ENGLISH:

RICHARD COOK laughs out loud at the lyrics of Charlie Wood

Great song lyrics have always been something of a rarity: the trouble started as soon as someone figured out that "moon" rhymes with "June". But it isn't just feebleminded nostalgia calling when one hankers for the scintillating days of Cole Porter and Larry Hart. Just as pop is increasingly confected to the standards set by processed cheese, so its words come to resemble the line-by-line symmetry of scripted jingles. I don't expect Dorothy Parker or William Wordsworth, but when rappers are constantly thumbing their thesaurus for new flourishes of the vernacular, why is it that nine-to-five songwriters settle for ever more mundane language?

What set off this chain of thought wasn't so much a blizzard of mediocrity, but a writer whose current unassuming offering is the only record so far this year that has made me laugh out loud at the sheer pleasure of it. Fittingly, Charlie Wood is from Memphis, Tennessee, the spiritual home of one of the wittiest writers in the style, Chuck Berry; Who I Am (Go Jazz) is Wood's second album. He sings in a lean, unblemished voice which has the high, lonesome timbre of a dedicated bluesman: in fact, he's an English major whose bashful erudition keeps peeking through lyrics that refuse to settle for the easy way to the end of the verse. Take, for example, these lines from track two, the devastating put-down song "Don't You Ever Stop Talking": "Did your daddy not have time to listen to you whine?/Did your best friend get the best part in the school play every year?/Were your lips taped shut by mama, or some other Freudian trauma?/Bet it couldn't beat the
suffering that you're doling out here."

I could fill up the rest of the page with Wood's quotable quotations. But, in most cases, his titles tell enough of a story: "You Are Not Among Friends"; "Back When I Was Stupid"; "The Art of Leaving Well Enough Alone".

The man is never at a loss for words, and words fill up these songs. But the results aren't the tiresome, wise-guy fills that sometimes masquerade for urbanity. Wood measures his way through a song. He loves the sound of a good line, but he's shy about beating us over the head with it, preferring to let us notice it for ourselves. The penultimate track is an almost medicinal rejoinder to the rest of the record: in "Look at the Moon", the author muses on a natural wonder and suggests that we might benefit if we "Turn off the television, hang up the telephone/Log off the internet and look at the moon".

Wood draws heavily on Mose Allison, the Mississippi bluesman-poet par excellence; with a delivery that stretches from laconic to aggrieved, he has the Allison tinge down to a fine shade of accuracy. But there's something else that sets the record apart: the sound of it. Most contemporary records, of whatever style, are subject to so much studio doctoring that the musicians involved are in deep trouble if asked to reproduce them in a live context. Wood's band -- himself on the sturdy old Hammond B-3 organ, with guitar, drums and occasional horns and saxes for assistance--play the music in a sound mix that is thick, hot and necessarily heavy -- no glamorous reverb, nothing that makes you think the players aren't there, giving you their best just the other side of the speakers. Sometimes it's easy to be shocked by how full and immediate a live band can be, having spent many listening hours in front of neutered and cosmeticised records. Who I Am has the
wallop of a live album, but with a degree of finesse that b etrays the care and thought that's gone into it.

At the close of it, Wood turns in a song called "20th Century", a double-edged farewell to that long-ago time. Or has it really gone? "Heavy on chronology, easy on theology/It's just Justinian, not solar, not lunar/Not really begun till two thousand and one." Book him for next New Year's Eve.

- New Statesman

ITALIANO:

Charlie Wood è un talentuoso e versatile cantante, cantautore e tastierista (maestro dell'Hammond Pedal Bass) il cui stile eclettico intreccia elementi di pop, jazz, blues e r&b tradizionale.
Nato a Memphis, Charlie ha studiato prima pianoforte classico, poi jazz durante le scuole superiori e il college.
A soli 23 anni è stato in tour negli USA e in Europa per un intero anno con il leggendario chitarrista blues Albert King, in qualità di tastierista.

In trio con Renardo Ward (batteria) e Gerard Harris (chitarra), Charlie Wood ha suonato per oltre 15 anni, ogni sera, al King's Palace Café di Beale Street.
Durante quegli anni alcuni straordinari musicisti si sono fermati al Café e hanno suonato con la band: tra questi Rufus Thomas, B.B. King, George Coleman, Joey DeFrancesco, Alvin Batiste, Tony Reedus, Georgie Fame.
Durant un recente tour in Inghilterra, Robert Plant è salito sul palco con Charlie per cantare alcuni dei suoi pezzi r&b preferiti.
Tra i musicisti che ha accompagnato in tour c'è anche il pianista italiano Stefano Bollani.

Charlie Wood ha portato la sua musica in tutta Europa e nel Regno Unito (oltre che negli USA), esibendosi anche in trasmissioni televisive e radiofoniche.
Per il suo lavoro, ha ottenuto diversi riconoscimenti, tra cui il N.A.R.A.S. "Premier Player Award" come tastierista, e il premio Beale St. Merchants' Association "Entertainer of the Year".

Wood ha inciso anche alcuni cd come cantautore: tra essi "Southbound" e "Who I Am" per l'etichetta Ben Sidran's GoJazz, e "Somethin' Else" per la Daddy-O Records.
Recentemente, Charlie Wood ha firmato un contratto per la realizzazione di tre cd con la Archer Records, oltre ad avere già terminato le registrazioni del suo lavoro in uscita nel 2009, "Flutter and Wow" (prodotto da Adam Levy, chitarrista collaboratore di Norah Jones).

