Making Folk Music With a Hard Edge

By day, Julie Woods '81-'86 is a mild-mannered, Harvard-educated administrator with American Science and Engineering in Cambridge.

But by night, she becomes a self-professed "maniac" as she jumps onstage with her guitar.

Woods, who will give a solo performance of her own songs this Friday night at Paine Hall, has been a singer with the popular Boston-based rock band "Rick Berlin" since she was an undergraduate living in Claverly Hall.

She describes herself as "schizophrenic as hell," balancing what she calls her "work mode" with her "performance and writing mode."

"When I go onstage, I'm completely out of my mind," she says. "If I'm in performance mode or writing mode, then there's nothing else."

Mental Hazards

"The reason I can function, while so many musicians can't, is that I consciously surround myself with a group of people who, if they see me go glassy-eyed, know it is their job to get me from point A to point B without getting myself killed," Woods says.

Besides the apparent mental hazards, Woods says performing can be risky as a career because of the inherent uncertainty. In light of Rick Berlin's long-standing difficulties in acquiring a major-label recording contract, Woods says she would advise prospective musicians, "Get some training, and get a regular job. You don't want to do this. I would wish this on somebody I don't like."

But Woods says she persists because "I don't want to do anything else. I have `masochist' written all over my forehead."

"I perform because I have to," she says. "It's better than chocolate, it's better than sex, it's better than...anything."

Woods compares herself to Tom Hanks' character in Big, a 12-year-old in the body of a 30-year-old. "I'm playing adult," she says.

"People Music"

Although Rick Berlin is a hard-edged rock band, Woods' solo material leans more towards what she reluctantly calls "folk music," as problematic as that term is.

"I'm not a big folk freak. John Denver does not make my heart go `sputter, sputter,'" Woods says. She prefers the term "people music."

The old connotations of folk music--"Peter, Paul and Mary, that kind of thing"--are too narrow for her music, Woods says. "Just because its folk doesn't mean it can't be danceable or have a funky side or be bluesy," she said.

Considering what she calls her "maniacal" performing style, Woods adds, "My role is to bring in the `let's party' aspect of folk music."

Inviting Comparisons

As a Black female pop-folk soloist, Woods inevitably invites comparisons with such singers as Joan Armatrading and Tracy Chapman. But she says, "That comparison doesn't bother me. I think my music is so different from what they do that those comparisons last maybe one or two songs."

Woods says she is more outgoing as a person and as a performer than Tracy Chapman is. "I met Tracy Chapman about a month ago, just on the street. She's one of the shyest human beings I've ever met. Clearly this is a woman who only performs because she can't not perform," she says.

Woods also aligns herself with the folk movement insofar as she is concerned with social issues. She admits a lack of "overt political stuff" in her lyrics. But she says she believes artists should work to solve problems in their communities, paraphrasing Bob Dylan by saying, "I believe in bringing it back home." As a member of Rick Berlin, Woods has performed in a series of benefits for Boston's homeless.

She also praises Rick Berlin because the band's integration of pantomime makes its performances accessible to deaf concertgoers. She says, "We're the only band that has a regular audience of deaf people in the front row every week."

Harvard Helps

The 28-year-old Los Angeles native says she has always wanted to be a musician, and that she came to Harvard primarily because of the prestige of the diploma and because she liked the students. "Harvard was an insane asylum. I loved it," she says.

But while she was here, she committed herself to music. She appeared in concerts and plays and joined Rick Berlin. "If I hadn't been in the band during school, I'd be in jail right now," she says.

Woods says that administrators and professors were flexible and accommodated her needs as a performer when they conflicted with her needs as a student. She says that the Administrative Board repeatedly "took the rule book and threw it out the window" on her behalf. As a member of the class of 1981, Woods was allowed to take time off from her studies throughout her undergraduate career, graduating finally in 1986.

Harvard's artistic community also gave her plenty of leeway to do what she liked, she says. Citing an atmosphere that allowed such inventive talents as director Peter Sellars '80 to flourish, Woods says Harvard "certainly made me very aware of, from a lyric standpoint, just how far I could get pushed and still have my creativity come forward."

Woods says she was both a musician and a crisis counselor even before she came to Harvard, where she majored in psychology. She says her experiences as a counselor and her knowledge of psychology have made her an especially perceptive songwriter. "I'm more aware of people's insides," she says.

Woods points out that she was one of the first second-generation Black female graduates of Harvard. Her mother, Althea Woods, a teacher in Los Angeles, graduated from the Education School in 1955. Julie Woods says she is "proud and honored" to be her mother's daughter.

She also says she is excited--her mother, who has not seen her perform since she was 17, will attend the concert Friday night. "I'm out of my mind," she says.