d the album shuffles between bluesy, classic country and swampy funk, mining the brothers\u2019 timeless influences (Robert Johnson, Willie Nelson, Charles Mingus) while sounding fresh enough to win over fans of today\u2019s mainstream roots-music acts (The Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons). The title track shows Oliver\u2019s songwriting at its most tender and autobiographical to date, as he sings of his \u201cfinest work yet\u201d \u2014 his newborn child \u2014 in his endearingly offbeat voice, which The New York Times<\/em> calls \u201cgripping.\u201d Chris takes the vocal lead on \u201cSweet Maria\u201d and \u201cLosin\u2019,\u201d and capably so, while on his standup bass, he\u2019s often playful, even rascally, imbuing the songs with humor with\u00a0his warm, unpredictable notes. Jano, when not banging on his shuitar, adds refreshing flourishes of piano and melodica.<\/p>\n

The Muse<\/em> marks another milestone for The Wood Brothers: it\u2019s the first full-length they\u2019ve recorded at Southern Ground Studios in Nashville. In the way that Manhattan becomes its own character in an old Woody Allen movie, the live room at Southern Ground plays a key role on the album, making its warm presence felt throughout. (There\u2019s even a little hiss from the analog tape machine.) The choice of location was practical, given Nashville\u2019s rich history and network of musicians, but also symbolic: The Wood Brothers are now officially a Nashville-based band, with Oliver having relocated in 2012, and Chris recently following. It\u2019s the first time the brothers have lived in the same city since they left their parents\u2019 nest; both are eager, along with Nashville local Jano, to plumb the sense of collaboration they tapped into during the fateful \u201cNeon Tombstone\u201d writing session. As\u00a0Oliver says of The Muse<\/em>, \u201cThis is the first record that really feels like a band record. It\u2019s taken years for us to really feel like we can collaborate, and I think this is the pinnacle of it so far.\u201d<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Check out this video of The Wood Brothers in the studio performing “Keep Me Around”<\/strong><\/span>
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