Brenton Wood if He Could

There was a time in the late ‘60s when Brenton Wood was mopping the floor with many of his R&B-soul; peers, thanks to hits that he wrote and sang including “Gimme Little Sign” and “The Oogum Boogum Song.”

In recent years, he’s kept busy buffing those floors as part of a side business he established after his musical career fell on hard times in the ‘70s.

Where such contemporaries as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Marvin Gaye are now revered as soul giants and whose careers are lavishly documented with retrospective CD boxed sets, Wood remains largely forgotten by the public.

But unkind twists of fate never blunted his love for music, and he’s continued entertaining whenever and wherever he can.

“When the hits died down and things got kind of slow, I went off and started over, working the club circuit and started rebuilding from that particular point,” the 55-year-old singer said in a recent phone interview from his Inglewood home. “I went into a self-promotion-type thing.

“If record companies wouldn’t finance getting people to write about me and keeping my name afloat, then I’d have to go out and do it myself,” said Wood, who plays tonight at the Galaxy in Santa Ana. “So I did a lot of parties and weddings and stuff like that to try to accommodate fans. I focused on it and it became fun, like anything else. I really enjoy it.”

Despite possessing a sinewy but supple voice capable of warbling falsettos with ease even as it punched with admirable muscle, despite writing or co-writing all his hits--unlike many of his soul brethren--Wood never made it into the soul pantheon.

One big factor was that he never had the backing of a huge and storied label like Gaye’s Motown, Pickett’s Atlantic or Redding’s Stax to keep his name in the public eye over the years.

Wood’s label in his hit-making days, Double Shot Records, boasted only one other group of consequence--the Count Five, best known for its Yardbirds knockoff, “Psychotic Reaction.”

Finally, he easily might have turned sour at coming out on the short end of the financial stick for his work.

“As long as I’ve been in this business, I’ve never seen a record royalty check in my life,” Wood said. “I haven’t seen a penny.”

Still, Wood hasn’t done badly. While continuing to perform--albeit for as little as $50 when his career really bottomed out in the late ‘70s--Wood has developed a small but loyal following on a circuit he regularly plays in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

He produces CDs on his own Mr. Wood label and sells them from the stage, although he hasn’t been able to get any sort of retail distribution. Lastly, he says his floor-buffing business has done well for him.

“I’m pretty much a maverick,” he said. “I do my own promotion, I do my own concerts, I select the places I play, I do it all. I was backed into doing it this way because nobody would hire me. Now, through it all, I’ve accumulated three generations of fans. But you know what? I think I’m still one of the best-kept secrets in the music business.”

* Brenton Wood, Al Wilson and Brenda Holloway play tonight at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. 8 p.m. $18.50-$20.50. (714) 957-0600.