Chris Wood (rock musician)
Encyclopedia
Christopher Gordon Blandford 'Chris' Wood (24 June 1944, in Harborne
Harborne
Harborne is an area three miles southwest from Birmingham city centre, England. It is a Birmingham City Council ward in the formal district and in the parliamentary constituency of Birmingham Edgbaston.- Geography :...

, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 – 12 July 1983, at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

) was a founding member of the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 band Traffic
Traffic (band)
Traffic were an English rock band whose members came from the West Midlands. The group formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason...

, along with Steve Winwood
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...

, Jim Capaldi
Jim Capaldi
Nicola James "Jim" Capaldi was an English musician and songwriter. His musical career lasted more than four decades. He co-founded Traffic in Birmingham with Steve Winwood, and the band's psychedelic rock was influential in Britain and the United States...

, and Dave Mason
Dave Mason
David Thomas "Dave" Mason is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Worcester, who first found fame with the rock band Traffic...

.

History

Chris Wood had an interest in music and painting from early childhood. Self-taught on flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

 and saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

, which he commenced playing at the age of fifteen, he began to play locally with other Birmingham musicians who would later find international fame in music; Christine Perfect (later Christine McVie
Christine McVie
Christine McVie is an English rock singer, keyboardist, and songwriter. Her primary fame came as a member of the British/American rock band Fleetwood Mac, though she has also released three solo albums...

), Carl Palmer
Carl Palmer
Carl Frederick Kendall Palmer is an English drummer and percussionist. He is credited as one of the most respected rock drummers to emerge from the 1960s...

, Stan Webb
Stan Webb
Stan Webb is the frontman and lead guitarist with the blues band, Chicken Shack.-Career:...

, and Mike Kellie
Mike Kellie
Mike Kellie is an English drummer. Most notably, he has played in Spooky Tooth and The Only Ones. Kellie has also played with Peter Frampton and in various bands with Chris Wood....

. Wood played with Perfect in 1964 in the band Shades of Blue and with Kellie during 1965-1966 in the band Locomotive.

He attended the Foley College of Further Education and College of Art
Stourbridge College
Stourbridge College is a further education college situated in Stourbridge, West Midlands, England.The main campus, built during the 1970s, is situated south of the town centre on Hagley Road...

 in Stourbridge
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the West Midlands of England. Historically part of Worcestershire, Stourbridge was a centre of glass making, and today includes the suburbs of Amblecote, Lye, Norton, Oldswinford, Pedmore, Wollaston, Wollescote and Wordsley The...

 and subsequently was awarded a grant to attend the Royal Academy of Art. His younger sister Stephanie designed clothes for the Spencer Davis Group, based in Birmingham, and it was through her that Wood was first introduced to fellow Birmingham native Steve Winwood
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...

.

In Traffic, Wood primarily played flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

 and saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

, occasionally contributing keyboards
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

 and vocals
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

. Wood also co-wrote several of Traffic's songs, particularly during the earlier period of the band's recording career. His most notable contribution is as the co-writer (with Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi), of "Dear Mr. Fantasy
Dear Mr. Fantasy
"Dear Mr. Fantasy" is a rock song by Traffic from their 1967 album, Mr. Fantasy. An extended live version of the song also appears on the 1971 Traffic album Welcome to the Canteen...

".

Chris Wood played with Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

 in 1968, appearing on Electric Ladyland
Electric Ladyland
Electric Ladyland is the third and final album of new material by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, released in October 1968 on Reprise Records, catalogue 2RS 6307. It is the only Hendrix studio album professionally produced under his supervision. It topped the Billboard 200 album chart for two weeks in...

. While Winwood temporarily joined supergroup Blind Faith
Blind Faith
Blind Faith were an English blues-rock band that consisted of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood and Ric Grech. The band, which was one of the first "super-groups", released their only album, Blind Faith, in August 1969...

 in 1969, Wood, Mason and Capaldi joined Mick Weaver
Mick Weaver
Mick Weaver is a session musician best known for his playing of the Hammond B3 organ and is a much respected exponent of the Blues and Funk styles.-Career:...

 of Wynder K Frog, playing first as Mason, Capaldi, Wood and Frog, but soon as "Wooden Frog". He then went on to tour the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 with Dr. John
Dr. John
Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr. , better known by the stage name Dr. John , is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist, whose music combines blues, pop, jazz as well as Zydeco, boogie woogie and rock and roll.Active as a session musician since the late 1950s, he came to wider...

