Criticised by an art school lecturer as having “a remarkable eye for trivia” Chris Wood’s love of small things has made him one of England’s most vivid and arresting song writers. With gentle intelligence he weaves the tradition with his own contemporary parables. Hollow Point is his chilling ballad of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezez and Wood’s feel for the sheer “one thing after another-ness” of life allows us, for the first time, to see the event through the eyes of the victim.
Joan Armatrading presented Chris with the 2011 BBC Radio Two Folk Singer Of The Year award before inviting him as special guest onto her Autumn 2012 tour. They played 51 cities and Wood found himself eavesdropping on conversations from pound shops to tea rooms, army recruiting centres to hotel saunas collecting the poetry of recession. His response is, None The Wiser, a fourth solo album released 2013. With humble hymns and sweeping statements from Alzheimers to William Blake, Wood lovingly takes the pulse of his homeland in what is generally acknowledged to be his best album yet.
Wood has worked and collaborated with a long list of artists, most recently Dizraeli, Billy Bragg, Eliza and Martin Carthy in Simon Emerson’s Imagined Village. His duet with Eliza added to the “Villager’s” winning another Folk Award for “Best Traditional Song”.
The Irish Times dubbed him ‘the renaissance man of English folk’ because his work extends beyond song writing into commissions for Radio 3 Between The Ears, Late Junction and The Essay. He has written for The Times and lectured at Newcastle and Limerick Universities. His setting of Blake’s Jerusalem features in Paul Gilroy’s lecture on poetry and music at Kings College London and Wood’s lyric Walk This World With Music is included in Michael Morpurgo’s latest collection.
Chris’s spellbinding solo performance will be unforgettable in the intimate atmosphere of Sladers Yard.
Praise for ‘None The Wiser’:
INDEPENDENT *****
“The title track alone is a masterpiece”
EXPRESS *****
“Wood has honed his songwriting to perfection here… heartbreaking purity.”
THE GUARDIAN *****
“Remarkable for the settings as much as the lyrics.”
THE IRISH TIMES ******
“Nobody comes even close to equaling his bird’s-eye-view”
MOJO ****
“a rarefied talent, both as writer and interpreter.”
SONGLINES
“a quietly powerful, astute and vivid set of songs… A folk–soul album”
Sladers Yard’s folk/soul evenings present some of the country’s best players in intimate evenings with stunningly delicious dinners cooked by their own acclaimed Licensed Café. Specialising in fresh, organic and locally grown ingredients cooked to delicious Moorish and Mediterranean recipes, the set price main course will be a choice of three delicious dishes comprising meat, seafood or vegetarian. There will be a full menu of á la carte starters and desserts to complete your dinner if you like as well as a delicious wine list. Bring your friends for an informal intimate evening of exceptional live music surrounded by the gallery’s amazing art.
CHRIS WOOD : ‘None the Wiser’
Thursday 25 June
Dinner from 6.30pm, music from 8pm
Tickets: £12.50/£25 with dinner
Nominated Best Original Song ‘None the Wiser’ BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2014
Songwriter of the Year – Spiral Earth Awards 2014
‘Quite simply our best writer of contemporary English folk songs… there’s no competition’ Time Out
Folk Singer of the Year & Best Original Song ‘Hollow Point’ BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2011
Phone 01308 459511 to book. See www.sladersyard.co.uk for more information.
