Woodie Alan

Bio:

DEBUT CD BEIJING BLUES ABOUT TO DROP!

"Best Chinese blues band I ever heard. Who knew?"

-Billy F. Gibbons, ZZ Top

"A can't miss Beijing phenomenon!"

-City Weekend

The very essence of world music: stone cold American blues with subtle and interesting Chinese overtones, all of it fueled by Woodie Wu's great slide guitar work."

-Brad Tolinski, Guitar World

CITY WEEKEND 2008 READER'S POLL WINNER: BEIJING BAND OF THE YEAR

“I have long been a fan of world music like Africa’s Tinariwen but the international band that has captivated me most recently is Woodie Alan, a bi-cultural Beijing blues band fronted by Alan Paul, a longtime writer for Guitar World. Their music crosses a lot of bridges while retaining a true blues feeling and always feeling expansive and ready to jam off in any direction.”

-Kirk West, Allman Brothers Band

I Don't Care" at the Xiamen Beach Festival. This multi-camera shoot was filmed for Fujian TV, which featured the performance the day after the Fest ended. There were about 5,000 people there, on the Beach, on the Taiwan Straits.

Studio version of "Beijing Blues" with Beijing photo montage.

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Woodie Alan, Beijing’s premier blues and jam band, is a collaboration of three Chinese and two American musicians, resulting in a powerful amalgamation of sound. After just over a year together, the quintet was recently named Beijing Band of the Year by City Weekend magazine, after winning the English language magazine's Reader's Poll.

The band’s namesakes are Chinese guitarist and dobro master Woodie Wu and American singer/guitarist Alan Paul.

“I never would have guessed that the blues guitarist collaborator I sought for years was waiting for me in Beijing,” says Paul.

The duo are joined by American saxophonist Dave Loevinger and a powerful Chinese rhythm section of drummer Lu Wei and bassist Zhang Yong.

The interplay between Wu’s weeping slide guitar and Loevinger’s wailing sax lies at the heart of the band’s sound.

“I met Woodie and Dave separately and jammed with each of them,” says Paul. “I started hearing a sound in my head with the sax in one ear and the slide in the other, with my acoustic guitar and voice in the middle. I had to get together with both of them and see if this vision was genius or insane.”

It turned out be the former. After several acoustic trio gigs, Woodie tapped into his vast reservoir of former bandmates and recruited Lu Wei and Zhang Yong, whose fiery push and solid foundation kickstarted the band.

“The name Woodie Alan is obviously tongue in cheek,” says Paul. “But it’s also just our names and that’s a statement; this is us. We don’t have any pretense or personas. We don’t wear costumes or have stage names. We get on stage and pour ourselves into the music and hopefully listeners can hear that passion.”

Jonathan Ansfield, manager of the Stone Boat, one of Woodie Alan’s regular performance venues, dubbed the band “workingman’s blues” and they took that as a superb compliment. Some groups check the clocks to see how soon they can get off; Woodie Alan wants to know how early they can start and how late they can play.

Woodie Wu has been a fixture on the Beijing rock and blues scenes for over a decade, playing with The Handsome Blacks, The Fly (Cangying), Muma, Sand and Skyscraper (Motianlou). He moved to Melbourne, Australia for three years where he performed regularly with The Stellsons and other bands before returning to Beijing in 2005.

A gifted guitarist, Woodie has focused his talents in recent years on harmonica and lap steel guitar. These traditional American instruments enliven many country and blues classics and their rich, evocative tones are at the core of Woodie Alan's sound.

As a senior writer and editor for Guitar World magazine for over 15 years, Alan Paul interviewed and wrote about a host of guitar greats, including B.B King, Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia and the Allman Brothers Band’s Dickey Betts and Gregg Allman.

“I had a great career writing about music, but it’s nice to spend more time playing it than talking about it,” he says.

Since moving to Beijing in 2005, Alan has written the popular Expat Life column for the Wall Street Journal online and contributing to the Wall Street Journal, Slam, The Insider’s Guide to Beijing and many other publications and websites. He also writes the Destination Beijing blog for www.NBCOLympics.com.

The Woodie Alan repertoire includes seven or eight original compositions, including several sung in Chinese by Zhang Yong. The other material focuses on blues and American standards, as well as material by Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia and others.

"We won't cover anything if we can't make it our own and I can't sing a song unless the lyrics feel as if I could have written them," says Paul. "When we started writing our own material it also brought the other songs into a different light for me and allowed us to reinterpret everything with our own distinct stamp."

“Some of these songs are written by famous people like Bob Dylan and others come from relatively obscure guys like bluesmen Little Miiton and Johnny Copeland but I consider them all American heroes. Singing these songs in China makes me feel a deeper connection to America than anything else does. And the band make them all come alive for me.”

Saxophonist Loevinger, who plays alto, tenor and the beguiling midi breath controller WX-5, played for 10 years with the renowned D.C. R&B band Jimi Smooth & Hittime. They recorded two CDs and performed countless gigs at embassies, frat houses, bars and festivals.

Loevinger, the U.S. Treasury Department representative in Beijing, attacks his horn with intensity, building masterfully dynamic solos that kick virtually every song into overdrive.

“Dave raises the stakes every time he solos,” says Wu. “Playing with him is so much fun. We’re at our best when we are all listening closely to each other and every note anybody plays can subtly shift the direction of any song.”

The band’s bedrock foundation is laid down by drummer Lu Wei, who also plays with the hard rockers Maya, and bassist Zhang Yong. Zhang Yang spent years in the popular Chinese band Zi Yue (Confucius Says). He also plays ukelele and is a master of the traditional seven-stringed Chinese instrument the guqin.

Together, these five very different musicians form one kindred core, Woodie Alan.

Original song "Got Love If You Want It" accompanying footage of Jnshanlng-Simatai hike on the Great Wall of China, one of its most beautiful sections.

Original music "Lonesome" accompanying Mist over Mutianyu section of the Great Wall.

Member Since:

June 20, 2008

Members:

Lead Guitar/Lap Steel/Harmonica: Woodie Wu, Vocals/Guitar:Alan Paul, Alto/Electronic Sax: Dave Loevinger, Drums:Lu Wei, Vocals/Bass/ukelele/erhu:Zhang Yong

Influences:

Johnny Copeland, Little Milton Campbell, The Allman Brothers Band, the Grateful Dead, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gov't Mule, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Robert Randolph, Ben Harper, Jimmy Reed, Jimmy Witherspoon

Sounds Like:

Record Label:

Unsigned