For Chris and Oliver Wood, music has always been a family affair. Raised in Boulder, Colorado by a Harvard-trained microbiologist father and a poet mother, The Wood Brothers grew up immersed in music. Their father was part of the late 1950’s Boston-Cambridge folk revival scene and played with Joan Baez and introduced his sons to the world of folk and country music. The Wood brothers wrote and played together growing up, then wound up on divergent paths in pursuit of their individual music careers. Oliver moved to Atlanta where he embraced the blues/ rock music scene and fronted the band King Johnson, while Chris ended up in the vibrant, underground music scene of New York City and is bassist and one third of the improvisational trio, Medeski Martin & Wood. It wasn’t until 2003, when Chris and Oliver shared the same stage as part of a King Johnson/ Medeski Martin & Wood double bill, that they realized there was potential for a duo project. As Chris recalls, “Oliver sat in with us – he just played guitar, didn’t sing but he was so good and so familiar. Even though we’d been pursuing music in two very different worlds, we shared a perspective that made our collaboration feel really natural.” In 2004 Chris and Oliver began working up songs, retreated for writing sessions and in March 2006, released their debut album, Ways Not to Lose on Blue Note Records. The songs – sung and largely composed by Oliver Wood – possessed a timeless quality. There were echoes of country blues, Appalachian bluegrass and New Orleans R&B. Oliver’s vocals were set within expressive arrangements created by his guitar riffs and Chris’ nimble, note-bending bass lines. It is a spare and raw album, a “loose reimagining of American roots styles…earthy, acoustic original songs spiced with a shot of hipster irreverence,” said Rolling Stone. The twelve tracks comprising Ways Not to Lose embodied a tinge of sadness and struggle but also a strong spirit of resilience and fortitude. SCRAPOMATIC Mike Mattison and Paul Olsen are Scrapomatic, also known to their diehard fans as “The Great American Music Machine.” The duo pour their influences in the top and out come perfectly calibrated Americana gems. Scrapomatic have recorded three critically acclaimed blues-roots albums since 2002 -“Scrapomatic,” “Alligator Love Cry” and 2008’s “Sidewalk Caesars,” which they are currently supporting on a nationwide tour. Their mission: Make music rooted to the blues canon, but dodge becoming a museum piece by taking up the flag of the modern blues innovators - Taj Mahal, Nina Simone, Dr. John; artists who used their deep-seeded knowledge of the genre to push it into the future. Needless to say, the Great American Music Machine is not afraid of its influences.