About Me
Charlie Wood is a talented and versatile singer, songwriter and keyboardist whose eclectic musical style ranges from blues to jazz to r&b and all points in between. Born in Memphis, TN in 1967, Charlie studied classical piano from an early age and jazz piano in high school and college. He spent 1990 on the road as keyboardist for legendary blues guitarist Albert King, with whom he toured the U.S. and Europe. He has also performed and recorded with numerous other regional and national acts, has worked as composer and musical director for local theatre groups and independent filmmakers, and has played and sung on countless jingles and album projects.
For over fifteen years the Charlie Wood Trio - consisting of Charlie on piano, Hammond B-3, pedal bass and vocals, Renardo Ward on drums, and Gerard Harris (formerly of Kool and the Gang) on guitar - performed nightly at the King's Palace Café on Beale Street. During their tenure at the Palace such musical luminaries as B.B. King, George Coleman, Joey DeFrancesco, Alvin Batiste, Tony Reedus, Rufus Thomas, Georgie Fame and many others stopped by to sit in and play with the band. On a recent tour in England, Robert Plant joined Charlie onstage to sing five or six of his favorite Memphis r&b classics :
It was during his long residency on Beale St. that Charlie developed and perfected his own unique, jaw-dropping approach to the Hammond organ. Although he makes it all look effortless and sounds perfectly relaxed and comfortable in performance, the technical prowess his style demands prompted one reviewer to describe him as "the Art Tatum of the B-3." The virtuosity and dexterity required make it unlikely that Charlie's style of playing could even be imitated by other players, much less rivaled. Imagine one performer simultaneously doing all of the following: singing, playing great solos with his right hand, providing perfect rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment with his left hand, and walking a solid, hard-swinging bass line on the bass pedals. Throw in a healthy dose of piano and electric piano and an occasional bass solo (with his FEET, no less) and you have an idea of what a Charlie Wood solo performance is like. Just add other musicians to taste and serve hot!
Charlie's work has earned him numerous musical accolades, including the N.A.R.A.S. "Premier Player Award" for Keyboards and the Beale St. Merchants' Association "Entertainer of the Year" award. He has toured extensively in Europe and the U.K. to promote his original music and has performed numerous festival and club dates and appeared on television and radio programs across the continent. Wood is also an accomplished songwriter with five original CDs under his belt: "Southbound," "Who I Am," "Somethin' Else," "Lucky," and his most recent original CD on the Memphis-based Daddy-O Records label, "Charlie Wood and the New Memphis Underground," featuring the recently revamped eight-piece ensemble of the same name. The band is a virtual who's who of the Memphis music scene. Members have performed and recorded with Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Eddie Floyd, and numerous other blues/soul/R&B legends. Charlie also recently collaborated with tuba maestro Jim Shearer on a new album, "The Memphis Hang," which will be released June 10, 2008 on Summit Records.
Since the beginning of his musical career in his late teens, Charlie's studio and stage performances have been earning him rave reviews. Local, regional, national and international publications as diverse as "Blues Review," "Downbeat," and "The New Statesman" have attested to Charlie's gifts as an artist and writer as well as his astounding musicianship. Perhaps Bill Ellis, a talented musician in his own right and the former music reviewer for the local Memphis daily, "The Commercial Appeal," put it best when he began his October '96 review of Southbound by saying simply that the Hammond B-3 "...has a name in Memphis, and it's Charlie Wood."
