Jeff Scott Wood – The Best Of
Jeff Scott Wood is a singer songwriter with a distinctly modern country style, singing with
panache about the circumstances and tribulations that a modern country guy lives through on the
daily. His Best Of album incorporates this flair into it wonderfully, and it gets this across
wonderfully; though on the first time listening, I was struck with a problem.
It wasn’t with any of the songs or music – the songs are all good, with my personal favorite
being the poignant “This Time Last Year”, where he sings what all can change in a year due to
the presence of his new love – but I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something while
listening to it. But then, it hit me what I was missing.
These songs are built to be performed.
I haven’t seen Wood perform, but the songs that are on this CD are designed to be crowd-
pleasers, the type of songs that make a show that much more fun to watch. This is further
evidenced by the fact that a good number of the songs on the CD were taken from live
recordings. The crowds in live recordings, on some songs, feel like they’re there to liven up the
song in a way that the song itself is unable to do; this is one case where I feel that the audience’s
reactions on the live tracks are absolutely necessary for the feel of the song. They take you to a
place where you can imagine the show being held, and having fun with the rest of the people
listening.
I do recommend this album, but I would also recommend his live show, should you ever get the
chance – even though I haven’t seen him live, I can’t help but think that, with these songs and his
style, it couldn’t be a disappointment.
