The Woods Band was an Irish folk-rock band formed in 1970 by husband and wife team Gay & Terry Woods, shortly after their departure from Steeleye Span. The band played and recorded for four years before evolving into Gay & Terry Woods. In 2001, Terry Woods formed a new band and named it The Woods Band, which performed and recorded through 2003.
History
The Woods Band was formed in 1970 by ex-Steeleye Span members Terry and Gay Woods. The band was formed just a few months after the couple had left Steeleye Span, shortly after the release of Steeleye's first album Hark! The Village Wait, after personal disagreements with members. Performing under the name "Gay & Terry Woods" as well as "The Woods Band", they worked with a number of different musicians, including fiddler Joe O'Donnell. and King Crimson members Ian MacDonald and Mike Giles, amongst others. Eventually, a line-up solidified under the name The Woods Band with guitarist Ed Deane and drummer Pat Nash. Terry Woods also wanted to recruit uilleann piperPaddy Keenan, who declined and would go on to join the Bothy Band. They began to rehearse and perform soon after forming, releasing a self-titled album in December 1971. The record was a mix of traditional material and originals, including a re-recording of the track Dreams from Terry's old band Sweeney's Men. With standard rock instruments embellished by mandola, concertina, autoharp, dulcimer, bodhran, and harpsichord, the music sounded rather similar to, and held its own with, Steeleye Span's own early work, although showing a greater rock influence. Shortly after the album's release, however, Gay & Terry joined Dr. Strangely Strange on tour, before returning to work as both The Woods Band and Gay & Terry Woods, again with a changing cast of musicians. Their record label, Greenwich Gramophone Company went out of business leaving their album out of print. The Ireland division of Polydor gave the band a single release in 1974, the A and B sides were both penned by Gay and Terry but the single failed to chart. Subsequent releases by the couple were credited to "Gay & Terry Woods".
Reformation
In 2002, Terry Woods put together a new band, using The Woods Band as name. Despite the shared name, the only member of any version of the original band was Woods himself. Like the original band, this line-up featured a mix of traditional folk instruments with contemporary rock instruments, as well as a mix of traditional and original songs. The bulk of the lead vocals were handled by singer Shane Martin, with Dubliners singer Ronnie Drew guesting on a recording of "The Dublin Jack of All Trades". Gigging occasionally, the group put out a single studio album, Music From The Four Corners of Hell, in 2002, before becoming inactive. Woods has described the band as "parked... with the wheels off and the engine out."
