Bobby Wood Turns 70 Today!
Happy Birthday Bobby Wood! We appreciate all your contributions to American music! May all your birthday wishes come true! Bobby Wood is a session musician and songwriter most famous for his work as the Memphis Boys keyboardist. Born in a community just south of New Albany, Mississippi, Wood was one of six children in a musical family that delighted crowds as the Wood Family Gospel Group. After studying classical music through mail-order lessons, Bobby decided that genre wasn’t for him. He then mastered and went on to train others in the American folk music tradition of shape notes. For Bobby, the organ was his forte. From years of singing with his family, he developed amazing vocal abilities. Already an accomplished musician by his late teens, he set forth on Bankhead Highway to Memphis where he became Sun Studio producer Stan Kesler’s protege. In 1964, Bobby released a song on Joy Records “If I’m a Fool (For Loving You)” and shortly after Wood joined Reggie Young, Bobby Emm