Who Are Those Singers & Musicians? ~ Pat Woods

 

Patrick ‘Pat’ Woods was born on Deer Island, Oregon on January 19, 1944. His father was an accountant and his mother a pianist and singer. She sang gospel at church and weddings. When he was 12 years old, they moved to Dallas, Texas. A poor student his mother really wanted me to learn music. She enrolled him in an accordion and guitar lesson. His first guitar was a twelve-string guitar, on which there were only six. In Dallas, Pat liked to listen to the great African-American bluesmen, who played in the street, asking for money or cigarettes. "Some of them became famous later, but at the time I didn't know it, and neither did they (laughs). Sometimes they would take my guitar to show me how to play certain songs, and in the evening, at home, I would redo what they had taught me. I've always been a pretty special guitarist: I've always heard music in a particular way, with my own chords, scales, a different method of touch.

A few years later, while taking acting classes at Texas University during the day, Pat Woods hosted an evening show for KTNT radio, taking over from the great Willie Nelson. His lineup ranged from Frank Sinatra to country. He became passionate about Bob Dylan, bought himself a classical guitar, and while doing billboards to promote his show, discovered Joan Baez and Mimi & Roger Fariña in a café. His impersonation of Kennedy (who had just been assassinated) on the radio announcing the "live from heaven" records earned him a dismissal from KTNT. When he got off the radio, Pat Woods hitchhiked and found himself taken to New York.

In New York, on a scholarship, he enrolled in the famous Neighborhood Playhouse drama school and then studied journalism at the university. "I graduated in 1969. May 68 in France had rubbed off on American universities so professors, etc., were taken hostage. and everyone got their diploma". He recorded his first 45, played in musicals in summer stock theatres and auditioned for the musical “Hair”. "I had an important role, but my understudy who was better than me finally got the role and I became his understudy." He also wrote a show, which was performed off-Broadway.

His wife having obtained her master's degree from university, they moved to Alaska where she began to give classes. But Alaska did not appeal to them, and the couple decided to settle in Paris, where his wife taught at the American College as a professor... and Pat followed them as a student. "I had good grades there (laughs)." It was near their apartment, not far from the American College, that they became friends with Roger Mason and Steve Waring. "I had seen an advertisement for guitar lessons, and Roger Mason and Steve Waring came to my house and taught me the picking method. We became friends. Steve sometimes did English dubbing of French films. It wasn't easy, I've only done it once, maybe I didn't have the talent for it."

Lionel Rocheman took care of Pat's career, programmed him on his television show’ Epinettes et guimbardes’, and found him performing dates.

In 1971, he met the composer Claude Bolling: "I was playing alone on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. A beautiful green Jaguar stopped. Claude Bolling came downstairs, he listened to me for a few minutes. I sang Jesse Fuller's San Francisco Bay Blues, which was the song I ended my singing tour with. He gave me a business card with his address and said, "Would you like to come and have dinner at my house tonight? I'm going to make you a star!" I didn't know who he was. Importantly, he got me into the SACEM when I knew nothing about the SACEM, the ADAMI, etc., and gave me a part of the co-composition of "I'm a poor lonesome cowboy". So, for years I received money on Lucky Luke."

After Lucky Luke, Pat Woods and Kathy Lowe recorded their own records for Le Chant du Monde. Claude Bolling arranged the album Pat Woods is back. "'I'm a poor lonesome cowboy' was registered at the SACEM but I couldn't get any money on it yet because I wasn't a member, I had to write the first eight bars of all the songs I had composed for my records. And it was Roger Mason who helped me very kindly."

In 1982, he left France, became an Israeli citizen, and worked in a kibbutz, where he gave guitar lessons, accompanied ballerinas, etc. The he returned to the United States and travelled from one end to the other by bicycle. Back in Europe, he settled in Holland for eight years, married and had a daughter. Then, wishing to return to the United States, he made a stopover in Ireland in 1994... and stayed there.

"I never thought in terms of a career, and I never thought of myself as a musician. I'm retired but I work maybe more on music than when I was working. Every day I work on compositions on the Cubase software, but only for my pleasure, and I play with an Irish woman in cafés, but not professionally."

WOODS, Pat (Patrick Woods) [1/19/1944, Deer Island, Oregon, U.S.A. -    ] – voice actor, singer, musician (guitar), married to ?, married to ? father of a daughter, married to ? father of two children.

Lucky Luke: Daisy Town – 1971 [sings “Poor Lonesome Cowboy”]

Lucky Luke (TV) – 1991 [sings: “Poor Lonesome Cowboy”]