Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont internship, for The Charlotte News
CHARLOTTE —Woody Keppel and his band, the Hokum Brothers, took the stage at the Old Lantern barn on March 21 for the venue’s first Ice Breaker event, raising money for Migrant Justice — a nonprofit dedicated to protecting immigrants’ rights.
The group jigged and sang on the barn stage, following 12 years of similar performances at venues like the Flynn Theatre, Tanglewood and the Vermont International Film Festival. The troupe is Vermont’s “premier Americana and comedy band,” according to the band’s website.
Capped in a tiny cowboy hat and strumming his guitar, Keppel performs with Gus Zeising and Allan “Uncle Al” Nicholls. The three of them are often spotted parading through Vermont towns in their rickety truck playing original songs like “Vaudeville in My blood.”
“Growing up, I learned the phrase: ‘Singing is praying twice,’” Keppel said. “I really love playing with this band and what I’m doing now, playing on a regular basis.”
But before Woody, there was Mark.
Mark Keppel was born into a heritage of performing arts in the Virginia countryside. His mother ran theatre productions in the basement of their house, and his great-grandmother was a vaudeville performer.
Woody Keppel’s journey into performing began at the age of 8 after a piano lesson. That’s when his mother told him he would be playing a song in the high school recital as the sole elementary school performer.
“It was the most horrible news,” Keppel said. “I was dreading it for two weeks.”
On the day of the recital, he took a pen from his teacher’s desk and chewed it until the ink cartridge exploded all over him and his dress clothes.
“My teacher said, ‘Go call your mother,’ So I said, ‘Mom, I can’t be in the recital. I almost poisoned myself. I got ink all over my shirt.’ And she said, ‘I’ll bring you another shirt.’ So, I was basically doomed,” he said.
Onstage in front of 300 people, Keppel blanked on the piece he had practiced, stopping his play only seven measures into performing. Keppel said his teacher tried to drag him away from the piano as the audience laughed in pity.
“It just went on forever. It was getting worse, and the audience was dying,” Keppel said. “I had to either blow up and die or run. So, I ran off stage and out to the parking lot. I swore to my mom I would never play music again.”
He kept his word for six years until a neighbor, whom Keppel wanted to impress, revealed that she liked Neil Young’s music.
Keppel took his sister’s guitar to learn some Neil Young songs and was soon playing guitar around bonfires and at social events. His flirtatious plot worked, too, he said.
Later in high school, Keppel kept playing music while placing 1,499 out of his class of 1,500 on the SAT, finishing the test in 10 minutes, he said. That was when he decided against the traditional college route.
Instead, he auditioned for and got into the music school at Virginia Commonwealth University. There, Keppel joined a band that he played in for three years, booking gigs in Virginia and the Carolinas.
Keppel then moved to Boston, where he auditioned for an operatic rendition of “Hansel and Gretel” and made it as an extra in the chorus. Singing in an opera house holding the attention of 3,500 people was the launching point of his professional performing career, he said.
“I did opera for about five years, and I got to sing in one with some of the best singers in the world. It was a small part, but I got to sing,” he said.
After his operatic stint, Keppel made a shift and went to clown camp in Maine, inspired by a show he saw in New Orleans and came up with the character “Woodhead.”
He moved to New Orleans and busked on the streets to test out his newly trained circus antics.
It was there that Keppel met another performer, Paul Burke, who was an expert juggler. He knew Burke would be the perfect match for Woodhead, but Burke spurned Keppel’s initial offer to join forces, which came while Burke was in mid-juggle, Keppel said.
On a road trip to Key West, Florida, however, Keppel’s car driver needed to pick up one more passenger — the same Burke who had rejected Keppel just the day before.
After a 16-hour car ride of singing songs together, Keppel reapproached the subject of performing with Burke. Burke agreed this time, and Keppel bestowed Burke with the name “Waldo.”
This marked the beginning of Waldo and Woodhead, one of the most successful vaudeville duos in the world. Here’s a video of Waldo and Woodhead performing in Paris in 2005.
Waldo and Woodhead spent 25 years performing in countries like New Zealand, China and France. Burke was the straight man in their act, juggling up to seven balls at a time, while Keppel sprang about the stage dancing and singing.
The pair earned the title Masters of Mayhem after performing at the Lincoln Center and Caesars Palace. Their act was broadcast on TV stations in the U.S. and Canada. Gregory Hines, acclaimed tap dancer and Hollywood choreographer, called their show “the funniest and most original act” he’d ever seen.
For Keppel, it was all about following his passion.
“I was just enjoying the music part of it. It’s therapy for me to be able to be in front of people,” he said.
Keppel performed his last show as Woodhead in Hong Kong, just before COVID-19 shut down global travel. Waldo moved to a circus eco-village in Hawaii that Keppel co-founded.
He and his wife, who he met towards the end of his international career, purchased and moved to the home, dubbed Mt. Foolery, in Charlotte in 1996, where he’s been since, hosting small comedy and music performances.
Keppel started the Hokum Brothers, his current band, in 2006. The band started as a duo with Billy Bratcher of the Starline Rhythm Boys and evolved into a trio after Bratcher’s departure and the joining of Gus Zeising and Allan Nicholls.
“I was invited by some friends up to Woody’s house, and it was great,” Nicholls said. “I just stayed late and played music with him into the night. We started singing harmonies, and I was playing on pots and pans.”
The Hokum Brothers blend comedic lyrics with traditional folk tunes. The band combined their zany melodies with the talents of former Cirque du Soleil strongman Yuri Alekhin at last year’s Festival of Fools in Burlington, an event that Keppel co-founded in 2007.
Keppel started the event to pass the torch to future clowns, and the Hokum Brothers will be performing this summer at the Festival of Fools again. Keppel hopes these performances bring laughter in a time when it’s needed.
“I know a lot of people feel the connectedness of this time and realize how important it is to try to ascend to a more loving consciousness,” he said. “We have to counteract all this stupid that’s out here.”