Steve Wood

Film Score Composer

At age 14 Steve Wood was living the young surfer’s dream of living on the beach in Newport Beach, California where he could surf every day before and after (and sometimes during) school. His world came crashing down when his father was transferred to Dallas, Texas. Not knowing what to do when he got there, he bought his first guitar and started a band. Two years later he had a number 4 record on the local charts and he had stumbled onto his life’s path.

Moving back to California he played in a variety of local bands for a couple of years until he founded the band Honk which composed the soundtrack for Greg MacGillivray’s iconic surfing movie “Five Summer Stories”. A song from that movie became number 1 in Hawaii and soon Honk had a major recording contract and was touring with The Beach Boys, Loggins and Messina and Chicago. Several years later Steve became the keyboard player and musical director for Kenny Loggins, a position he held for 10 years. During that time he wrote several chart making songs with Kenny and helped produce several hits including “Footloose”.

In the meantime Greg MacGillivray shifted from surf movies to become the most successful IMAX documentary film maker in history. He tapped Steve to compose scores for 30 of his films including “Everest”, “The Living Sea” and “Dolphins”. Steve’s work earned him 8 “Best Score” awards, the most by any composer and allowed him to work with Sting, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, The Moody Blues, Dave Matthews Band and Brian May of Queen along with a host of others.

Among his other accomplishments are his Clio Award winning work with Stevie Wonder and his production and composition work for Sony Classical artists. He composed, recorded and mixed the music for 2 PBS specials filmed at the Colosseum in Rome and ancient Agora Amphitheater in Thessaloniki, Greece.

He is currently composing and working with his wife Beth Fitchet Wood, a gifted singer songwriter. He is also producing an upcoming series of live streams of gifted up and coming musicians from high schools from around Orange County, California with Laguna Beach Live where he is a board member.