Anthology

The Wood Brothers are musician siblings Chris and Oliver Wood. Chris is a founding member of Medeski Martin & Wood, and Oliver played second guitar with Tinsley Ellis before forming King Johnson.

Oliver and Chris Wood grew up in Boulder, Colorado, as the sons of a Poet and a Microbiologist.

They both took up music, but Oliver moved to Atlanta and became a southerner while Chris moved to New York City and became a Yankee.

Now, after years of musical and geographical separation they have reunited.

While in Atlanta,Oliver soaked up the roots of blues, the soul of the south, and found he had a talent for writing and singing songs. His band, King Johnson (named after Freddy King and Robert Johnson) toured mostly in the southern states. Meanwhile, Chris was living in Manhattan playing everything from free jazz to rock and roll. This is where he met his band mates to form Medeski Martin &Wood.

Now The Wood Brothers have begun a collaboration that combines their shared childhood influences with everything they’ve learned since leaving home. Their music has a rootsy feel that blends blues, folk, and rock music in a guitar/bass duo.

Their first studio album, “Ways Not to Lose,” was produced by John Medeski and released in 2006 on Blue Note Records and was the Amazon.com editors’ No. 1 pick in folk for that year and also made NPR’s “Overlooked 11” of 2006.

Chris Wood plays both upright and electric basses and is known for a technique on the upright bass that involves using a drumstick as a slide near the bridge of the bass. Wood bows between the drumstick and the bridge to produce a high-pitched, warbling sound, similar to a there min.

Wood is also known to insert a sheet of notation paper behind and between the strings of his bass which creates a unique “snare bass” sound, an adaption of a technique devised on the double bass by San Diego-based Bertram Turetzky.