Soul Music Survivor, Brenton Wood

Vocalist Brenton Wood was born Alfred Jesse Smith in Shreveport, LA, on July 26, 1941, and was raised in San Pedro. In 1956, he transferred from San Pedro to Compton High School and recorded as a teen. “When I started singing, I started with two groups, but I could never get the guys to come to rehearsal when I wanted so I bought two tape recorders and started harmonizing with myself and building and reinforcing the sound and making a bigger sound.” As Little Freddy & the Rockets, he came up with the novelty, “Too Fat” for a local Compton promoter in 1958.

He made the rounds of local recording studios when he met Hal Winn. “Brenton came in the office, he played 20 or 30 songs, making them up as he went along,” said his manager Winn. “When we asked him to do the third song, he couldn’t do it again. He’ll never admit this. He was always there in the office after working in brassiere factory. I had a lot of problems not knowing when he was born, no records in Shreveport, LA, we found out he was older. I took all around the world to concerts.” The name change to Brenton Wood was, according to Winn, while “we were driving through Brentwood, that’s how his name came about.”

Wood had recorded with a trio of one-shot groups before recording under his own new name. Wood confessed that though he was comfortable in a recording studio, he had never performed on stage and had difficulty learning those ropes. Rebounding from at least four stiffs, Wood came up with the right formula. “I was searching for a good hit song to enter the music market, only thing I could think of was write everything that’s around you, then go in and jumble the words, that’s what I did with ‘Oogum Boogum’,” said Wood. “I substituted ‘Oogum Boogum’ for the title, ‘Abra Cadabra. The title was an accident, frustration, sitting down at a piano singing ‘oogum boogum.’ “Someone happened to hear me, said ‘what’s that?’ It dawned on me. It caught his ear. Maybe it would catch somebody else’s ear. It happens like that.”

The “Oogum Boogum Song” finally hit on Winn’s Double Shot label. Wood “took it immediately to Herman Griffith in Dolphin’s of Hollywood. He played the record; people came in to buy the record, bought 25 copies of it. Overnight success. I’d been writing songs for 12 years prior to that.” “Oogum Boogum” hit Billboard #34 and #1 on L.A.’s Boss radio KHJ in Spring 1967. When it came time to promote his hit at live shows, Wood had to learn the basics, having never made such appearances in his ten year career.

“Gimme Little Sign” backed with “I Think You’ve Got Your Fools Mixed Up” made Billboard #9 pop and #2 on KHJ in summer 1967. Wood recalled, “I wrote that song when I was 16 years old. We kicked that song around five or six years.” Said Winn, when we “put out ‘Gimme Little Sign,’ I said, ‘you gotta add brass and add strings.”

Wood recalled when “’Gimme Little Sign’ was starting to fall off the charts. We wanted to stay

close sound-wise to what we had done in the past. I thought about the line, ‘baby you got it.’ We built it up, reinforced the lyrics and kind of related to what was happening at the time. Young boys and girls, falling in and out of love. It was recorded on a four track.”

“Baby You Got It” reached Billboard #34 and #3 on KHJ in November 1968. The flipside, “Catch You on the Rebound” became the name his final Catch You On the Rebound – the Last Tour, which Wood cancelled when he got ill in July.

After dueting with Shirley Goodman of Shirley & Lee fame on “Kid Games & Nursery Rhymes” on l Winn’s Whiz label, Wood’s final major hit, the mainly spoken love song, “Me and You” on Double Shot was his most consistent and slowly building single.

Said Wood, “when I was writing a song, I thought if this ever catches on, this will be an anthem for all the teenagers who don’t have a conversation. The catchier flip, “Some Got It, Some Don’t” was an Indio, CA hit. “Me and You” hit Billboard #42 in spring 1968. “The kids were the ones who promoted ’Me and You.’ A young person who doesn’t have a conversation for a young girl that he wants to talk to, if they ever go to a dance, he can mimic the words to her.”

Wood retained a dependable following in the oldies community, starring at Art Laboe concerts before that DJ’s death in October 2022.

Brenton Wood passed away at age 83 on January 3, 2024 at Moreno Valley, California.