, where he met singer Jeanette Jacobs (formerly of the 1960s girl group The Cake
The Cake
The Cake are a 1960s girl group made up of Jeanette Jacobs, Barbara Morillo and Eleanor Barooshian. They were managed and produced by Greene & Stone, two Sunset Strip impresarios who also managed Sonny & Cher, Buffalo Springfield and Iron Butterfly.-History:...

). Wood and Jacobs married in 1969, when he was 25 and she was 19.

In 1969, Wood also appeared on the eponymous second album of Free
Free (Free album)
Free is the second album by English rock group Free, recorded and released in 1969. The band had spent time touring after their debut album Tons of Sobs the previous year, and there is a marked difference in the musicianship of the band as well as Paul Rodgers's voice...

 and the Small Faces' The Autumn Stone
The Autumn Stone (album)
The Autumn Stone was the posthumous retrospective double album released in the UK by Small Faces in 1969 on the Immediate label.- Album profile :...

. In 1970, Wood and his wife, along with Steve Winwood, joined Ginger Baker's Air Force
Ginger Baker's Air Force
Ginger Baker's Air Force was a jazz-rock fusion band comprising Ginger Baker on drums, Steve Winwood on organ and vocals, Ric Grech on violin and bass, Jeanette Jacobs on vocals, Denny Laine on guitar and vocals, Phil Seamen on drums, Alan White on drums, Chris Wood on tenor sax and flute, Graham...

, releasing one album before reforming Traffic. Wood remained with Traffic from the time of its 1970 reformation until its 1975 breakup. He played on John Martyn's Inside Out
Inside Out (John Martyn album)
Inside Out is an album released in 1973 by British singer-songwriter John Martyn. It was his fifth solo album, and his seventh if one includes the albums he made with his wife, Beverley...

(1973).

Through much of his life, Wood suffered from addiction to drugs
Recreational drug use
Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...

 and alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

, which were initially attributed to a fear of flying
Fear of flying
A fear of flying is a fear of being on an airplane , or other flying vehicle, such as a helicopter, while in flight. It is also sometimes referred to as aerophobia, aviatophobia, aviophobia or pteromerhanophobia....

. His wife Jeanette, from whom he had separated but was still on good terms, had died in 1980, at the age of 30, from the effects of a seizure. Wood was profoundly affected by her death.

While working on a solo album that was to be titled Vulcan, Chris Wood died in 1983 of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

 in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The album had been recorded over the previous few years, primarily in a recording studio Wood had purchased. Following Wood's death, the Vulcan recordings remained in the possession of Wood's sister, Stephanie. With the consent of Stephanie Wood and after three years of research and preparation, the album was released by Esoteric Recordings
Esoteric Recordings
Established in 2007, Esoteric Recordings is a UK independent record label specialising in 70s progressive rock, folk, psychedelic and jazz-rock reissues as part of the Cherry Red Records umbrella of imprints...

 in 2008.

Traffic recorded one more studio album, Far from Home
Far from Home
Far From Home, released in 1994, was the final studio album released under the name Traffic, and the first in two decades since the release of When the Eagle Flies in 1974....

, after Wood's death. The album is dedicated to him, and the central figure on its front cover is a stick figure
Stick figure
A stick figure is a very simple type of drawing made of lines and dots, often of the human form or other animals. In a stick figure, the head is represented by a circle, sometimes embellished with details such as eyes, mouth or crudely scratched-out hair. The arms, legs and torso are all...

 of a man playing flute.

With Traffic

  • 1967 Mr. Fantasy
    Mr. Fantasy
    -Original US album :# "Paper Sun" – 3:26# "Dealer" – 3:13# "Coloured Rain" – 2:46# "Hole in My Shoe" – 3:04# "No Face, No Name, No Number" – 3:38...

  • 1968 Traffic
  • 1969 Last Exit
  • 1969 Best of Traffic
    Best of Traffic
    Best of Traffic is a compilation album by the band Traffic, released in 1969.The U.S. LP version of the compilation had a different cover design and replaced "Smiling Phases" with "You Can All Join In".-Track listing:...

  • 1970 John Barleycorn Must Die
    John Barleycorn Must Die
    John Barleycorn Must Die is the fourth album by the English rock band Traffic, released in 1970, on Island Records in the United Kingdom, and United Artists in the United States, catalogue UAS 5504. It peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200, their highest charting album in the US, and has been...

  • 1971 The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
    The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (album)
    The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys is the sixth album by English rock band Traffic, released in 1971. As with other Traffic albums, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys featured different forms and offshoots of rock including jazz rock, progressive rock, as well as classic rock and roll. The title of...

  • 1971 Welcome to the Canteen
    Welcome to the Canteen
    Welcome to the Canteen is the fifth album by English rock band Traffic. It was recorded live at Fairfield Halls, Croydon and the Oz Benefit Concert, London, July 1971 and released in September of that year...

