Press

This is a simply wonderful album [Friends Along the Way], truly excellent for the most part. Mitch Woods is a hugely talented, explosive pianist with a fine, tenor voice and a rollicking, rolling sense of fun at heart.

Iain Patience
Elmore Magazine

“Friends Along the Way” is his tour de force, the culmination of his enduring career. Only a musician’s musician could gather together talented friends like the ones on this record, a major achievement that should be a contender for a Grammy nomination.

Paul Liberatore

Marin Independent Journal

Live? And in Istanbul? And it’s self-released? Chill. All bad omens dissipate as soon as you push play on Mitch Woods’ new CD/DVD release, Blues Beyond Borders. Woods and the Rocket 88s are full of juice, and Istanbul is full of young folks who dig the roots of rock. The DVD is a literal travelogue, while the CD is a figurative one; drummer Larry Vann gets a nice solo focus that leads into a little Turkish blues which returns Woods to the edge of the stage sporting a kufi and doing a belly dance, which segues into a full band version of “In the Night.”
Mary Armstrong

Philadelphia City Paper

If NOLA isn’t part of your start-up DNA, that can be fixed with a healthy dose of Mitch Woods’ Gumbo Blues. After a listen, you’ll feel as if you’ve visited the Crescent City of the 1950s….what makes this such a mighty fine gumbo is the recipe’s crowning ingredient, Woods.
Blues Revue

Gumbo Blues is a romp from start to finish.
– J. Poet, All Music Guide

While most current artists who do New Orleans music focus on either Meters-style funk or modern brass-band sounds, Woods is one of the very few who take it back to the 1950s. Through the power of his vocal and keyboard delivery and his employment of world-class musicians from the city itself, he succeeds brilliantly in keeping the tradition burning brightly.

Lee Hildebrand

Living Blues Magazine

With a deep catalogue of albums out, Woods, like TajMahal, has defined himself as a credible progenitor and musicological preservationist of the first caliber…. If there is a god of music, than surely Mitch Woods will receive radio support if for no other reason than the music does the talking and it speaks well.
Blueswax

Woods brings his personality to the material, playing some of the best articulated piano rolls and trills of his career and delivering what is hands down his best vocal performance.

John Swenson

offBeat Magazine

Woods exhibits the knowing spirit of someone who’d grown up listening to New Orleans r&b greats on the radio while living smack dab in the middle of the bayous and canals of the Atchafalaya Basin.

Frank John Hadley

Downbeat

Mitch Woods is undoubtedly one of the greatest contemporary exponents of the blues and rhythm ‘n blues piano tradition.

Pietro Rubino

Il Popo Del Blues

Van Morrison, together with Taj Mahal, appears on three tracks. “I was totally flattered – he’s been behind the project one hundred percent,” says Woods.

Trevor Hodgett

RNR

Mitch Woods has so strong an intuitive feel for blues and boogie piano that he can record with a pack of special guests without losing his way or being overshadowed.

Frank-John Hadley

Downbeat

Backed by The Rocket 88’s… Woods delivers a masterclass in piano blues that opens with the classic Crescent City stylings of “Solid Gold Cadillac” and relentlessly delivers blues and R&B of the highest order right through to the closing “House Of Blue Lights”.

Woods’ energetic renditions of Smiley Lewis’ under-appreciated work make “Gumbo Blues” more than worthy to stand alongside New Orleans best recordings.

Don Sikorski

Soundwave

Boogie pianist Woods may make his home in San Francisco, but at least part of his heart is in New Orleans.

Vintage Guitar

Woods himself plays some sweet piano and sings his lines in a way that makes one think that rhythm’n’blueswas something his mama was giving him to drink along with fresh milk.

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