Wood Brothers come to Lexington with a solo ‘Smile,’ gratitude to be back together

For Oliver Wood, keeping the groove going through a pandemic was as basic, and necessary, as keeping a smile on his face.

When in the company of his mates in the Grammy-nominated Wood Brothers – bassist/real life sibling bassist Chris Wood and longtime percussionist co-hort Jano Rix – that meant developing songs of organic funk, folk, blues, gospel, rock, jazz and more out of studio generated jams. That was the game plan adopted for the trio’s most recent album, “Kingdom in My Mind” - a record released just prior to the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown.

With the pandemic squashing all tour plans for the album, Wood satisfied an increasingly restless urge to make new music by indulging in a project he never considered while the Wood Brothers were in motion – a solo album. The resulting record, released independently in 2021, bore its philosophy in its title: “Always Smilin’.”

“It was really something that just came up,” Wood said. “I can’t imagine I would have ever found time or energy to do it between the full time Wood Brothers schedule and raising a family.”

To understand the recent music of a solo Wood Brother, we need to revisit the road leading up to the pre-pandemic recording all three of the trio members were involved with. Picking up on the momentum of 2017’s “One Drop of Truth,” an album that earned the band its first Grammy nomination, Wood, Wood and Rix settled in a studio of their own. In lieu of a more traditional songwriting process, they jammed, recorded the results and began to compose tunes out of what was captured.

“In the early stages of putting that space together, we set up our gear and just started playing like we normally do,” Wood said. “We improvised and had musical conversations where were just enjoying playing music. We weren’t playing songs. We had no goals other than to enjoy the sound and listen to each other. What ends up happening when we do this is we spontaneously compose. Themes and ideas just happened by accident.”

Out of that came the self-produced “Kingdom in My Mind,” a record that sounded, at times, like a swampier, funkier slant on the early music of The Band. The album surfaced in stores in January 2020 with a year of roadwork ready to promote it. Then came COVID. Then came a lot of time at home.

“Well, it was frustrating. On the other hand, it wasn’t like we were the only ones. Everybody had to shut down. It was almost like time had just stopped. Anytime you create something, you are excited about it for a certain amount of time. But after a while, you’re already on to the next thing. We were already thinking about new music yet here was this old music that was just getting started. But it hasn’t been that bad. We were still excited about ‘Kingdom in My Mind’ because we hadn’t had much of a chance to play any of it, and playing it is a whole other animal because you end up taking liberties as you adapt the music for a live setting. It all worked out fine.”

It was in the midst of the COVID lockdown, though, that Wood started “Smilin’.” He took song ideas to musicians and writers outside of the band, conducted some remote recording sessions online and enlisted keyboardist John Medeski (Chris Wood’s mate in his other band of note, the avant-groove trio Medeski Martin & Wood, as well as producer of the Wood Brothers’ first two studio albums) to produce. What emerged was a sound very much in keeping with the Brothers’ earthy groove music, but with different musical colors. Those were provided by pals like Susan Tedeschi and Tyler Greenwell (from the Tedeschi Trucks Band), Phil Cook (of Hiss Golden Messenger) and others.

“Before the pandemic, I made an effort to collaborate with people outside of the Wood Brothers just as a creative exercise. I have so many friends who are great songwriters. But there wasn’t an album in mind. It was just us getting together, having fun and creating. When you’re with the same group for a long, long time, it’s awesome because you’ve formed this language and this comfort zone. But it’s nice to get out of that zone once in a while and get outside of your box. When the shutdown afforded me time and energy, I realized, ‘Well, this will keep me busy until we get back on tour.”

Aside from a few isolated solo shows, Wood has no extended tour plans to promote “Keep Smilin’” nor does he see adding any songs from the record to the Wood Brothers’ shows. Instead, he is relishing being back on the road with his musical brethren.

“Everybody is excited for live music to be happening again,” Wood said. “It’s still relatively new, even though we’ve been back playing live shows since about last June, so we’re coming on a year already. But it’s still something where we felt like, ‘Wow, we took this for granted’ when we couldn’t do it. Now, we’re just a little extra appreciative.

“I will say, though, another lesson that came by from the pandemic and the shutdown was realizing it was healthy just to completely slow down sometimes. That’s another thing we take for granted that I took away, personally. I need to train myself. I thought maybe that would have taught me to do so, but you have to do that with intention and really try for that sort of self-shutdown once in a while.

“Not an easy thing to while touring all the time, but it’s something you can do in small doses if you’re aware.

The Wood Brothers

When: 8 p.m. April 8

Where: Manchester Music Hall, 899 Manchester St.

Tickets: $28, manchestermusichall.com