Stevie Woods

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Stevie Woods (born July 2, 1951 as Joseph Stephen Woods junior in Chatham (Virginia) , United States , † January 28, 2014 in Berlin ) was an American rhythm and blues and soul singer.

Live and act

Private

Woods was born in Chatham, Virginia on July 2, 1951, the son of the well-known US jazz musician Rusty Bryant . He graduated from Austin Community College and then served in the US Marines . From the 1970s to the 1980s he was married to Hollywood actress Cheri Woods (née Lewis). In 1985 their daughter Tiana Woods was born. She is active in Los Angelas as a singer and composer and also front woman in the band Varna . Woods wife Cheri self-published a type of autobiography in 2001 called Death Row Madam: Exposing Sex and Drugs in the Entertainment Industry , in which she also writes about her marriage to Woods. According to this, Woods was also a cousin of the American actor Philip Michael Thomas .

Stevie Woods, who suffered from diabetes , apparently died on January 28, 2014 in a Berlin hotel from a sugar shock that he suffered while sleeping, and was only found dead in his hotel room the next day. Woods lived to be 62 years old, leaving behind a wife and two daughters (10, 19) and two grown children from previous relationships.

Career

In the late 1970s, Stevie Woods joined the funk band Crowed Pleasers . His notable career began in the early 1980s, when he signed a contract with the record company Cotillion Records and was able to release his first album Take Me to Your Heaven there in 1981 . The record was only a medium success. The decoupled singles Steal the Night and Just Can't Win 'Em All made it into the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 , which is certainly also due to the top-class background line-up , for example with Ray Parker, Jr. or Steve Lukather von Toto , as well as the successful producer Jack White . Nevertheless, Woods could not build on this success in the long term - neither with the 1982 album The Woman in my Life nor with his last album Attitude from 1983, both of which were solid work and also allowed an artistic development process to be heard through.

Woods then moved permanently to Europe. He soon managed to start a second career as a musical actor in Starlight Express in Germany . At the same time, over the years he has repeatedly released individual singles, including cover versions that are worth mentioning , none of which made it into the German charts. The 1986 Johnny Nash song Rock me Baby is an example of this.

In 2010 the label Wounded Bird Records released new editions of its 3 albums from the early 1980s, which were long out of print by then. In addition, Wood produced a new studio album called Quiet Storm in the summer of 2011 with some new songs and re-recordings of some of his old songs. This album was only available for internet download. This time, too, a chart success was in vain.

Since the mid-1990s, Woods worked as an artist on the Stars in Concert show , which has been running in the Estrel Hotel in Berlin for many years . In the years before his death, he was also on tour with hit legend Udo Jürgens .

Discography

Studio albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
US US
1981 Take Me to Your Heaven US153 (25 weeks)
US
First published: December 1981

more publishments

  • 1982: The Woman in My Life
  • 1983: Attitude
  • 2011: Quiet Storm

Singles

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
US US
1981 Steal the Night,
Take Me to Your Heaven 		US25 (21 weeks)
US
First published: September 1981
1982 Just Can't Win 'Em All
Take Me to Your Heaven 		US38 (12 weeks)
US
First published: January 1982
Fly Away
Take Me to Your Heaven 		US84 (2 weeks)
US
First published: May 1982

More singles

  • 1982: Woman in My Life
  • 1983: Ain't That Peculiar

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Stevie Woods dead: "Stars in Concert" star found dead in the Estrel. BZ Berlin, February 9, 2014, accessed on June 12, 2015 .
  2. ↑ a b c d "Steal the Night" singer Stevie Woods dies at age 62 | SoulTracks - Soul Music Biographies, News and Reviews. SoulTracks, February 9, 2014, accessed July 31, 2014 .
  3. ^ Joel Whitburn , The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits . 7th edn, 2000
  4. ↑ http://crypticrock.com/interview-tiana-woods-of-varna/
  5. ↑ http://www.amazon.com/Death-Row-Madam-Cheri-Woods/dp/0971399409
  6. ↑ a b Woods, Cheri. Death Row Madam: Exposing Sex and Drugs in the Entertainment Industry . Taking Care of Business, 2001.
  7. ^ Stevie Woods | Quiet Storm | CD Baby Music Store . Cdbaby.com. Retrieved July 31, 2014.
  8. ↑ a b Chart sources: US
personal data
SURNAME Woods, Stevie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Woods, Joseph Stephen junior (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American R&B singer
DATE OF BIRTH 2nd July 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Chatham , Virginia , United States
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 2014
Place of death Berlin