  • 1973 Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory
    Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory
    Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory, released in 1973, was the seventh album and sixth studio album by English rock band Traffic. It followed their 1971 hit The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys and contained only five songs...

  • 1973 On the Road
    On the Road (Traffic album)
    On The Road is a live album by English rock band Traffic, released in 1973. Recorded live in Germany, it features the Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory lineup plus extra keyboardist Barry Beckett....

  • 1974 When the Eagle Flies
    When the Eagle Flies
    When the Eagle Flies was the ninth and final album released by English rock band Traffic, in 1974, until their 1994 reunion Far From Home. The album featured Jim Capaldi on drums, keyboards and vocals; Rosko Gee on bass guitar; Steve Winwood on guitar, keyboards, and vocals; and Chris Wood on flute...

  • 1975 Heavy Traffic
  • 1975 More Heavy Traffic
  • 1991 Smiling Phases
  • 1998 Heaven Is In Your Mind - An Introduction To Traffic
  • 2000 Feelin' Alright: The Very Best Of Traffic
  • 2002 The Collection
  • 2003 The Best Of Traffic - The Millennium Collection
  • 2005 Traffic Gold
    Traffic Gold
    Traffic Gold is a two-disc 2005 compilation album by the psychedelic rock band Traffic. It contains at least one song from each album except On the Road, Far From Home, and The Last Great Traffic Jam.-Disc one:...


With Ginger Baker's Air Force

  • 1970 Ginger Baker's Air Force
    Ginger Baker's Air Force (album)
    Ginger Baker's Air Force is the eponymous début album by Ginger Baker's Air Force, released in 1970 .This album is a recording of a sold-out live show at the Royal Albert Hall, on January 15, 1970, with the original 11-piece line up....

    (Island/Polydor)
  • 1998 Ginger Baker, Do What You Like (Polydor; compilation of Ginger Baker's first three albums, including Ginger Baker's Air Force)

With others

  • 1968 The Jimi Hendrix Experience
    The Jimi Hendrix Experience
    The Jimi Hendrix Experience were an English-American psychedelic rock band that formed in London in October 1966. Comprising eponymous singer-songwriter and guitarist Jimi Hendrix, bassist and backing vocalist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, the band was active until June 1969, in which...

    , Electric Ladyland
    Electric Ladyland
    Electric Ladyland is the third and final album of new material by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, released in October 1968 on Reprise Records, catalogue 2RS 6307. It is the only Hendrix studio album professionally produced under his supervision. It topped the Billboard 200 album chart for two weeks in...

    (Track/Reprise Records)
  • 1969 Free
    Free (band)
    Free were an English rock band, formed in London in 1968, best known for their 1970 signature song "All Right Now". They disbanded in 1973 and lead singer Paul Rodgers went on to become a frontman of the band Bad Company along with Simon Kirke on drums; lead guitarist Paul Kossoff died from a...

    , Free
    Free (Free album)
    Free is the second album by English rock group Free, recorded and released in 1969. The band had spent time touring after their debut album Tons of Sobs the previous year, and there is a marked difference in the musicianship of the band as well as Paul Rodgers's voice...

    (Island/Polydor)
  • 1969 Fat Mattress
    Fat Mattress
    Fat Mattress were an English folk rock band that formed in Folkestone in 1968. Founded by guitarist and vocalist Noel Redding, during his time as bassist for The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and vocalist Neil Landon, the band was completed by multi-instrumentalist Jim Leverton and drummer Eric Dillon...

    , Fat Mattress (Polydor
    Polydor Records
    Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...

    )
  • 1969 Martha Velez
    Martha Veléz
    Martha Carmen Josephine Hernandéz Rosario de Veléz is an American singer and actress of Puerto Rican descent. Veléz is the former wife of famous trumpet player Keith Johnson. Her son is performance artist,writer/poet, singer, Taj Johnson. Taj appeared as series regular for two years on Parker...

    , Fiends and Angels (Sire)
  • 1969 Chicken Shack
    Chicken Shack
    Chicken Shack are a British blues band, founded in the mid-1960s by Stan Webb , Andy Silvester , and Alan Morley , who were later joined by Christine Perfect in 1968.-Career:...

    , O.K. Ken? (Blue Horizon)
  • 1969 Gordon Jackson, Thinking Back (Marmalade)
  • 1969 Locomotive, We Are Everything You See
  • 1970 Shawn Phillips
    Shawn Phillips
    Shawn Phillips is a folk-rock musician, primarily influential in the 1960s and 1970s.Phillips has recorded twenty albums and worked with musicians including Donovan, Paul Buckmaster, J. Peter Robinson, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bernie Taupin, and many others...

