Music Box: The Wood Brothers

By Aaron Davis (for JHWeekly.com)

Jackson Hole, Wyo. - The Wood Brothers have a borderline storybook incarnation. Two brothers – Oliver and Chris – grew up in Boulder, Colo. and went separate ways in their teenage years. Infrequent contact for the next 15 years ended in one of the most original sounding folk, blues, jazz and classic R&B collaborations in the Americana scene today.Oliver, four years elder, left the Rockies to spend a brief period at University of California at Santa Cruz before packing up and following some musician friends to Atlanta, where he would spend more than 20 years honing his craft. He bounced around as a guitarist in a band covering Motown and other R&B classics, had a weekly gig at beloved local eatery Fat Matt’s Rib Shack, toured with blues singer-guitarist Tinsley Ellis, and then formed King Johnson for a 12-year stint – a project that covered the gamut of blues, New Orleans grooves of The Meters and Little Feat, to the timeless country of Hank Williams.“Being in my early 20s at the time, places like Fat Matt’s was where I got the chance to play with older guys, and I learned so much from those players,” Oliver said, who has a very distinctive Van Morrison-meets-Freddie King vocal style with a knack for melody. “In the King Johnson days, we once played at the Knotty Pine in Victor [June 29, 2003].”As for Chris, jazz drew him in during his early years while studying clarinet and piano before heading off to Boston to study at the New England Conservatory of Music. After attending a semester as a full-time student he dropped back to part-time, and then focused on private lessons and ensemble playing before meeting John Medeski and Bill Martin to form Medeski, Martin and Wood.MMW put on some legendary shows at the Mangy Moose back in the day – bringing to mind a two-night run in February of 2004 that featured two drastically different performances (groove versus heavy experimentation). Over the years, MMW worked on various labels, including legendary jazz outlet Blue Note and live performances continued to be a magnet for jazz heads.Oliver and Chris reconnected musically when King Johnson opened for MMW. Oliver sat-in during the MMW set, for which Chris refers to as “a creepy experience, like watching myself. He had a lot of the same impulses I did. Part of it was influences; part of it was blood.”“It was nice for Chris and I to go our separate ways and season ourselves – not only musically, but as people,” Oliver shared. “In your 20s and a lot of your 30s there’s a lot of learning that goes on in life and your identity fills out in those years. So for us to get together later in our careers was cool. We were on this parallel musical path, and to come full circle with these different influences has really been fun.”The Brothers tour as a trio with drummer/percussionist/keyboardist/harmony singer Jano Rix, who plays a homemade “shuitar” – a cheap acoustic guitar converted into a percussion instrument. The Wood Brothers recently released a live album, Live: Volume 1: Sky High, with the sister album, Live: Volume 2: Nail & Tooth, to be released next month.The Wood Brothers perform 9:30 p.m., Sunday, at the Pink Garter Theatre. Tickets are $25 advance or $28 day-of-show, available at The Rose and PinkGarterTheatre.com. 733-1500.