June 20, 2003

Greener pastures ahead?
New album may help Beth Wood's grass-roots popularity morph into larger renown

by Thor Christensen

Beth Wood's soulful voice and songs earn her tons of compliments, including some puzzling ones. After one concert, a naive young fan came up and asked "Why haven't you turned pro yet?"

The Arlington singer-guitarist, who's been a full-time musician for seven years, didn't quite know how to respond. "I told him I was going to retain my amateur status so I could compete in the Folk Singer Olympics."

She laughs, but there's also a bitter kernel of truth in the story. While she's built a grass-roots fan base and released five CDs on her own label, she's still largely unknown in a world where success is measured by major-label records and airplay on VH1.

"People are unaware that you can make a living at the mom-and-pop level I'm doing it at," she says.

Listening to her CDs, it's a wonder she hasn't yet climbed to the next level. On her brand-new disc, You Take the Wheel, she recalls vintage Shawn Colvin, but with a better sense of humor.

After making her previous CDs with a backing band, she took a different route with Wheel and re-recorded her "greatest nonhits" in the same solo acoustic setting she uses in concert. "My Miles Davis Kind of Blue" is a stark, fanciful take based partly on "a psycho roommate who stole my Miles Davis CD." She wrote "Hero's Almanac" after a run-in with one of her musical idols who turned out to be a jerk (she's not saying who).

And "Late Night Radio" sprang to life as she was driving through South Carolina after a particularly rotten gig. "There were only four people there... and two of them were making out," she says. "I started to question my career choice, but then I heard this great radio station and it helped me make it home and pull me through those dark hours."

You Take the Wheel also features "Supermodel," an amusing shuffle featuring couplets like "You're gloriously overpaid and underfed/How does that little bitty body hold up that great big head?" The song has been drawing laughs for years at her live shows, but she held off on recording it until now.

"I finally caved in, but I had this extremely nightmarish vision of that being the one song that somehow catches on. I didn't want to be known as 'That Supermodel Song Lady.'"

Lately, she's been gaining a rep as "That National Anthem Lady." The Lubbock-raised Ms. Wood first sang the anthem in public at a minor league hockey game in Austin while attending the University of Texas. Now living in Arlington (after five years based in North Carolina) she's sung "The Star Spangled Banner" three seasons in a row at Texas Rangers games. On Friday night, she'll try it again on the minor-league field before the Fort Worth Cats baseball game. "It's really scary because there's no band and no net, and the echo comes around four or five times," she says. "But it's the kind of challenge that helps prepare you for any live situation."

You Take the Wheel is available at www.bethwoodmusic.com.