The new novelty of the digital age is receiving a compact disc for review. It’s a breath of fresh air in a world filled with disposable streaming exposure. Barely engaging. Barely memorable. It’s not quite as retro as vinyl so it seems perfectly in line with the continuation of the music industry’s trajectory before it was co-opted by Millennials from Silicon Valley.
So it’s fitting the title of this CD on my desk – Radiola – memorializing another nearly dead media. It comes to me courtesy of Bill Wood & The Woodies – Wood on vocals, Dino Naccarato on drums, Chris Bennett on guitars and mandolin, and Mark Shannon on bass, keys, guitars, and percussion. The group has had a long track record over the last decade with the albums Oh Look… (2014) and Mumbo Jumbo Tumbo (2016), and so they have seen their fair share of radio and shifts in audio formats.
The guys shift effortlessly from southern-tinged rockers (“Lifeline,” “Something About You”), straight up blues (“Rain Bus”), country ballads (“Alice Was Dancing,” “Me And You”), and Tom Waits-styled Big Easy juke joint shuffles (“All Comes Down To The Money”). And ‘Radiola’ offers at least two radio friendly nuggets including the opening track “Fall In Love” with its anthemic cheerleading style – making it perfect for an audience call-and-response (remember when you could do that at a bar or a stadium?), the atmospheric “Lost In Space,” and “Lucky In Love.” The production and performances are spectacular across the entire album. Additional Woodies include Burke Carroll (pedal steel), Shelley Coopersmith (violin), Scott Suttie (trombone), and Mary Margaret Wood (Background vocals).
Here’s the track “Lucky In Love” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1cRBD_ZOW8
Hot Off the Press
“Survivor rock from a true ‘been there, done that’ veteran. All the wild times and crazy characters are here, with no apologies, few regrets and a couple of cautionary tales. There’s also room for a love story or two in this very human collection.”
~ Bob Mersereau, author of The Top 100 Canadian Blog
“Some singers, like Nick Lowe and Graham Parker, have the knack of reformatting the punk sneer and growl into something that perfectly fits the roots-rock template of their music. Bill Wood shares this talent. Oh Look … is an honest and direct look at the complexities of life and at how easily we can all, Bill included, mess it up.”
~ Peter Tomkins, Reviewer, R2 Magazine
“Bill Wood and the Woodies is what really happens when the songs are the main event. When 30 years of songwriting, honed over decades of hard life experiences, meets the craftsmanship of career musicians who don’t know what it means to compromise.”
~ Sanda Graham, Editor-in-Chief, Cashbox Canada magazine