Worldbeat concert is tonight in Sparta

A “Worldbeat Concert with Chuck Wood and Friends” is coming to the Sparta Avenue Stage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 20.

Doors open at 7 p.m.

All tickets are $20 and are available online at spartastage.com

Worldbeat music is indigenous cultural music played on a variety of West African and South American instruments fused with western popular music.

The multi-instrumentalist Chuck Wood will be joined by Jeff Hambright playing lap steel, electric and acoustic guitar, saxophone and harmonica. Maria Haydon will be playing guitar and percussion, and Cari Sanchez will be on percussion and vocals.

Two special guests have been added to the show: John Buckman from the John Ginty Band and Angie McKenna from Neal Casal’s original lineup.

“This is going to be a great show,” Wood said.

Wood was drawn to African drumming in his 20s. Babatunde Olatunji, the late great Nigerian drummer, was one of his teachers and had a large influence on his approach to music.

Wood credits Olatunji with teaching him: “The two greatest things in music are the human voice and the drum. You can’t hide behind either of them ... as soon as somebody starts drumming, you get a real sense of their personality – that’s the rhythm they’d speak or the tempo they’d walk.

“When somebody sings, that’s coming straight from their body. There’s nothing between you and the voice. After I started to really listen to African and Latin music, I learned a lot more about how rhythm correlates to language and culture.”

Wood acknowledges that although he understands and appreciates the rhythm patterns of African music, “It’s not my culture, I didn’t grow up with these drums. So what am I going to do with them?

“There is just as much Led Zeppelin as there is Olatunji in my music ... to honor my own experience and to honor what I was exposed to, I put everything into my music, and expressed myself that way – the only way I could be honest.

“I really believe one of the reasons people respond to us when they see us play is because they feel that honesty. I’m not trying to be something I’m not. I love this music and do my best to honor its traditions.”