It all started when…
Woody grew up in a musical family. His Dad, Dave Clark has been a professional folk singer songwriter for the past 45 years. As a child Woody accompanied Dave on tours to remote indigenous communities and regional festivals. Woody has recorded on six of Dave’s albums and performed in his various bands.
Woody has been a primary school music teacher for five years, writing school plays, teaching ensembles and leading various music groups. The most notable of these was the reKINDle Project which received funding to collaborate with indigenous and non-indigenous artists, and involved over four hundred primary school students across regional Victoria.
Besides music, Woody was an outdoor education teacher and facilitated a outdoor program for a school in the Yarra Valley, east of Melbourne. He took students to indigenous communities in remote Northern Territory and all around South-Eastern Australia, teaching children to love the outdoors.
In 2014 Woody began Woody’s World, which brought together his vision of family music making, teaching and his love of the natural world. The vision was to create and share children’s music and live shows that would be loved by children and parents in equal measure, and ultimately to inspire families to play music together and enjoy the great outdoors.
Woody’s debut album was released in 2014 and was toured for several years around South East Australia. In 2018 Woody founded his Mobile Ukulele School which has now taught over five thousand families and students to play the ukulele. Through his workshops and live stage shows, Woody has made music and ukulele playing accessible to students and families.
2019 saw Woody collaborating with the Song Room and Regional Arts Victoria. Woody was a key member of the Song Room team in the implementation of the Duet Teaching Program that piloted a new method of mentoring classroom teaching in the delivery of a creative music curriculum. Regional Arts Victoria has been touring Woody’s live show The Ukulele Kids Show, which features an embedded ukulele workshop within the stage show.
As an independent artist, Woody is about to embark on his biggest tour yet. A national tour for his long-awaited second album Let’s Play!, will take him and his band to the biggest family festivals in Australia as well as regional venues, schools and remote indigenous communities.
Woody has collaborated with his three musical kids. They have all co-written songs, recorded and toured with him as the Woody’s World Family Band. Woody has continued to nurture their musical education and now they play as a sibling trio. Woody’s youngest daughter, Jayda also won the 2018 and 2020 ACMF National Songwritign Winner. Hear her music on Spotify.