Real musicians have day jobs

Bob Woods has no ambition to be a star — but there are plenty of bands who want him to star on their team as lead guitar.

They also like to play the rockabilly songs he writes and sings.

Besides his own band the Bob Woods Trio, Woods — a part-time resident of Nevada City — also plays for the Shay Dillon Band, Cousin Cricket and Sticky Vikki and the Pinecones.

In his nearly 40-year career, he’s played with the legendary Surfaris, the Foothill Flyers and Gary Campbell and the Stardust Cowboys.

He also has sat in with Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel, Albert Lee and Tiny Moore — and that’s just hitting the high spots in his musical odyssey.

Meanwhile, he’s approaching the 20-year mark in two day jobs. Woods is a part-time IBM mainframe programmer for the state of California, and he’s a railroad engineer,

locomoting for the Sierra Railroad, the Sierra Northern and the California Northern (the

“skunk train” that runs from Willits to Ft. Bragg).

Woods drives trains some weekends and plays gigs the others.

The 1993 traffic accident death of his close friend and fellow musician, bass-player

Gordon Burdick, diverted Woods into railroading. At the time, he already was involved as a volunteer with the Sacramento Railroad Museum.

“When Gordon died, I said that’s it. It’s time to walk away,” he recalled.

Walking full circle

That walk-away in the summer of 1994 took him all the way to Sweden, where Woods helped restore a mothballed steam locomotive. He jokes he learned the words for “crescent wrench” in Swedish, Polish, and German.

When he returned to the States, his experience with the railroad museum landed him a job as an engineer with the Yolo Shortline in Woodland. Eventually, he was engineering for three short rail lines.

As karma would have it, the railroad brought Woods back to music. Riding the rails is a “musical experience,” he said.

He began writing railroad songs and produced two CDs of train folk music.

Most of Woods’ Nevada County country rock fans don’t even know the railroad side of his life or his acoustic music. They just know his kick-butt Telecaster and down-home voice rocking out on his original songs like his signature “Hillbilly Cadillac.”

Lately, the Bob Woods Trio — featuring drummer Skip Alan Smith and bassist Billy Smart — has been attracting a regular crowd every first and third Friday at the Chief Crazy Horse Inn in Nevada City.

Woods, 58, called it the “geezers’ gig: Party like an animal and be home by 10.” The band plays from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. to a lively, full house of mostly older folks who forgot they were supposed to grow up.

Looking back on his career, Woods admitted he might have advanced further.

“I just had no clue about doing the business (of music). Besides, I think it would be a pain in the butt to be a Bob Dylan.”

Tom Durkin is a freelance writer based in Nevada City. For comments on this article, e-mail tkleist@theunion.com or call 477-4230.