Woodenhead New Orleans 1975-2025
Closing out The
New Orleans
Jazz & Heritage Festival,
Sunday May 4th, 2025
Lagniappe Stage
50 years of who said what:
Woodenhead has emerged as probably the most important and certainly the most fascinating musical unit New Orleans has seen in years...adamantly original, almost spiritual.."
Eddie Allman, BATON ROUGE MORNING ADVOCATE
"Ya'll suck!" audience member, Laplace Speedway, 1979
"Jimmy Robinson is a major talent who could easily become one of Austin's guitar heroes.."
Michael Point, AUSTIN-AMERICAN STATESMAN
In the immortal words of Frank Zappa, Woodenhead is a band with no commercial potential and damn proud of it..
Offbeat Magazine, New Orleans
"Why Ya'll play dat music dat make people fight?"
Audience member, 1978 after huge brawl breaks out among frenzied
Bridge City Gumbo Festival attendees during Woodenhead's set
The X factor in Woodenhead’s music is that they are tricky and progressive, with time changes and impossible licks to spare, but they are also visceral and fun, especially in front of a live audience.
Bett Milano, Offbeat Magazine
"A great band. Really great feeling" JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, 1985
"They've been around forever. They're not really happening"
Editor of defunct New Orleans music magazine at meeting for defunct music conference. 1986
Woodenhead is at the head of the pack for instrumental electric music. You can’t go wrong with this one….
Pete Pardo, Sea Of Tranquility
"Woodenhead is not for the faint-hearted, musically or in spirit...they play a hard-driving, challenging music that will literally rock you out of the comfortable cradle of Jazz, R&B and rock and roll into which life in New Orleans has lulled you." Rock Adam GAMBIT
"The guitar is way too loud" audience member, Cat's Cradle, Chapel Hill, N.C. May 20, 1985
"I can't hear the guitar at all" audience member, Cat's Cradle, Chapel Hill, N.C. May 20, 1985
"Robinson is a killer guitarist, capable of removing the heads of most head banging metal freaks. He is also 'tasty' in the old-fashioned sense, rarely letting speed overtake the essentials."
Mark Bingham, WAVELENGTH MAGAZINE
"You boys need some uniforms" Jimmy Robinson's grandfather repeatedly from 1975 until his passing in the mid-eighties.
"At the New Orleans jazz festival, Woodenhead gets a standing ovation for teaching traditional jazz fans just how far imagination and electricity can push the form" ESQUIRE MAGAZINE
"An innovative band of extraordinary instrumentalists"...
TRIANGLE LIVE, Winston-Salem, N.C.
"A band dedicated to creating music of the highest integrity, and not compromising during their three decades of performances and recordings." MJ Brady PROGNOSIS
"It's kind of painful to my ear" Audience member, Tipitina's, 1980