HARP OF THE MATTER
Al Wood carves out his own timeless but free-spirited style of blues
“Gateway drug ” is the term Ottawa bluesman Al Wood uses to describe The Doors, the Stones, George Thorogood, and anyone else who filters the blues through rock ’n’ roll.
Raised in Sault Ste. Marie by parents who listened to country music (and made sure he had a harmonica by the age of four), Wood recalls the first time he heard the blues in rock music. It was a teaser that made him want more, sending him on a listening journey to unearth the primary source.
During a radio program paying tribute to the life and times of Muddy Waters, teenage Al felt like he’d hit the jackpot.
“It blew my mind. I’d never heard anything that sounded like it,” Wood said in an interview. “I went out and bought some. I remember being on a geography field trip with my Walkman, forcing everyone to listen. From that moment on, I tried to do a horrendously flawed rendering of that music.”
Although he pokes fun at his efforts, in reality he’s a virtuoso harmonica player with a distinct style that ranges from sweet and silky to lowdown and gritty, plus a whisky coated singing voice and a knack for expressing himself through song, as you can hear on his new CD, Hooka Train.
His third album as Al Wood and the Woodsmen, it was recorded with chief engineer Marty Sobb in one long day at Ottawa’s Raven Street Studios. Instead of padding the bed tracks with guest players and studio effects, Wood rounded up his favourite band members — guitarist Lindsay Pugh, bassist Frank Deresti and drummer Simon Meilleur — and set up to record live.
“The first one was meticulous. It took a year to make. This one, I wanted it less contrived. I wanted to go with a more natural, live feeling sound,” says the 48-yearold singer-songwriter who, by day, works for the federal government.
“We essentially decided to go pretty close to live off the floor, and we went until we were pretty much done the whole thing. It was a 17-hour session.”
The songs are deep, bluesy tracks that mine the challenges of life but also release plenty of positive energy in the catharsis of Wood’s expressive harp. It’s a timeless-sounding style that falls on the country/rockabilly end of the spectrum rather than leaning on rock. Highlights include the happily chugging train song that serves as the title track, the vintage country swing of Bluebird and the mournful relief of Worryin’ Days Are Done, a song written at the request of Wood’s mother before she died.
Wood says he’s always been fascinated by songwriting, and used to record tunes into a tape recorder when he was a kid. But during his years playing blues in Montreal in the ’90s, the focus was on sounding like his heroes.
“I guess you could say I lost my way recording original music during that period,” Wood said. “I didn’t do enough of it. We were so fixated on emulating our heroes from the Chess (Records) era that we wrote songs, but we didn’t do them.”
He went back to playing originals with Red Wood Central, a folky roots outfit formed in Ottawa with his ex-wife. After the group ran its course, Wood decided to combine his love of blues with his own songwriting on 2008’s ambitious Mood Swingin’ Blues. A second album, Right On Cue, came out in 2012.
In 2011, Wood represented the nation’s capital in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, a trip that boosted his cred on the Ottawa scene. He was a fixture at festivals and enjoyed airplay on the fondly remembered blues-radio station, DAWG-FM.
Wood also plays guitar, although it’s Pugh who does the heavy lifting on the new album, along with a contribution by Sobb. Wood likes to say that his hook is no hook but I’d argue it’s the effortless authenticity of his harmonica playing that grabs listeners.
As mentioned, he’s been playing since he was a preschooler, when his harmonica-playing father got him started. Dad would also take young Al to the local K-Mart to pick out a small gift whenever he learned a new song. Wood says he learned through trial and error, and didn’t really educate himself on music until he taught at the Ottawa Folklore Centre. Figuring out how to explain things to his students helped him define his own style.
“Yes, I’m influenced by Little Walter and all those guys,” Wood says, “but I do have my own sound because I do integrate a lot of country, and a lot of almost big-band, Glenn Miller clarinet parts, and a bit of overdrive. I don’t like to think too much ahead of what I’m going to play. It’s definitely a freespirited style and I don’t like playing the same thing twice. It makes it tough to be a hired gun, unless you want your band to sound like me.”