Here’s why Brenton Wood’s name looks so familiar: for 40 years you’ve seen it printed in block letters on a cardboard poster stapled to a telephone pole. That’s the way small clubs—often in East L.A. or the Inland Empire—have been promoting Wood’s shows since his one and only year of what you might call stardom. Wood charted three singles (“The Oogum Boogum Song,” “Gimme A Little Sign,” and “Baby You Got It”) on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967. Since then, he’s worked the hard circuit of a third-tier oldies act who doesn’t even own the rights to his hits.

But here’s how Brenton Wood looks when you finally see the artist behind the well-worn name and those sad stereotypes: he saunters onstage in a lush and humongous zoot suit—his two-toned shoes perfectly matching the deep green of his massive jacket and the soft yellow of his fitted shirt—with a hat as broad-brimmed as a flying saucer. There’s a red handkerchief in his pocket and a long silver chain looping down his baggy pantleg. With a six-man band and vocalist behind him, he starts singing “Living It Up On Saturday Night.” His voice is velvety. His smile is easy. His audience fills the vast interior of Vault 350, and they are smiling back, singing along, and dancing. Every once in awhile, Wood gives one of the women a long-stem rose. And here’s what you learn as Brenton Wood performs his hits with a refined richness and sincerity that transforms them from fizzy ditties to pop classics, then delivers a set that roams widely and confidently through songs by Doc Pomus, Paul Anka and Jesse Belvin, mixing his own vocal style with hints of Sam Cooke, Brook Benton and Ben E. King: he is not a third-tier oldies act, but an underappreciated interpreter of mid-20th-century American standards. Oh, and one more thing you learn: not to feel sorry for him.

Ed also sez: I saw Alex Chilton sideman for Brenton at a bowling alley in New Orleans, except I was so far back I didn’t actually see Alex Chilton. But we smelled the same hot dogs cooking together.

Tags: brenton wood, LIVE REVIEW, local music, Music, vault 350