CHRIS WOOD

8th November 2013

Self-taught on guitar and violin, he is a lifelong autodidact -- and his independent streak shines through in his composition and studio work. Always direct and unafraid to speak his mind, his song writing has been praised for its surgical clarity. His work is typified by his trust in the space music can create and a gift for lyrical understatement.

Chris has five prestigious Radio 2 Folk Awards including Best Original Song and Folk Singer of the Year 2011, Best Album and Folk Singer of the Year 2009 and best Original Song in 2006. Throughout his career independence has been balanced by collaboration. The artists he has worked with include Billy Bragg, Andy Gangadeen, Andy Cutting, Jean François Vrod and Hugh Lupton (Wood and Lupton's "One in a Million" won Best Original Song at the BBC 2 Folk Awards in 2006). Recently he has worked alongside Martin and Eliza Carthy and others in The Imagined Village: "Cold Haily Rainy Night", performed by Wood and Eliza Carthy, took the award for Best Traditional Song at the Folk Awards in 2008.
In 2009 his album, Trespasser, took on the idea of enclosure: spiritual, intellectual, cultural and physical. Billy Bragg writing in The Independent said “Come Down Jehovah, is a measured statement of atheism that puts Dawkins to shame!” Wood went on to receive "Album of The Year" and “Singer of the Year” from BBC Radio Two.