Suzie HarrisonNewport Beach resident Mark Wood has...

Suzie Harrison

Newport Beach resident Mark Wood has been on the road of music since

he was 11 years old. He has traveled worldwide and dabbled in

everything from rock to country. His latest journey has been the

release of two CDs.

“I moved to California 20 years ago and started playing with the

keyboard player from Journey, Jonathon Caine, and did all the

Hollywood stuff, writing songs and doing session work,” Wood said.

Since 1983, he has spent a lot of time developing different bands.

“Around 1991, I went to Nashville,” Wood said. “The whole industry

changed. My music was acoustic, vocal based, and I decided to shift

my focus.”

Wood was dealing with the uncertainty of signing with an

independent label. He was getting advice from all sides and was told

he’d be getting a deal with a major label. That didn’t come to

fruition, either.

“I wrote a lot of country and played at the Blue Bird in Nashville

and got established there,” Wood said. “All the while, I did club

dates, session work and wrote for commercials.”

To make a living, he was doing 340 shows a year. When he came back

to Newport, he took a different turn in his musical career.

“My daughter was at Newport Elementary School, and I got involved

with ‘Just Read’, a reading program in the Newport-Mesa area, which

later became state mandated,” Wood said. Wood volunteered as a music

teacher in 1992 because there weren’t any music teachers.

“All the while, I was I was playing six or seven nights a week in

the clubs,” Wood said. “All these years, I had been a musician -- I

started playing professionally when I was 11 -- and in that time, I

didn’t really have students. I realized how much they needed it.”

Music as a learning tool is integral, Wood said.

“I realized how big in the learning process music is in opening

minds and helping with other subjects like math and reading,” Wood

said. “It’s all a part of general education.”

He said that ,with all he has accomplished and experienced, he

really feels fortunate about his life and being able to give back.

“I think there’s a time in life you have experienced all this

stuff and want to give back,” Wood said. “You understand the

difference music makes around the world.”

Wood did not have a predictable and patterned life. One of his

musician buddies was ready to become one of the nine-to-fivers. Wood

is glad that he was able to stay in the career he loved so much, even

though it took a lot of hours. He even opened up a music and dinner

club on Balboa for awhile, but because of a bad partnership, it

closed six months after it opened.

He relied on the steady club gigs until there was a bit of a

drought.

“My money situation dropped drastically from before, and I had to

reinvent myself to make money,” Wood said. “That’s when I came up

with www.markwood entertainment.com, a Web site where I could develop

corporate events. It’s been really great,” Wood said.

The success began to snowball, and Wood formed many small bands

that he leads -- each playing a different genre of music. He has a

Jimmy Buffet-esque band that actually opened for Buffet’s recent

Irvine Meadows shows, a piano duet, a big nine piece R & B horn band,

a straight-ahead jazz group, a 12-piece swing band and his country

band.

“There are 11 or 12 bands I front,” Wood said. “I do events for

everyone and go all over the world. I have always chose the path of

music as a living.”

There are more than 2,000 songs he plays with all of his bands.

Some original songs and some covers. He has opened for Don McLean,

Kenny Rankin, Sammy Kershaw, Bruce Hornsby and more. He has headlined

at the Roxy, the Whiskey, the Coach House and the Celebrity Theater

to sold-out crowds.

Three years ago he made a business plan and decided to fully

develop his company and put out two or three records.

“The middle of last year, I started compiling music from Nashville

and L.A. that’s kind of country based, and released the CD ‘Now That

You’re Gone,’” Wood said. “It’s a fully produced thing, music from

the last 10 years -- country and Americana oriented.”

Next, he recorded a CD of his solo acts, “The Lessons of Life”

with 15 tunes. Wood said that it encompasses all the facets of going

through life until you die.

“It’s pretty mellow, all acoustic or piano, voice and harmonica,”

Wood said. “I had an approach of dubbing and listening back. I wanted

it to have a live and personal feel. It felt good. It let it be very

intimate and very warm.”

The reason he wanted to do a solo record was that he had performed

a lot as a solo artist, and over the years he’s had a lot of

requests. He ‘s been performing some of the songs for 25 years.

“The song ‘The Gift’ I wrote when I played at the Blue Beet Cafe,

when I found out I was going to be a father,” Wood said. “Those

people who regularly used to request it 10 years ago are now having

kids of their own, so it really means something.”

Now along with his other successes, Wood has started his own

record and publishing company to handle all the licensing and

distribution of his work.

“I just set up an application through BMI, so it will be played

all over the world,” Wood said.

Don’t expect Wood to go riding into the sunset anytime soon.

“I love Newport Beach, everything about it,” Wood said. “I live

down by the Wedge, and life is slow, the weather is temperate -- I

have had great support in this town.