Bill Woods, musician, 75

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

Tuesday May 2 1:31 AM ET 

Country music pioneer Bill Woods dies
By Steven Gaydos

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Musician and disc jockey Bill Woods, one of the
founders of the legendary Bakersfield, Calif. country music scene of the
1950s and '60s, died Sunday. He was 75.

Woods had undergone heart surgery in March and suffered a stroke on
Saturday. He died at San Joaquin Hospital.

His death comes only weeks after the passing of West Coast country music
giant Tommy Collins; the two, along with Ferlin Husky and others, laid the
foundation for the Bakersfield club scene shortly after WWII. It was this
scene that spawned the Bakersfield Sound: a raw, raucous, electric
guitar-driven brand of country music that changed the form and helped
Hollywood -- the West Coast recording center of the movement -- challenge
the primacy of Nashville as a creative and commercial base.

As bandleader at the famed Blackboard Club for 14 years, Woods was the
mentor of many key performers of the era, including Buck Owens -- whose
first paying gig in Bakersfield was playing guitar for Woods and his band,
the Orange Blossom Playboys -- and Merle Haggard, who years later recorded
Red Simpson's country ode to the bandleader, ``Bill Woods from
Bakersfield.''

Simpson said of Woods: ``He was pure country. If you want to know the
history of the Bakersfield sound, it's all in that song. He helped
everybody.''

Woods was a key figure in the development of the fledgling Hollywood-based
Capitol Records and helped launch the careers of several of Capitol's
country stars such as Collins, Husky, Owens, Haggard, Dallas Frazier and
Jean Shepard.

Born in Texas, Woods moved with his family to California in 1940, and the
young musician scored his biggest success in the decade after that as
piano and fiddle player for Tommy Duncan, vocalist of the Country Music
Hall of Fame Bob Wills band.

In addition to working as a bandleader and local disc jockey, Woods raced
stock cars. In 1963, at the Bakersfield Speedway, Woods stepped in for a
destruction derby driver who failed to show, and he was slammed in a
three-car pileup, severely injuring his back, effectively sidetracking his
musical career. That same year, ironically, Woods scored his only hit
record with Red Simpson's classic song ``Truck Drivin' Man.'' By the '70s
Woods had recovered enough to play piano on tour with Haggard in 1972-73.
Woods also cut several tunes as a member of Haggard's band, including the
No. 1 hit ``It Ain't Love But It Ain't Bad.'' Archival recordings of his
work were released in the '90s, including ``Live at the Blackboard'' and
``California Gold Records.''

Funeral services are planned for Saturday at Greenlawn Southwest Mortuary.

Reuters/Variety 




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