Whenever Oliver Wood isn’t touring with The Wood Brothers, the Grammy-nominated roots trio that he co-founded in 2006, he typically begins his mornings the same way: in Nashville, at home, with a coffee cup in his hand and a notebook in his lap, sitting in a chair in front of the window. Many of the songs from his latest solo effort ‘Fat Cat Silhouette’ began taking shape in that chair. Produced by his Wood Brothers’ bandmate Jano Rix, it’s an album of unexpected twists & turns. Longtime fans will recognize the earnest, elastic voice that has always anchored the Wood Brothers’ mix of forward-looking folk and southern country-funk, but Fat Cat Silhouette doesn’t spend much time looking backward. Instead, it abandons convention, breaks a few rules, and positions Oliver Wood as a roots-music innovator who’s every bit as interested in the process as the product. Oliver wanted to step out of the norm on this one. On the album’s opener, “Light and Sweet,” he matches an imaginative storyline with a melody that leaps from ground level into the stratosphere. Eight songs later, he brings things to a close with “Fortune Drives the Bus,” which he recorded on an iPhone in his own backyard. While tracking the rest of the album to analog tape, Wood pushed himself to keep things weird. Wood’s years of experience have left him with a wide circle of collaborators, and ‘Fat Cat Silhouette’ features performances from guests like Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin (whose saxophone can be heard on the groove-heavy numbers “Whom I Adore” and “Yo I Surrender”), Ted Pecchio who handles bass duties throughout the collection and Marcus Henderson (who contributes flute & fife to “Whom I Adore”). Co-writers like Sean McConnell, Seth Walker, & Ric Robertson lend their help, too, while Katie Pruitt tackles a verse on the heartbroken soul ballad “Have You No Shame,” which was written by one of Wood’s mentors, the legendary Atlanta musician and songwriter Donnie McCormick. Jano even pulls double-duty as producer & musician, anchoring the album’s mix of mystery & melody with his percussion & keyboards. Despite the stacked guest list, some of Fat Cat Silhouette‘s best moments find Wood and Rix working together as a duo. On “Little Worries,” Wood sketches a picture of a reflective morning in his armchair, a cat in the window, pancakes in the skillet, anxieties crossing and leaving his mind — over Rix’s inventive pulse. Later, when time constraints prevented them from adding horns to “Star in the Corner,” they chose to sing the horn parts instead. A little less typical, indeed. That might as well be Fat Cat Silhouette’s mission statement. This is an album that finds the art in the unexpected, and Oliver Wood, whose songwriting & vocal chops remain as sharp as ever, at his most adventurous.
It has been a long time that Oliver Wood and I have been catching up about what is going on. I have had his brother Chris on a few times as well to talk Wood Brothers, but t s typically Oliver who plays catch-up. He is going to be at the Stoughton Opera House on April 30th with Dave & Dave of Trampled By Turtles, and Seth Walker. We north marveled over the possibilities of what his night could be bringing and then got into what a solo set of his could shape up into. He reminded us a little about how his most recent release, ‘Fat Cat Silhouette’ went down and we even got into a little bit about his work on Seth Walker’s new album which dropped on April 4th. It’s always nice to hear his voice on the other end of the phone, not quite as great as hearing it singing songs, but I am thinking this treat we will be getting at the Opera House is going to be one of those that is hard to forGet.
Photo-by: Alysse Gafkjen
