Monday, November 10, 2008

A biography of Chris Wood

Last week I directed you to a website devoted to the work of Chris Wood, who played the flute and saxophone with Traffic.

I have read suggestions recently that a biography of Wood is to appear. The Radio London website says that the author is Dan Ropek, who writes:

Mention Chris Wood to most people (even music fans) these days, and most likely all you'll get is a quizzical look. If you include the name 'Traffic' as well, then you may hear: 'Oh yeah, he was good, whatever happened to him?' And that, in a nutshell, is why I am working on his biography. Chris was a great multi-instrumental musician, the co-writer of many of Traffic's best songs, and in the twenty years since his death he has never really gotten the recognition he deserved.

I got interested in his music the same way most of you probably did – through Traffic records. Although, a song like "Dear Mr. Fantasy", goes so far back in my consciousness that I could not tell you when I first heard it; I do know that over the years the music has held up extremely well. More than that, while some of what passed for popular music from the sixties era today sounds quite dated, Traffic's music has somehow kept pace with the changing world – the depth is still there.

3 comments:

Alan Woontner said...

The biography is now out!

Alan Woontner said...

You can purchase Dan Ropek's stellar book on Chris Wood, which is very informative of all things Traffic on Amazon.com

Jonathan Calder said...

Thank you, Alan. I have just blogged about the book's publication here.