The Wood Brothers Net Worth, Income, Salary, Earnings, Biography

The Wood Brothers are an Americana and blues band comprised of actual brothers Chris (upright bass) and Oliver Wood (acoustic and electric guitars), as well as multi-instrumentalist Jano Rix. The Wood Brothers are known for their original songs and their live performances. In Boulder, Colorado, Chris and Oliver were immersed in American roots music from an early age; it was part of their upbringing. Their father, a molecular scientist, entertained them at campfires and family gatherings with classic melodies, while their mother, a poet, instilled in them a love of storytelling and the art of turning a word. 

The brothers connected over blues musicians such as Jimmy Reed and Lightnin’ Hopkins, but their careers would differ in other areas as well as in the music industry. The next year, Oliver relocated to Atlanta, where he began playing guitar in cover bands, eventually landing a place in Tinsley Ellis’ touring band. Oliver started singing at Ellis’ urging and eventually formed King Johnson, a hard-tour band that produced six albums of blues-inflected R&B, funk, and country music over the course of the following 12 years. Chris, on the other hand, studied jazz bass at the New England Conservatory of Music before relocating to New York City in the early 1990s and forming the band Medeski Martin & Wood (MM&W), which would go on to become a seminal figure in contemporary jazz and abstract music over the course of the next two decades. 

A concert in North Carolina brought the brothers together after almost 15 years of different musical endeavours: Oliver joined MM&W after King Johnson’s opening performance, and Will played with them after King Johnson’s set. “I came to the realisation that we should be doing music together,” Chris said. Soon after, the duo recorded a batch of Oliver’s songs, harnessing their common musical idols from their childhood while capitalising on their own unique talents — Oliver’s songwriting and Chris’s forward-thinking playing — to create a cohesive album. Following the publication of their demo, they signed a recording deal with Blue Note, who released Ways Not To Lose in 2006. After releasing the covers EP Up Above My Head the next year, the band signed with Nashville’s Southern Ground Artists, which released Smoke Ring Halo in 2012, as well as Live, Volume One: Sky High and Live, Volume Two: Nail and Tooth the following year.

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