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The Wooks consists of (l-r) Roddy Puckett, Galen Green, Jesse Wells, C.J. Cain and Arthur Hancock. Photo by Kate McStay
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Photo furnished
For many aspiring bands and musical artists, success comes slowly – if at all. But in just a few fast-paced years, Lexington-based “rhythm and bluegrass” group The Wooks has experienced a quick rise to national recognition that still has the band trying to catch its breath. Even before the release of its debut record, “Little Circles,” in 2016, the group won first prize in a performance competition at Colorado’s esteemed RockyGrass Festival, earning a “main stage” performance at the this summer’s recent installment of the festival. During one of several tours out west, the band caught the attention of Colorado-based craft brewery Oskar Blues, striking up an official partnership that has allowed the group unique travel and philanthropy opportunities. And more recently, the group was nominated for a “Momentum Award” by the prestigious International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), with the winner to be announced at the IBMA Conference on Sept. 27.
Despite the band’s relatively short time together, the connections amongst the group members go back years.
As a curious 16-year-old fresh off earning his driver’s permit, guitarist C.J. Cain, who wrote many of the songs on “Little Circles,” recalls looking up to seasoned central Kentucky musician Roddy Puckett, whom he knew from Puckett’s days playing regular local gigs with Green Genes, Bluegrass Collective and other local groups. In 2001, Cain made his first trip to Lexington’s Festival of the Bluegrass with his father, where he watched Puckett perform on the same main stage as a number of famous bluegrass stalwarts
“I remember thinking ‘Man, I want to do this for a living,’” said Cain. “I went out there really to just hang out with my dad and Roddy, [and] never expected it to change my life.”
Moving into college a few years later, Cain moved from watching Puckett perform to joining him onstage along with other local pickers he looked up to, at The Fish Tank, Pazzo’s and other campus-area venues.
“It was a big deal for them to allow me to play songs with them, because they were some of the first musical influences I had,” Cain said.
Fast forward a few years, The Wooks’ banjo player Arthur Hancock was regularly calling in to fiddler Jesse Wells’ Morehead radio show, “Sounds of Our Heritage,” to request songs and chat about music, fostering a strong friendship that led to Wells’ eventual inclusion in the band. Hancock’s trajectory toward The Wooks began in 2012, when he partnered with Wilson Sebastian to open the popular Lexington music and barbecue venue Willie’s Locally Known.
Hancock and Cain quickly fostered a kinship through Willie’s, often performing duo shows on short notice together to fill in for bands that had to cancel. Soon they brought in mandolinist Galen Green, a former high school classmate of Hancock’s who had relocated to Kentucky from Atlanta. The group performed its first show, a private Bourbon Social event at Keeneland, soon thereafter, and immediately felt a special connection to one another and their collective sound.
Lexington’s five-piece band The Wooks combines a variety of musical influences with its unique brand of “rhythm and bluegrass” music. Photo by Jennifer Buckler
“We came together for our first real gig without having played all together much,” Puckett said. “A very cool part of music – bluegrass in particular – is the improvisation factor. Whether you are playing with someone for the first time, or the hundredth time, you’re able to create something great.”
With each member bringing forth a unique set of musical influences, The Wooks’ diverse collective sound helps the group stand out amongst a bevy of other bands rising in the bluegrass scene. Puckett is a self-proclaimed “Dead Head,” where Green is a “Phish fiend.” Hancock is high on Robert Earl Keen; Cain, a John Prine fanatic; and Wells is dubbed “The Professor,” due to his positions as an instructor of traditional music and a music archivist at Morehead State University’s Kentucky Center for Traditional Music.
“There’s the guys who are good at their instruments, and then there’s the guys who put the work into the academic side, like Jesse has,” said Cain. “It can translate through any instrument.”
With many fans of bluegrass torn between traditionalists such as John Hartford, Flatt & Scruggs and Bill Monroe, and the new wave of younger, more progressive-leaning bluegrass, Cain admits he and the rest of The Wooks have been worried at times about how their music, which combines traditional and progressive elements, would be received. It was a worry that notably reared its head ahead of the group’s first performance at Festival of the Bluegrass in 2015 – the place where Cain’s love of bluegrass began years before.
“There are some people who have pretty stiff ideas of what bluegrass is about,” Cain said. “They cut us some slack – they at least know that we know who’s the boss in that genre and respect it.
“A lot of times when you’re having fun you don’t remember rules as much, so you can sneak that occasional Beatles tune in there,” he added.
In between gigs and other obligations The Wooks are writing new material to prep for a follow-up to “Little Circles,” with a handful of new songs already in construction. The group hopes to jump back into the studio this winter – and despite the group’s dizzying ascendance, which “got out of control fast,” according to Cain, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“My hope is that we can take people away from their problems for just a little bit with our shows,” Cain said. “It makes us feel better when people respond positively at our shows. That interaction with the crowd is truly an incredible feeling.”
Wook-A-Ween: The Wooks, Town Mountain and Newtown
Manchester Music Hall, 899 Manchester St.
Oct. 27, doors at 7 p.m.
At the end of this month, The Wooks will continue to ride its surge of momentum with an action-packed event at Manchester Music Hall, where it will share the stage with two other popular bluegrass acts, Town Mountain and Newtown (the former band of The Wooks’ guitarist C.J. Cain). Proceeds from the multifaceted event will benefit Oskar Blues Brewery’s Can’d Aid Foundation’s “Towns, Tunes, Treads + Trails” program. Through the program, the band will purchase and deliver new instruments for high school students in Estill County, an area of eastern Kentucky with rich musical tradition.