[3] His harmonica playing first gained attention in the 1960s, when he was a duet partner with the guitarist and singer Mississippi Fred McDowell.
2), for Swingmaster (Blues of Johnny Woods)[4] and as a solo for Tom Pomposello and Fred Seibert of Oblivion Records ("Mississippi Harmonica") in 1972.
[5] Stylistically, Woods's music sprang from the same north Mississippi fife-and-drum blues tradition as McDowell's.
[2] However, personal problems kept him rooted in the Delta, primarily working as a farmhand and sharecropper.
After McDowell's death in July 1973, Woods faded into obscurity until George Mitchell paired him again with another Mitchell discovery from the Mississippi Delta, R. L. Burnside, himself a McDowell disciple.