The Wood Brothers are an American

roots A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients. Root or roots may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusing ...

band consisting of brothers

Chris Chris is a short form of various names including Christopher, Christian, Christina, Christine, and Christos. Chris is also used as a name in its own right, however it is not as common. People with the given name * Chris Abani (born 1966), N ...

(upright bass) and Oliver Wood (acoustic and electric guitars), as well as multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix. Their music is a combination of

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

Biography

From early in their childhood in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

, Chris and Oliver Wood were steeped in American roots music. Their father, a molecular biologist, performed classic songs at camp fires and family gatherings, while their mother, a poet, instilled a passion for storytelling and turn of phrase. The brothers bonded over their shared appreciation of bluesmen such as

Jimmy Reed Mathis James Reed (September 6, 1925 – August 29, 1976) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His particular style of electric blues was popular with blues as well as non-blues audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), " ...

and

Lightnin' Hopkins Samuel John "Lightnin" Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982) was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist from Centerville, Texas. In 2010, ''Rolling Stone'' magazine ranked him No. 71 on its list o ...

, but their paths, musical and otherwise, diverged. Oliver moved to Atlanta, where he played guitar in cover bands before earning a spot in

Tinsley Ellis Tinsley Ellis (born June 4, 1957) is an American blues and rock musician, who was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, and grew up in South Florida. According to ''Billboard'', "nobody has released more consistently excellent blues albums ...

’s touring act. At Ellis’s behest, Oliver began to sing and then founded King Johnson, a hard-touring group that released 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 The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a Private college, private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music Music school, conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The ...

and moved to New York City. In 1992, Chris co-founded the innovative

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...

group

Medeski Martin & Wood Medeski Martin & Wood (or MMW) is an American jazz fusion band formed in 1991, consisting of John Medeski on keyboards, Billy Martin on drums, and Chris Wood on bass. The band is influenced by musical traditions including funk and hip hop and ...

(MMW), which released two dozen albums over the next two decades. After pursuing separate musical careers for some 15 years, the brothers performed together at a show in North Carolina on May 24, 2001: Oliver sat in with MMW following King Johnson’s opening set. "I realized we should be playing music together," Chris recalled. Thewoodbrothers

Recordings

The brothers recorded a collection of Oliver’s songs to create a demo album. They landed a

recording contract A recording contract (commonly called a record contract or record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote. Artists ...

with

Blue Note Records Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it derived its name from the blue notes of jazz and the blues. Or ...

, who released their first studio album ''Ways Not To Lose'' in 2006. The album was produced by Chris's MMW colleague

John Medeski Anthony John Medeski (born June 28, 1965) is an American jazz keyboard player and composer. Medeski is a veteran of New York's 1990s avant-garde jazz scene and is known popularly as a member of Medeski Martin & Wood. He plays the acoustic piano ...

, and recorded during September 2005 at Allaire Studios in Shokan, New York. Kenny Wolleson supported the duo on drums and percussion. Music critic Steve Leggett said that Oliver's lyrics showed him to be in a state of "perpetual spiritual dilemma" but with a "dogged hope that shines through between the cracks," the words carried on a bed of "sparse and languid" folk-blues music. Their follow-up ''Loaded'' was released in 2008. The next year they released an EP of covers titled ''Up Above My Head.'' In 2011 the band moved recording to Nashville’s Southern Ground Artists for ''Smoke Ring Halo'', the band's first release on

Zac Brown Zachry Alexander Brown (born July 31, 1978) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and co-founder and lead singer of the country–rock Zac Brown Band, as well as electronic dance music group Sir Rosevelt. In 2019, Brown released a pop su ...

's Southern Ground label. Multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix joined the band during this period, adding his percussion and

jazz piano Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the instru ...

skills, and providing vocals. In 2012 they released ''Live Volume One: Sky High'' and ''Live Volume Two: Nail & Tooth'' issued as two separate CDs or a double-LP vinyl gatefold package. In October 2013, the Wood Brothers' fifth studio release, '' The Muse'' was released, with

Buddy Miller Steven Paul "Buddy" Miller (born September 6, 1952) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist and producer, currently living in Nashville, Tennessee. Miller is married to and has recorded with singer-songwriter Julie Miller. ...

serving as

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

. The album was recorded at Southern Ground Studios in Nashville. The Wood Brothers were by this time a Nashville-based band, with Oliver having relocated in 2012, and Chris following. It was the first time the brothers had lived in the same city since early adulthood.from an interview with Oliver Wood on th
Americana Music Show #276
published December 8, 2015 ''The Muse'' provided the band with their first ''Billboard'' chart success, hitting the folk, country, indie and rock charts in late 2013. The band's next album, ''Paradise'' was released in 2015 on the Easy Eye Sound label. ''Paradise'' was the first album in which all three bandmembers shared songwriting credits. ''Paradise'' was their most successful album up to that point, reaching number 1 on the

Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers are "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. The Heatseekers Albums and the Heatseekers Songs charts were introduced by ''Billboard'' in 1991 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new an ...

chart, and number 12 on the US Country music chart. On February 2, 2018, the Wood Brothers released their sixth full-length album, ''

One Drop of Truth ''One Drop of Truth'' is the seventh studio album by The Wood Brothers, released on February 2, 2018. Reception The album has a rating of 84/100 on Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music alb ...

'', which they self-produced and recorded. The album was nominated for the

Best Americana Album The Grammy Award for Best Americana Album is an honor presented to recording artists for quality albums in the Americana music genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Honors ...

award at the

61st Grammy Awards The 61st Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on February 10, 2019, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys hosted. During her opening monologue, Keys brought out Lady Gaga, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jennifer Lopez, and fo ...

. The group released their eighth studio album, "Kingdom in My Mind" in January 2020.

Discography

Studio albums

Live albums

References

External links

*
The Wood Brothers, 'The Muse': Exclusive Song and Album Art

Oliver sits down with Ira Haberman of The Sound Podcast for a feature interview

The Wood Brothers at Blue Note Records

Brothers in Arms: The Wood Brothers
by Tim Newby of Honest Tune, 1/31/07.
The Wood Brothers Live on NPR
Streaming audio of The Wood Brothers performing on February 17, 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:Wood Brothers, The Musical groups from Colorado Blue Note Records artists Musical groups established in 2004 American folk musical groups