In 1967, Brenton Wood seemed to be on the cusp of mainstream success.
The Compton singer's single, “The Oogum Boogum Song,” became a hit, ranking at No. 34 and No. 19 on Billboard's Hot 100 and Top Selling R&B Singles charts, respectively. A few months later, Wood released her second hit, “Gimme Little Sign”, which peaked at No. 9 on Billboard's Hot 100.
Wood, whose real name was Alfred Jesse Smith, died Friday of natural causes at his Moreno Valley home, his manager and assistant Manny Gallegos confirmed to Variety. He was 83 years old.
Wood's slinky, joyful melodies are infectious. Her seductive and affable way of describing the essence of a budding romance in simple terms is appealing. Whether alone or as a couple, it's easy to keep up.
Wood continued releasing songs, but none achieved similar success. Frustrated with the music industry, he quit for a couple of years and then slowly returned to the club circuit. There he found an audience that would sustain him for decades: Latinos.
He would play major cities in California, then tour Mexico and Arizona before returning home. As his audience aged, Wood began performing on themed cruises and at festivals with Chicano musical luminaries such as Los Lobos, Thee Midniters, and Ozomatli. Wood's old romantic songs resonated with a new generation of lovebirds and became a soundtrack to Southern California life, literally, as Wood found a third career as a performer at weddings, quinceañeras and anniversary parties.
Bob Merlis, former Warner Bros. Records executive and co-author of “Heart & Soul: A Celebration of Black Music Style in America 1930-1975,” described the artist as a “local hero” in Los Angeles, a “flagbearer for the scene.” Southern California pop soul.”
“Nothing else looked like them,” said Merlis, who now runs a public relations and consulting firm. “It was very different and that instrumentation is very unusual.”
“They've picked me out of everyone and kept me going,” Wood told the Times in 1992. “I appreciate it, because if I'd been waiting for the big guys to call me, I would have died.” a long time ago”.
Wood's lyrics captured the cat-and-mouse chase of first love, the kind of infatuation that makes people act stupid. It summed up that familiar longing to take a lover to enjoy the paradise of their honeymoon. But he also wrote about heartbreak and the triumphant moment when the pain disappears.
“Latinos like to dedicate songs, and their songs are good for that,” radio veteran Art Laboe told The Times in 1992. “What they like is not the greatest hits. They are songs like 'Take a Chance', 'I Think You've Got Your Fools Mixed Up'; “If a girl has problems with her boyfriend, she will dedicate them to him.”
The composer was born on July 26, 1941 in Shreveport, Louisiana, and moved west to San Pedro when he was 3 years old. He moved around inner-city Los Angeles, selling newspapers, fish, and shining shoes until he created a career in the music industry.
Wood was 7 years old when a pianist hypnotized him. Without a television at home, he spent hours in the park, watching and imitating the performer, using two fingers to play imaginary keys until he got his own piano. At age 10, Brenton Wood wrote his first song about a man who wanted to be a bird. It was happy and rhymed but lacked drive.
He found his groove when he met his first girlfriend. Then, the words flowed.
The Compton High School graduate enrolled at East Los Angeles College and sang in local R&B groups such as Little Freddie and the Rockets and The Quotations in the 1950s before becoming a solo artist. He took his stage name, Brenton Wood, from the wealthy Los Angeles enclave of Brentwood, where a manager lived.
Wood’s “The Oogum Boogum Song” came about entirely by accident. He was working the graveyard shift at Harvey Aluminum in Torrance when he came up with the melody.
“It took me about six weeks, because I had to change the verses about a hundred times,” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2000. “That was a song about fashion changes in the '60s with flared hips. – huggers and high-heeled boots and all the different styles of clothing the girls wore: shorts and all that.”
The bouncy track later appeared on Cameron Crowe's “Almost Famous” and Olivia Wilde's “Don't Worry Darling.”
“It was one of the best feelings you could have,” Wood told Cal State Fullerton's Titan TV in 2014.
In 1970, he founded Mr. Wood Records and produced singles by other artists. Latino listeners were already accepting him as one of their own.
Chicano music historian Gene Aguilera remembers being “glued” to his small transistor radio as a teenager, listening to Wood's “Gimmie Little Sign” mixed with the Beatles and the Supremes on KRLA-AM 1110, all within an hour. Walking through his neighborhood, he would hear Wood's voice along with Thee Midniters floating in the background, emanating from nearby parties or from lowriders cruising down Whittier Boulevard, playing his songs.
“Even though he wasn't born here, he will always be etched in our consciousness,” said Aguilera, who last saw the artist perform at a local park in Baldwin Park before the pandemic.
“His music was really accepted in East L.A. because of the slow, soulful beat that people in East L.A. love.”
Vega is a former Times staff writer.
