Jeff Wood Kept The Beat For Tampa's Music Scene

By KEVIN WALKER The Tampa Tribune

Published: Sep 14, 2007

TAMPA - Jeff Wood, a beloved fixture of the local music scene and one of its most talented drummers, died Wednesday night at his mother's home in Valrico. His family and his fiance gathered around the 42-year-old as he died at 7 p.m.

"It was very beautiful," his mother, Jan, said.

Shortly after his death, lightning flashed and thunder boomed. That was beautiful, too, and appropriate for a local rock 'n' roll icon.

"He would have liked that," his mother said.

Wood died from a brain tumor, which was operated on in 2003 and again last year. He had been living with his mother, having lost use of his left arm and leg. His death still came as "a shock" to his mother, who said Wood seemed to be getting stronger until a sudden turn for the worse in late August.

"We all knew that eventually this would take his life," she said Thursday. "We just thought we'd have him longer."

Tributes to Wood began popping up on MySpace bulletin boards, and former band mate Joe Popp, now living in New York City, set up a tribute Web site Thursday afternoon at www.joepopp.net/Jeff_Wood/Home.html. It wasn't surprising from a community that raised $9,000 for Wood to help with medical bills in 2003.

Jan Wood said her son's upbeat personality always won friends, and that the time of his funeral was set at 7 p.m. Monday "to give all his friends time to get off work and come to the service."

Wood was a multifaceted person. A soccer fanatic (favorite team: Arsenal), he played football, baseball and basketball as a boy and then played on the Brandon High School soccer team. He won a soccer scholarship to Andrew College in Georgia. While physically able, he did 1,000 sit ups a day.

His friends knew him as a funny, confident guy (known as "The" Jeff Wood), but also a sensitive soul his mother called "a good boy" and who was devoted to his basset hound, Bubbles.

"He was the kind of person who, once you met him, always treated you like a friend. That was something I always appreciated about him," said Curtis Ross, the Tribune's music critic and a longtime friend.

Most knew Wood because he flat-out rocked on a drum set, and any live music fans who ever took in a local show probably saw him. Wood played with many local bands - including Mooncalves, Forbidden Apostles, Joe Popp, Spiller, Barely Pink - but perhaps most famously in the duo Nutrajet with Greg Reinel.

"He was a good drummer, a rock drummer," Ross said. "His holy trinity of rock was The Who, Cheap Trick and The Clash. You could really hear that."

He had The Clash's "London Calling" album cover tattooed on his chest. "And he wasn't a big tattoo guy," said longtime friend Andrea Halpern, who met Wood in 1985. Although he did have two others: "Wood" on his back just above the waist and Bubbles' paw print on his arm.

Jan Wood said her son's love of music and drumming developed early, helped along by his mother's love of music. Jan Wood was organist for the First United Methodist Church in Brandon for 32 years before quitting to take care of her ailing son.

"I guess it's my fault," she said. "I found a picture of him when he was a 1-year-old, and he has his tin drum and his sticks. He got his first drum kit when he was 10 or 11. He just always loved drumming."

Jeff Wood developed into a potent drummer, but Halpern said she admired him most for his outlook on life. "He did what he wanted, he lived how he wanted to, and he never compromised," she said. "I loved him for that."

Halpern also expressed the feeling of many: the unfairness of such a healthy, vital person laid low by a body that failed him at such a relatively young age. Wood, though, never expressed that, his mother said, even through bouts of depression so bad that he stopped listening to music because he could no longer drum.

"Through it all, he never once asked, 'Why?'" Jan Wood said.

He also kept his sense of humor and confidence. This year, when Jan thought he might be getting overheated, she asked, "Are you hot?"

"There are some who have said so," he said.

JEFF WOOD

Born: July 2, 1965, in Tampa

Died: Sept. 12, 2007, in Valrico

Survivors: His mother, Jan Wood of Valrico; father, Glen Wood of Plant City; brother, Jim Wood of Brandon; sister, Amy Franklin of Lakeland; fiance Vicki Yado of Tampa; three nieces and one nephew

Services: A funeral service will be held at 7 p.m. Monday at First United Methodist Church in Brandon.

Reporter Kevin Walker can be reached at (813) 259-7975 or kwalker@tampatrib.com.