First Published in Country Music International – December 1998

Michael Woody picks his favourite sounds for the long road ahead …

“Dyann and myself have recently returned home to Nashville from our second trip to Europe this past year. I had actually played previously in Switzerland, Scotland and Norway, but this year was the first time The Woodys had been over. We went over in April and then again in the summer. I love it over there. I love the people, and the fact that there are so many people over there into Americana or whatever this genre of country music is called that we play. The folks over there really appreciate it and know so much about it.

The connection felt really good. Over here in the States, even when you play in Nashville, everything is so connected to commercial radio music. Being around people who were geniunely into our kind of music rekindled in both of us the wish to listen to some of the music that first interested us and really got us started in all this. People over here no longer think about all the old records that we love to go back to. We found that the people we came across, especially in England and Holland, were very much into this type of music and very knowledgeable about it.

I think the fact that so many folks in Europe love the Everly Brothers, Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman and all of those kind of people really helped to pave the way for us. Because there are those influences in what we do, when they hear those sounds, it is familiar to them, and it's like: 'Oh great, somebody is doing that.'

The Byrds' SWEETHEART OF THE RODEO was probably a defining moment for me. I was a big Byrds fan and that was the first time I had ever really been introduced to country music. Country music was something I was kinda aware of and heard growing up as a kid, but had never seriously been interested in. There used to be the Grand Ole Opry on TV, and I was aware of Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Patsy Cline, people like that. When rock music came out, I basically turned my back on country and got into that. Then the Byrds steered me back towards the country and from them I got interested in Merle Haggard and Buck Owens.

From Merle I would pick That's The Way Love Goes. It has a wonderful melody and words. To me it is so simple and emotional. It was written by Lefty Frizzell. It was later on when I actually listened to anything by Lefty, and the first time I heard him, I went: 'Man, Merle stole his whole deal.' He just took the Lefty Fizzell style, brought his music up-to-date into the 1960s and 70s and took over for him in continuing that sound. I always have to go back to The Beatles and RUBBER SOUL. I had all the gear back then; the leather, a suede jacket and the turtle-necks—I was a real Beatles fan and I have all of their records. It was probably the mysterious folkiness of RUBBER SOUL that appealed. At that time, when that came out, all the other pop music was coming from a different direction, but that had a country and acoustic feel.

If you have The Beatles then you've got to have The Rolling Stones. EXILE ON MAINSTREET is a must for me. That was the time when they were hanging out with Gram Parsons, and he was teaching them all about country music. The Flying Burrito Brothers were my next big thing that got me back more into country music. The thing for me that I really connected with was the writing of Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman.

I guess I was always very much into West Coast music and Jackson Browne's FOR EVERYMAN has always been one of my favourites. I think it was his third album. He had SATURATE BEFORE USE, and one just called JACKSON BROWNE. I just love him; there's so much great music in that album. Then there's Waylon Jennings’ HONKY TONK HEROES. That album started the whole Outlaw Movement, all these Billy Joe Shaver songs were just killers, true Outlaw songs. They were spirited boys.

Dyann has always loved the chick singers. Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou, was where her roots lie; more the acoustic singer-songwriter-folk kind of thing. In her early days she sang all kinds of music; rock and r&b and some country. Her current singer-songwriter chick is singer Shawn Colvin, and her favourite album is the first one, STEADY ON. Shawn's sound is very musical, it's interesting and it's not predictable. She just kind of takes the music in her own direction.

She is also a big fan of John Prine and Bonnie Raitt. Bonnie was probably the most influential from the start for her, and one of Dyann's all-time favourites is Angel From Montgomery. That is a John Prine song. Lyrically, he is wonderful; he can be so humourous and nonsensical, but still say something at the same time. He's very wry and crafty. I think we would both have to agree that the Everly Brothers' Bye Bye Love is a big must. Any of their records, actually. Especially their early rootsy stuff, not the real country, but the more pop-rootsy stuff, those early hits from the late 1950s.

What was so great about them is they were pop but they basically came from country. It is that bridge again, like the Byrds and the Burritos did. Steve Earle also did that. I think that is what I liked about Steve, because he got that country-rock feel in it. It wasn't just country or just rock, it was country-rock. I met Steve when I first came to Nashville through a mutual friend and he gave me a copy of the roughs for Guitar Town. That record was definitely an influence. Steve kind of came at country music from another direction, it was just another example of a Gram Parsons or Mick Jagger doing country. The guy just got on it. There is so much in country that is just so smoothed out, kind of loungey, that was real rootsy, with a lot of passion in it; great songs, great lyrics. We didn't even think or consider anything that is current. Everything we have chosen is kind of formative to what we do now. Anything I listen to today just fits into one of those categories. 

We are just getting ready to set off for some dates out in California. We have a pickup band from out there: we usually use Dwight Yoakman's bass player, and steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness, who used to be in the Desert Rose Band. Here in Nashville, we also have a band we can put together, but a lot of the things we do out there on the road it is just the two of us. Sometimes we might add an extra player, like Al Perkins on Dobro or maybe Tammy Rogers on fiddle and mandolin, giving it kind of a bluegrass feel. With the two guitars, our two voices and a little mandolin from me, it seems like we get a pretty full sound.”