Culture
Stuart’s to Host Wood Brothers Sept. 28
< < Back toStuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville will host Americana stalwarts The Wood Brothers on Monday, Sept. 28 at 7:30 p.m. with Gill Landry opening the show.
Dubbed “masters of soulful folk” by Paste magazine, the group will preview tracks from their upcoming Dan Auerbach-produced album, Paradise, scheduled for an Oct. 2 release.
The Wood Brothers’ debut studio album, Ways Not To Lose, (Blue Note, 2006) was considered to be a side project at the time. Chris Wood already had legions of devoted fans for his work as one-third of Medeski, Martin & Wood, while his brother Oliver toured with Tinsley Ellis before releasing a half-dozen albums with his band King Johnson. Almost a decade later, and with drummer Jano Rix added as a permanent third member, it’s now clear that The Wood Brothers is indeed the siblings’ main act.
Paradise follows the band’s acclaimed 2013 release The Muse, which was recorded almost entirely live around a tree of microphones in Zac Brown’s Southern Ground studio. Hailed previously by the New York Times for their “gripping” vocals and by the LA Times for their “taught musicianship,” the band knew that Paradise called for a different approach. Enter The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and his Easy Eye Studio.
“For this album, we wanted to have a more up-close and dry sound,” explained Chris in a press release. “I worked on another record at Easy Eye and I just loved the room. Dan’s studio is cool because it’s not old, but it feels that way when you walk into it. It reminds me of Sun Studios. It just has that feeling of a small room with natural compression, and I think you hear that in the sounds on the record.”
The decision to record in Nashville was no coincidence either, as this marks the first album written with the entire band living in Music City.
“Oliver and I spent a lot of hours just in a room together writing songs,” said Chris. “That’s really never happened before. All the music in the past was written long distance or over the course of touring. It’s definitely the most collaborative album we’ve ever made.”
According to his plain-spoken bio, Louisiana native Gill Landry is “a singer-songwriter, multi- instrumentalist, adventuresome photographer, rubber tramp gentleman, self taught painter, shade tree mechanic, and then some.” After cutting his musical teeth in New Orleans and exploring half of America, he started writing songs about his experiences, interpreting life from the curb up. He released his first solo album, The Ballad of Lawless Soirez, in 2007 on the Nettwerk label. Landry’s self titled third album is his first on ATO, but he is not new to the label. He’s played guitar, banjo, pedal steel and has been a contributing songwriter in Old Crow Medicine Show since 2004.
Tickets are still available for Monday’s show. For more information, visit stuartsoperahouse.org.