    , Contribution (A&M)
  • 1970 Sky
    Sky (US band)
    Sky was an American rock power trio active in the early 1970s, based out of Detroit, Michigan. It released two albums with RCA before breaking up in 1973. It's mostly known today as an early point in musician Doug Fieger's career, later the frontman of The Knack.-History:The group started out as...

    , Don't Hold Back (RCA
    RCA Records
    RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

    )
  • 1971 Jimi Hendrix, The Cry of Love
    The Cry of Love
    -Personnel:Band members*Jimi Hendrix – lead vocals, guitars, backing vocals on tracks 3 and 9, piano on track 1, production on all tracks except 5*Billy Cox – bass on all tracks except 5 and 10...

    (Track/Reprise)
  • 1971 Steve Winwood, Winwood (United Artists
    United Artists Records
    United Artists Records was a record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 initially to distribute records of its movie soundtracks, though it soon branched out into recording music of a number of different genres.-History:...

    ; compilation of Winwood's activities from 1966 to 1970, including material from Traffic)
  • 1972 Jim Capaldi, Oh How We Danced
    Oh How We Danced
    Oh How We Danced is the debut studio album by the British musician Jim Capaldi.The album was recorded while Traffic was on hiatus due to Steve Winwood's struggles with peritonitis, and released by Island Records in 1972...

    (Island)
  • 1972 Reebop Kwaku Baah, Rebop (Island)
  • 1973 John Martyn, Inside Out
    Inside Out (John Martyn album)
    Inside Out is an album released in 1973 by British singer-songwriter John Martyn. It was his fifth solo album, and his seventh if one includes the albums he made with his wife, Beverley...

  • 1973 Hanson
    Hanson (UK band)
    -Track listing:#"Traveling Like a Gypsy"#"Love Knows Everything"#"Mister Music Maker"#"Catch That Beat"#"Take You into My Home"#"Gospel Truth"#"Rain"#"Smokin’ to the Big M"-Credits:*Junior Hanson *Conrad Isidore...

    , Now Hear This (Manticore
    Manticore Records
    Manticore Records was the record label launched by Emerson, Lake & Palmer's production company Manticore in 1973. The manticore is featured in the artwork for the album Tarkus by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, . Initially the label was jointly owned with Island Records, but that partnership was dissolved...

    )
  • 1973 Free Creek
    Free Creek (band)
    Free Creek was a band composed of many internationally renowned musical artists, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Keith Emerson, Mitch Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt, who recorded one album, in 1969, in a "super session" format.- Personnel :...

    , Music From Free Creek
    Music From Free Creek
    Music From Free Creek is an album from a series of 1969 "super session" recordings by Free Creek, a group composed of a number of internationally renowned musical artists of the time, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Keith Emerson, Mitch Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt...

    (Charisma
    Charisma Records
    Charisma was a record label founded by former journalist Tony Stratton-Smith in 1969. Manager for The Nice, the Bonzo Dog Band and Van der Graaf Generator at the time, Stratton-Smith was unable to find a record company willing to release an album by one of his favourite groups so he founded his own...

    ; recorded 1969; re-released 1976 as Summit Meeting)
  • 1975 Jim Capaldi, Short Cut Draw Blood
    Short Cut Draw Blood
    Rolling Stone called the album slightly uneven but a promising step forward. Their review approved of both the session musicians and the arrangements, and was particularly complimentary towards his cover of "Love Hurts", saying "he brings a sense of pain very different from Roy Orbison's...

    (Island)
  • 1977 Third World
    Third World (band)
    Third World is a Jamaican reggae band formed in 1973. Their sound is influenced by soul, funk and disco.-History:Third World started when keyboard player Michael "Ibo" Cooper and guitarist Stephen "Cat" Coore, who had originally played in The Alley Cats then Inner Circle, subsequently left to form...

    , 96 Degrees In The Shade (Manga)
  • 1977 Crawler
    Crawler (band)
    There are various bands with the name CrawlerIt was first created from the ashes of Back Street Crawler, following the death of guitarist, Paul Kossoff.-History:...

    , Crawler (Epic
    Epic Records
    Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...

    )
  • 1979 Third World, The Story's Been Told (Island)
  • 1997 Spencer Davis Group
    Spencer Davis Group
    The Spencer Davis Group was a mid-1960s British beat group from Birmingham, England, formed by Spencer Davis with Steve Winwood and his brother Muff Winwood...

    , Funky (Date/One Way; recorded 1968)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK