Newport Beach resident Mark Wood has been on the road of music since he was 11 years old. He has traveled worldwide and dabbled in everything from rock to country. His latest journey has been the release of two CDs.

"I moved to California 20 years ago and started playing with the keyboard player from Journey, Jonathon Caine, and did all the Hollywood stuff, writing songs and doing session work," Wood said.

Since 1983, he has spent a lot of time developing different bands.

"Around 1991, I went to Nashville," Wood said. "The whole industry changed. My music was acoustic, vocal based, and I decided to shift my focus."

Wood was dealing with the uncertainty of signing with an independent label. He was getting advice from all sides and was told he'd be getting a deal with a major label. That didn't come to fruition, either.

"I wrote a lot of country and played at the Blue Bird in Nashville and got established there," Wood said. "All the while, I did club dates, session work and wrote for commercials."

To make a living, he was doing 340 shows a year. When he came back to Newport, he took a different turn in his musical career.

"My daughter was at Newport Elementary School, and I got involved with 'Just Read', a reading program in the Newport-Mesa area, which later became state mandated," Wood said. Wood volunteered as a music teacher in 1992 because there weren't any music teachers.

"All the while, I was I was playing six or seven nights a week in the clubs," Wood said. "All these years, I had been a musician -- I started playing professionally when I was 11 -- and in that time, I didn't really have students. I realized how much they needed it."

Music as a learning tool is integral, Wood said.

"I realized how big in the learning process music is in opening minds and helping with other subjects like math and reading," Wood said. "It's all a part of general education."

He said that ,with all he has accomplished and experienced, he really feels fortunate about his life and being able to give back.

"I think there's a time in life you have experienced all this stuff and want to give back," Wood said. "You understand the difference music makes around the world."

Wood did not have a predictable and patterned life. One of his musician buddies was ready to become one of the nine-to-fivers. Wood is glad that he was able to stay in the career he loved so much, even though it took a lot of hours. He even opened up a music and dinner club on Balboa for awhile, but because of a bad partnership, it closed six months after it opened.

He relied on the steady club gigs until there was a bit of a drought.

"My money situation dropped drastically from before, and I had to reinvent myself to make money," Wood said. "That's when I came up with www.markwood entertainment.com, a Web site where I could develop corporate events. It's been really great," Wood said.

The success began to snowball, and Wood formed many small bands that he leads -- each playing a different genre of music. He has a Jimmy Buffet-esque band that actually opened for Buffet's recent Irvine Meadows shows, a piano duet, a big nine piece R & B horn band, a straight-ahead jazz group, a 12-piece swing band and his country band.

"There are 11 or 12 bands I front," Wood said. "I do events for everyone and go all over the world. I have always chose the path of music as a living."

There are more than 2,000 songs he plays with all of his bands. Some original songs and some covers. He has opened for Don McLean, Kenny Rankin, Sammy Kershaw, Bruce Hornsby and more. He has headlined at the Roxy, the Whiskey, the Coach House and the Celebrity Theater to sold-out crowds.

Three years ago he made a business plan and decided to fully develop his company and put out two or three records.

"The middle of last year, I started compiling music from Nashville and L.A. that's kind of country based, and released the CD 'Now That You're Gone,'" Wood said. "It's a fully produced thing, music from the last 10 years -- country and Americana oriented."

Next, he recorded a CD of his solo acts, "The Lessons of Life" with 15 tunes. Wood said that it encompasses all the facets of going through life until you die.

"It's pretty mellow, all acoustic or piano, voice and harmonica," Wood said. "I had an approach of dubbing and listening back. I wanted it to have a live and personal feel. It felt good. It let it be very intimate and very warm."

The reason he wanted to do a solo record was that he had performed a lot as a solo artist, and over the years he's had a lot of requests. He 's been performing some of the songs for 25 years.

"The song 'The Gift' I wrote when I played at the Blue Beet Cafe, when I found out I was going to be a father," Wood said. "Those people who regularly used to request it 10 years ago are now having kids of their own, so it really means something."

Now along with his other successes, Wood has started his own record and publishing company to handle all the licensing and distribution of his work.

"I just set up an application through BMI, so it will be played all over the world," Wood said.

Don't expect Wood to go riding into the sunset anytime soon.

"I love Newport Beach, everything about it," Wood said. "I live down by the Wedge, and life is slow, the weather is temperate -- I have had great support in this town.