When you really listen to this CD you'll realize you have the next Guitar God on your hands, easily better than the guitar gods of old, such as Eric Clapton. Woody has digested a massive back catalog of guitar god-dom of old and has created something totally unique and modern, but keeping a reverance for the tone of the guitar itself, Woody plays a custom Totem guitar like Henry Kaiser (and he has also played and recorded with H. Kaiser as well). He is able to coax an amazing variety of rich tones from his amazing guitar collection, with just one totem guitar he can evoke Hendrix one moment, then change the tone knobs, and sound like Page the next. However his command of the jazz and new music idioms and his hardcore education at CalArts put him on another level than all of the Hendrix/Page imitators running around.
Simply saying he sounds like Neil Young or the Meat Puppets doesn't do it justice either. His studied with Miroslav Tadic at CalArts, and got into all the crazy time signature changes in Macedonian folk music, although the term "folk" is misleading, because there's nothing simplistic about Macedonian music (or Miroslav Tadic, another guy who should be on the cover of Guitar Player in a more just world).
Its time for hippies young and old to hoard out to support a new artist who's got all the experimental guts of a Jerry Garcia, but lives and plays with a discipline that will allow him to take the hoard massive "futhur" than anyone, except Carlos Santana, from the past had been able to do.
In fact the ideal dual bill would be to hear Woody with Santana and Mahavishnu John McLaughlin because Woody is on that level. To people who haven't heard Woody play, that might sound totally pretentious, but please buy the CD, and then you will figure it out. He's one of the most amazing guitar players on earth, so you need to hear this CD if you love guitar.
Beyond the guitar the Poppy Woody CD is chock full of fun tunes, and Woody has a great sense of humor. Rat Race and Fools Think are ironically funny tunes,
but with dope, mind blowing guitar. Get Paid is funky blues, while Love
Shuffle shows off the get down bass action of John Avilla (and really, really rips live).
The songs are tight and well produced, this is a high quality CD, not some little bedroom project. It captures the sound of the live Papa Woody Band, though if you can get to LA, you must also see them live, because they take things out and do a lot of intense live jamming, so its like hearing an artist on the level of Carlos Santana in a little club, something not to miss.
So get this CD, its one of the few CDs I bought this year, because its one of the few worth buying.
Read more...