-Magazzini Sonori

CHARLIE WOOD TRÍO

Charlie Wood.- piano y teclados
Dave Wilkinson.- guitarra
Caspar St. Charles.- batería

CHARLIE WOOD, nacido en Memphis en 1967, es un magnífico compositor, un cantante versátil, y un virtuoso mago del Hammond B-3. Su eclecticismo le ha permitido moverse con soltura por todo el espectro que une desde el jazz al R&B, compaginando su propia carrera personal ( Southbound, Who I am, Somethin´Else, R&B-3, Charlie Wood & the New Memphis Underground, ...), con la de incansable colaborador y músico de sesión. Ya en 1990 giraba por USA y Europa, cómo teclista del legendario Albert King, y ha tocado con “fieras” como B.B. King, George Coleman, Joey DeFrancesco, Rufus Thomas, entre muchos otros, se han acercado para escucharle y actuar con él y su trío en el mítico King's Palace Café de Memphis, donde actúa cada noche desde hace más de 15 años.
Junto a WOOD, dos excelentes músicos británicos afincados en Barcelona: el guitarrista DAVE WILKINSON y el gran CASPAR ST. CHARLES en la batería.

- Zoowa.net

FRANÇAIS:

CHARLIE WOOD, pianiste résident du King Palace sur Beale Street à Memphis (sa ville d’origine) fait partie de ces artistes que les autres réclament … Ce qu’on appelle aux Etats-Unis "a musician’s-musician", un musicien pour musicien.

En 2006, outre cet album LUCKY qui suivait d’à peine une année le précédent "Sometin’ Else", il laissait trainer ses doigts sur son piano ou hammond B3 sur 5 autres enregistrements (Billy Gibson, Daddy Mack, Robert A. Johnson, Kevin Sheadan et the Gamble Brothers). Un garçon très demandé, qui l’avait déjà été en 1990, alors âgé de 23 ans, pour accompagner ni plus ni moins que le grand Albert King !

LUCKY est un album oscillant entre Blues, Boogie et Jazz, un patchwork de sonorités ambiantes entre Memphis et New Orleans.

La particularité de cet enregistrement, c’est de retrouver WOOD sur quasiment tous les instruments en musicien accompli qu’il est. La majeure partie des titres ont été écrits de sa plume, et de sa voix chaude il vous évoque parfois quelques légendes de la Soul. A sa manière si précise de chanter ses Blues, on devine que chaque mot prononcé est important …

Si la dessus on rajoute qu’il est récompensé réguliérement par divers Awards, plus des invitations sur les plus prestigieux festivals mondiaux (par exemple le Poretta Soul en Italie), on aura aucun mal à identifier tant l’album que le musicien comme l’un des plus généreux contemporains aux touches bi-colores.

Chanceux, il l’est certainement, mais le talent n’a rien à voir avec la chance … CHARLIE WOOD a le bonheur d’avoir les deux !

- Virus De Blues

CHARLIE WOOD TRIO

Memphis ha estat i seguirà sent, sens dubte, el bressol de grans figures del blues i el jazz, perquè la cultura musical s’hi respira a cada cantonada. Bevent d’aquesta tradició, va créixer Charlie Wood, un versàtil organista, cantant i lletrista que va començar a fer carrera al costat del guitarrista de blues Albert King, amb qui va girar per Estats Units i Europa. Després, va formar el seu propi trio i, durant més de 15 anys, va estar actuant cada nit al mític King’s Palace Café de la seva ciutat natal, compartint escenari amb monstres de la talla de B.B. King, George Coleman, o Joey DeFrancesco. Amb un estil que ens evoca les millors composicions de Mose Allison, el músic de Tennessee doblega el Hammond i aconsegueix arrencar-li sons i ritmes frescos, que passegen pel blues més emocional, el jazz més cerebral i l’R&B més calent.

Charlie Wood orgue i veu, Dave Wilkinson guitarra, Caspar St. Charles bateria.
Start: 26/06/2008 - 21:00

- bcnmusic

19. März 2008, 20.00 Uhr

Hammond-Jazz der Extraklasse aus Memphis/Tennessee

Man stelle sich einen Musiker vor, der alles gleichzeitig macht: Singen, großartige Soli mit der rechten Hand spielen, den perfekt passenden Rhythmus mit der linken Hand liefern, die dazugehörige ordentlich groovende Bassline mit den Füßen erzeugen. Außerdem noch Klavier und E-Piano spielen und ab und zu ein Bass-Solo (mit den FÜSSEN, wohlgemerkt) einstreuen " das ist CHARLIE WOOD an seiner legendären Hammond B-3, begleitet von Chris Wells am Schlagzeug und dem Gitarristen Matt Börgmann.

Charlie Woods Karriere begann als Begleitmusiker von Albert King, mit dem er 1990 quer durch die USA und Europa tourte. Seinen einzigartigen Hammond-Stil hat Wood auf Memphis' legendärer Beale Street entwickelt und perfektioniert: Über 15 Jahre war das CHARLIE WOOD TRIO hier die Hausband im "King's Palace Café" " regelmäßig spontan begleitet von nicht minder legendären Stammgästen wie B.B. King, George Coleman oder Georgie Fame. Sein Orgelspiel sieht mühelos einfach aus und klingt leicht und locker, ist aber technisch auf höchstem Niveau " so beschrieb ihn ein Kritiker treffend als den "Art Tatum der B-3".

Charlie Wood hat in seiner Karriere zahlreiche Auszeichnungen erworben, darunter den N.A.R.A.S. "Premier Player Award" und den "Entertainer of the Year"- Award der Beale Street Merchants' Association. Von der regionalen Tagespresse in Tennessee wird sein Talent ebenso hoch gelobt wie von international anerkannten Musikzeitschriften wie z.B. "Blues Review" oder "Downbeat".

Wood und seine Begleiter spielen auf Einladung der neu eröffneten TRITONE STUDIOS im CHAT NOIR Petrisberg, die an diesem Abend mit diesem musikalischen Highlight ihren Einstand gebührend feiern werden.