Ways Not To Lose

I'll keep this short. The Wood Brothers (Oliver and Chris Wood), have been making music for years separately, but these brothers should have been working together sooner. Yet better late than never, Blue Note Records has just released Ways Not To Lose, an album as perfectly titled as it is a guarantee of your twelve dollars.

I'm not certain if this is a jazz disc ("Time To Stand Still"), a soul disc ("That's What Angels Can Do"), or a bluegrass disc ("One More Day"), and I'll be damned if I care. It occurs to me that maybe I expect artists to fill one genre specifically and not deviate from that designation, and shame on me for expecting more. The Wood boys, along with Kenny Wollesen on drums, create soulful music that has roots in Appalachia, as well as the Big Easy, Harlem, and Detroit. In fact, someone should tell the citizens of the Smokey Mountain range that they're musically similar to the patrons of the Cotton Club on 125th St. in New York and see if that breaks a few stereotypic walls.

Whichever category this disc falls into, it's just plain good. Chris's bass playing is thick but deft, syrupy but rhythmically edgy, and on "Glad," it's hard not to notice how good he is, and how hard it must be to make it sound that incredibly easy. As for Oliver, the lyricist and lead singer of the duo, he has a voice characteristically akin to Van Morrison circa Moondance, steeped in southern soul with a whiskey chaser.

I want to reference almost all the other tracks for their virtuosity and impressiveness, but in lieu of verbosity, just take my word for it; buy this album. You can't lose.