In 1967, Brenton Wooden appeared as if he was on the cusp of mainstream success.
The Compton crooner’s single “The Oogum Boogum Song” grew to become a success and ranked thirty fourth and nineteenth on the Billboard’s Scorching 100 and Prime Promoting R&B Singles charts, respectively. A number of months later, Wooden debuted his second hit, “Gimme Little Sign,” which peaked at No. 9 on Billboard’s Scorching 100.
Wooden, who was born Alfred Jesse Smith, died Friday of pure causes at his dwelling in Moreno Valley, his supervisor and assistant Manny Gallegos confirmed to Selection. He was 83.
Wooden’s slinky and upbeat tunes are infectious. His seductive and affable method of describing the essence of a budding romance in layman’s phrases is inviting. Whether or not solo or with a accomplice, it’s simple to groove to the beat.
Wooden continued releasing tracks however none ever garnered comparable success. Pissed off with the music business, he give up for a few years, then inched again onto the membership circuit. There, he discovered an viewers that will maintain him for many years: Latinos.
He would play main California cities, then journey by way of Mexico and into Arizona earlier than returning dwelling. As his viewers aged, Wooden started to carry out on themed cruises and at festivals with Chicano musical luminaries together with Los Lobos, Thee Midniters and Ozomatli. Wooden’s romantic oldies resonated with a brand new era of lovebirds, changing into a soundtrack of Southern California life — actually, as Wooden discovered a 3rd profession as a performer at weddings, quinceañeras and anniversary events.
Bob Merlis, a former government for Warner Bros. Data and co-author of “Heart & Soul: A Celebration of Black Music Style in America 1930-1975,” described the artist as a “local hero” to L.A. — a “standard bearer for the Southern California pop soul scene.”
“Nothing else sounded like them,” stated Merlis, who now runs a public relations and consulting agency. “It was so different and that instrumentation is very unusual.”
“They’ve kind of picked me out of the whole batch, and they keep me going,” Wooden advised The Occasions in 1992. “I appreciate it, because if I was waiting for the big boys to call, I’d have died a long time ago.”
Wooden’s lyrics captured the cat-and-mouse chase of a primary love, the sort of infatuation that makes folks act a idiot. He encapsulated that all-too-familiar craving to whisk away a lover to bask of their honeymoon paradise. However he additionally wrote about heartache — and the triumphant second when the ache wears off.
“Latinos like to dedicate songs, and his songs are good for that,” radio veteran Artwork Laboe advised The Occasions in 1992. “It’s not the big hits they like. It’s songs like ‘Take a Chance,’ ‘I Think You’ve Got Your Fools Mixed Up’ — if a girl’s having trouble with her boyfriend, she’ll dedicate that to him.”
The songwriter was born July 26, 1941, in Shreveport, La., and moved west to San Pedro when he was 3. He moved all through L.A.’s inside cities, promoting papers and fish and shining sneakers till he created a profession within the music business.
Wooden was 7 when a pianist mesmerized him. With no tv set at dwelling, he spent hours on the park, watching and mimicking the performer, utilizing two fingers to faucet on imaginary keys till he bought his personal piano. At 10, Brenton Wooden wrote his first music a couple of man who wished to be a chicken. It was cheerful and rhymed however lacked oomph.
He discovered his groove when he met his first girlfriend. Then, the phrases flowed out.
The Compton Excessive Faculty graduate enrolled at East Los Angeles School and sang in native R&B teams comparable to Little Freddie and the Rockets and the Quotations within the Nineteen Fifties earlier than he went solo. He took on his stage identify, Brenton Wooden, from the rich L.A. enclave of Brentwood, the place a supervisor lived.
Wooden’s “The Oogum Boogum Song” got here solely accidentally. He was working the graveyard shift at Harvey Aluminum in Torrance when the melody got here to him.
“It took me about six weeks, because I had to switch the verses around about a hundred times,” he advised the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2000. “That was a song about fashion changes in the ’60s with bell-bottom hip-huggers and high-heeled boots and all the different styles of clothes the girls were wearing — hot pants and all that stuff.”
The bouncy observe was later featured in Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” and Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling.”
“It was one of the best feelings you could have,” Wooden advised Cal State Fullerton’s Titan TV in 2014.
By 1970, he based Mr. Wooden Data and produced different artists’ singles. Latino listeners had been already embracing him as one among their very own.
Chicano music historian Gene Aguilera remembers being “glued up” to his little transistor radio as a teen, listening to Wooden’s “Gimmie Little Sign” combined in with the Beatles and the Supremes on KRLA-AM 1110 all inside an hour. Strolling his neighborhood, he would hear Wooden’s voice together with Thee Midniters wafting within the background, emanating from close by events or from lowriders cruising down Whittier Boulevard, bumping his tunes.
“Even though he wasn’t born here, he’s just forever going to be etched in our consciousness,” stated Aguilera, who final noticed the artist carry out at an area park in Baldwin Park earlier than the pandemic.
“His music was really accepted by East L.A. because of the slow groove he’s got, very soulful, that people from East L.A. just love.”
Vega is a former Occasions employees author.