The Wood Brothers Hit with High Tune, ‘Puff of Smoke’

The Wood Brothers – siblings Oliver and Chris Wood along with Jano Rix – have become staples of the Americana jam-band scene since their Blue Note debut Ways Not to Lose in 2006. Chris Wood was one of the founding members of noted jazz-fusion group Medeski Martin & Wood.

The Nashville-based trio’s latest album Puff of Smoke, their 10th overall, is the third on the prestigious indie label Thirty Tigers, home of Jason Isbell, Lucinda Williams, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Sturgill Simpson, the Avett Brothers, the Gaslight Anthem and Trampled by Turtles.

The Wood Brothers' eclectic musical palette mixes Oliver’s love of blues, Chris’ jazz background and Rix’s multi-instrumental/keyboard prowess into a light-hearted, but “mindful” philosophy – alongside a large dose of psychedelia. “The trick is not to give a damn,” Oliver sings.

He describes the stony title track as “speaking to the idea of letting go and taking the ride.”

As if it wasn’t clear enough, the video for the Dead-ish sing-along features Oliver in a tinfoil dunce cap pulling on a large hookah behind the wheel as they navigate the twists and turns of modern life, which can be both “precious and precarious,” with a hint of “be here now” and “living in the present.” The album graphic is in the form of a matchbook.

Every day is a puff of smoke
Before you know it, it comes and goes
Maybe it burns your throat
And if you’re lucky, you get high
You take a little ride

The song is currently No. 12 on the Americana Music Association Singles chart.

“There’s a lot to unpack musically in this band, and it’s been this evolutionary process over the years and on each subsequent record,” says Chris. “Over time, the diversity of things we can do has all become part of our language.”

The other 10 songs on the album include the funky opener “Witness”; the tongue-in-cheek “Pray God Listens”; “Slow Rise (to the middle)” with its muted trumpet blasts; the shuffling blues of “You Choose Me”; “Above All Others”; “The Waves”; and closer “Till the End,” a tender plaint amidst a tinkling keyboard.

With a stoner’s “What me worry?” philosophy, but a hope that music can serve to be something fans can all celebrate together, the Wood Brothers are not afraid to get downright cosmic. That puff of smoke lasts but an evanescent moment... though, if we’re lucky, it can to be for an eternity.

 

MORE HIGH TUNES

• "Too Stoned to Cry" (Margo Price with Billy Strings, 2024)

• "One Tok Over the Line" (Brewer & Shipley, 1971)

• "The Ganja Song" (Raul Midón, 2024)