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Donovan Woods in Concert
As the title of his 2018 album suggests, Canadian singer-songwriter Donovan Woods wants to have it ‘Both Ways.' While Woods embodies a bushy-bearded, plaid-shirted indie folk singer with deep Canadian roots in his solo career, he's also an increasingly successful Nashville songwriter. Tim McGraw ("Portland, Maine"), Charles Kelley of Lady Antebellum ("Leaving Nashville"), and other American country stars have recorded down-to-earth tunes co-written by Woods and songwriting partner Abe Stoklasa.
Born and raised in Sarnia, Ontario, Woods says he wrote some 5,000 songs before collecting enough keepers for his 2007 debut, ‘The Hold Up.' One of them, "My Cousin Has a Grey Cup Ring," became a hockey-playoffs perennial, familiar to just about any Canadian fan.
Woods distilled the quiet details of everyday rural life into intimate guitar-accompanied tunes on 2011's ‘The Widowmaker.' He moved to Nashville in 2014 after releasing ‘Don't Get Too Grand,' a quietly magnificent album that is to Ontario what Bruce Springsteen is to New Jersey. Woods writes about what his relatives and neighbors talk about. "I try to make sure it's all conversational," he has said.
After releasing ‘Hard Settle, Ain't Troubled' in 2016, Woods was named best English songwriter at the Canadian Folk Music Awards and nominated for songwriter of the year at the Juno Awards. With the addition of pedal-steel guitar, strings, and the ghostly arrangement haunting "They Don't Make Anything in That Town," the album reflected Woods' increasingly ambitious musical palette.
His artistic ambitions continued to grow on ‘Both Ways,' which oscillates between elaborate productions and delicate acoustic numbers. While "Truck Full of Money" tallies up the joys and sorrows of life on the road with sweeping strings and electronics, "Next Year" is a quietly devastating rebuke of a father prone to broken promises.
Woods still doesn't sound like anyone else. Part stand-up storyteller, part backwoods confidante, he delivers a winning mixture of wry wit and relatable vulnerability. As he splits his time between Toronto and Nashville, Woods suggests that just maybe you can have it both ways if you try hard enough.