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I was born and bred in good old Brooklyn, NY. Despite many moves over the years, I am a Brooklynite to the core. People who were born and bred in Brooklyn know EXACTLY what I mean. 'Nuff said... Okay. So I always knew I wanted to be a performer of some sort. First it was acting. My Dad, ever-supportive as he was, indulged me by getting me an audition at the High School of Performing Arts in NYC. Well, I sucked. And the panel of judges didn’t hold back. Oh well – guess I won’t be an actress. Hmm… how about a songwriter? I’d been taking guitar lessons and was strumming my heart out every waking minute of the day. My best friend Mindy and I play guitar duets and moon over Robert Plant, George Harrison, John Lennon... In fact, we volunteer at Apple Records in NYC to help John and Yoko when they were almost deported (“Let them stay in the USA!” - I still have my buttons) and we narrowly miss each Beatle in the elevator on more than one occasion. My Mom, ever-supportive as SHE was, helps me to answer an ad in a local paper for a band that needs a singer/songwriter (she probably just wanted me out of the house – all the strumming was driving her nuts). Long story short – they hate my songs but love my voice. So I become their singer, albeit for a very short time. Because really what I like best is playing my guitar and writing poetic introspective angst-ridden tunes about love and pain and yearning and mystic beings and elves (hey – I was heavy into Lord of the Rings at the time). I discover The Allman Brothers “Live at the Fillmore” and Gregg Allman’s vocals on “Whipping Post” (a song which to this day shakes me to my core) prompt me to lock myself in my room, turn the stereo up to 10, and sing along at 11 (despite incessant banging on my door to turn it down). I also discover that the louder I sing, the better I feel - MUSIC THERAPY, YEAH! I immerse myself in The Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, Humble Pie, David Bowie (I saw “The Man Who Fell to Earth” about 18 times).
Six months later Pyramid Records folds and the president’s phone number is disconnected. Lovely. But my record DID get released in the U.K. and from what I understand, somebody made some money on it (not me). Okay, back to this Mark Wood character. Somewhere during the latter days of The Laura Kaye Band and the record in England, Mark and I are introduced to each other at one of Mark’s shows by a bass player who was playing in both of our bands simultaneously. Instant chemistry on every level and, after staring at each other for the entire night (hey - he was wearing these ripped-up jeans that left precious little to the imagination and I was wearing a skin-tight blue satin dress that did about the same), well we’ve been together ever since. We work together on every level – we create music for film and TV and whatever else we feel like creating music for, we’ve built our companies together (Mark Wood Music Productions and Wood Violins – I am the VP and partner of both), and we have a gorgeous son named Elijah who is a killer drummer in his own right. I sing on Mark’s “Voodoo Violince,” “Portrait of an Artist” and “Favorite Things” CDs, and after dabbling in writing a few songs together over the years, we collaborate big-time on the “Sanctuary” CD in 2001, and now of course we also have my "Shake Off The Gravity" CD as well.
She tanks and the world deflates. Okey-dokey. I walk away with a lot more experience under my belt as not only a singer but a songwriter and I make some amazing connections in the industry AND I still work with the folks at the studio from time to time. Not too shabby. In 1994, Mark Wood and I get married, and in that same year my Mom passes away which is truly devastating (the title track of "Shake Off The Gravity" is written for her). We decide that we need to bring life into the world and so we start a family, along comes Elijah, and I take some time off to fully immerse myself in being a Mom which makes everything else I’ve ever done pale in comparison. Mark and I work from home to really build our companies and I keep busy doing club dates and session work.
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I
leave home at 16 when my Dad dies after a long excruciating illness, and I move
in with a bunch of hippie musicians who are all around 10 years older than me,
move to upstate NY with them, sing in all their bands, have many musical and non-musical
adventures, and someone turns me on to Patti Smith. Wow! Rock and roll poetry,
nasty-ass performer, raw crunchy messy rock ‘n roll just the way I like
it. And when she performed, she wore baggy t-shirts and baggy black coats and
jeans and her hair was all scraggly and she didn’t give a rat’s you-know-what
and oh what a woman!
Fast
forward a little… It’s the ‘80’s, I'm supporting myself by working at an accounting firm (I have this gift of being able to type 110 wpm and unlike other peers of mine who worked as waiters/waitresses, I knew I couldn't do that - "You don't like your soup? Well maybe it will look good on your HEAD!"), and I form The Laura
Kaye Band (photo at left was taken during that era). Being a girl
leading a rock band full of guys is a GREAT AND WONDERFUL thing for many reasons
(that’s all I’ll say – you can all let your imaginations have
fun with this one). We are a major fixture on the New York/Long Island club circuit.
You have a club you say? Great! We’ll play there. These are
the days where if you throw a rock in New York or Long Island, you’ll hit
a rock club. I’m voted “Best Female Vocalist” for two
years in a row in a local magazine. We do lots of local TV appearances (and
some more far-reaching), such as The Uncle Floyd Show and The Joe Franklin Show
(does anyone remember those?). We have a cut on the “New York’s Best
Bands” album put out by the now-defunct WAPP-FM and we appear regularly on
The Perry Stone Show, the DJ responsible for getting us on that record. We put out
our own music, sell it at the clubs, do a cheesy music video, build our fanbase and hope for a miracle
in this crazy mixed-up music industry. It doesn’t come. Oh well.
Around
the time Mark and I first meet, we go to a local club to see some friends play
and catch the opening act, a 25-piece rock-gospel group called “New Voices
of Freedom.” The energy coming off that stage literally knocks me off my
feet and I approach Dennis Bell, the choir director, afterwards and ask if I can
audition. Sure, he says. I do, I get in, I become one of the soloists and
I’m immersed in something so very special that it remains one of the all-time
highlights of my career. We sing with Aretha Franklin on a Pizza Hut commercial,
we do soundtracks for movies, we do a really cool documentary called “One
World One Voice,” we do PSA’s, and oh man we do a smokin’ remake
of “Give Peace a Chance” with Lenny Kravitz and Sean Lennon (the video
airs for 24 hours straight on MTV on the eve of the Gulf War). Extraordinary
stuff! And we put out a CD, on which I sing a great track called “Look Up
and Live.” The last time I worked with NVOF was at the 2002 MTV Video Music
Awards – we were featured in the opening segment of the show at Radio City
Music Hall in NY working with host Jimmy Fallon and the legendary Godfather of
Soul himself, Mr. James Brown.