Peter Wolf

If the notoriously nocturnal Peter Wolf had ever had a day job, it might as well have been as a haberdasher because of the many hats he has worn over his 50-plus-year career, including musician, singer-songwriter and, as anyone who listened to WBCN in the wee hours during the late ‘60s will tell you, late-night disc jockey.

Peter Walter Blankfield was born on March 7, 1946 in the Bronx, New York, and planned on being an artist when he was growing up. His commitment to music began when he was around 11, after going to see Alan Freed’s Rock and Roll Revue, which included live sets by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.

MOVE TO BOSTON, THE HALLUCINATIONS

His talent as a painter won him a grant to study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he enrolled in 1964. “I remained here because I liked the city so much,” he once said about making the city his home decades after first arriving. “And I thought it was really conducive for musicians because the club scene, at one time, was so prevalent. You had a lot of coffeehouses, you had a lot of different clubs, far more than you have today unfortunately. And I like Boston, you know, because coming from New York, it wasn’t as competitive.”

In mid-1965, Wolf had a life-changing experience: He was at a party where guitarists Paul Shapiro and Doug Slade and drummer Stephen Jo Bladd were riffing on Sonny Boy Williamson’s “One Way Out” and he asked to sit in on vocals and harmonica. The common myth is that the band was already called The Hallucinations and Wolf jumped on stage and commandeered the show, but Shapiro has flatly denied that. “The rumor is not true,” he wrote in 2013. “The Hallucinations did not exist at that party.” Wolf became the unnamed band’s fourth member, followed in October by bassist Joe Clark to complete the lineup. Bladd suggested the name The Hallucinations, Shapiro says, and in November the group played some of its first gigs in the basement of Follen Church in Lexington, which held regular dance parties featuring local rock groups including The Pied Pipers, Mad Hatters and A Warm Puppy.

In January 1967, The Hallucinations and Vermont-based psychedelic-rock band The Lost were the first two bands to perform at The Boston Tea Party, which had opened that same month, and The Hallucinations played regular multi-night gigs there through July 1968. During that period, they opened for John Lee Hooker several more times along with The Velvet Underground, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Van Morrison while playing on double bills with Boston-based bands The Beacon Street Union, Ultimate Spinach, Eden’s Children, The Barbarians, The Bagatelle and the power trio Butter, fronted by Andy Pratt.

JOINING WBCN, BECOMING PETER “WOLF,” NOTABLE FRIENDSHIPS

The band moved into a house in Cambridge, Wolf started hanging out at Club 47 and soon he landed a deejay job on WBCN, which had recently changed from a classical format to a freeform rock one. He played blues and R&B, adopting the on-air name “Woofa Goofa,” and he started to cross paths with his heroes. “I was Muddy Waters’ official valet,” he remembers, a role he also undertook with his mentor Howlin’ Wolf, whose name he adopted for his own. He still laughs about one time when he was with the iconic first-generation blues man: “After a show, I took him to an all-night diner outside of Harvard Square during Harvard’s final exams. There’s Howlin’ Wolf ordering rashers of bacon and all of these Ivy League students eating breakfast and cramming at the tables.”

Wolf became close with Van Morrison, too, as the Irishman lived in Cambridge for about nine months in 1968, performing material from his Astral Weeks album before recording it in September/October that year in New York City. “Van used to live on Green Street, in Cambridge, and when I was doing the radio show at WBCN he used to come by,” Wolf says. “As a matter of fact, he used to borrow a lot of The Hallucinations’ equipment.” Another friendship he struck up was with Gregg and Duane Allman. “They were in Boston for their first time and we were rehearsing and they knocked on our window and came in,” Wolf says. “Duane and Jay (Geils) became very close too.” At some point during this period, he became roommates with future film maker David Lynch (Eraserhead, The Elephant Man) and Barry Tashian, frontman of The Remains.

THE J. GEILS BAND, TOURING WITH THE STONES, JON BUTCHER AXIS

After seeing The J. Geils Blues Band – an acoustic trio from Worcester – in concert, he joined them in 1967 as vocalist and frontman and quickly became known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and “pole-vaulting” with mic stands. The band went electric, removed “Blues” from their name and landed a deal with the prestigious R&B label Atlantic. Between 1970 and 1983, they recorded 13 influential albums and topped the Billboard Hot 100 with 1981’s “Freeze Frame,” “Love Stinks,” and “Centerfold.” Wolf and keyboardist Seth Justman were responsible for most of the songwriting and The J. Geils Band earned a reputation as one of rock’s most exciting live acts, thanks in large part to Wolf’s ever-flamboyant, borderline-hyperactive stage presence.

In 1982, The J. Geils Band accompanied The Rolling Stones on their Tattoo You tour and later that year they brought Boston-based Jon Butcher Axis from an unsigned act to a major-label act – PolyGram – by inviting them to open on their Freeze Frame tour. “Well, I think we always tried to take a lot of bands out,” Wolf explains. “I mean we had U2 working with us. The first time they ever played in the United States was with The Geils Band. I mean people like The Eagles, Billy Joel used to open for us. Peter Frampton used to open for us too. And when we were going out on that tour, Jon was getting a nice buzz and he was performing really well. We had The Stompers, and even The Cars opened for us once. We just felt that Jon was available and he’d do well. He really had a good band going then.”

GOING SOLO, LIGHTS OUT, “SUN CITY,” COME AS YOU ARE

Creative differences resulted in Wolf leaving the JGB in 1983 and he worked as a solo artist for the next 15 years. The current version of The J. Geils Band is without the long-retired Stephen Jo Bladd and the late J. Geils and includes Duke Levine and Kevin Barry on guitars and Marty Richards on drums. These artists also belong to Wolf’s solo band, The Midnight Travelers. He re-united with the group briefly in 1999 and again in the early 2000s.

Wolf’s first album as a solo act, Lights Out, was released in 1984, produced by Michael Jonzun of The Jonzun Crew, and featured guitar guru Adrian Belew. The title track peaked at #12 in the Billboard Hot 100. In 1985, Wolf appeared on The Artists United Against Apartheid project’s song “Sun City” and in 1987 he recorded a second solo disc, Come As You Are, with the title track reaching the top-15 hit in the Hot 100 but sailing to #1 I Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. Later, the single “Can’t Get Started” became huge.

OTHER SOLO ALBUMS, STAGE/STUDIO COLLABORATIONS

Wolf’s 1996 album Long Line was co-produced by Boston-based Johnny A. (The Yardbirds) and Stu Kimball (Bob Dylan). His next two LPs, Fool’s Parade and 2002’s Sleepless (with guest appearances by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards) sold well and Rolling Stone included the latter in its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. Wolf has appeared onstage with acts including Bruce Springsteen and Phil Lesh and he has recorded duets with Aretha Franklin, Little Milton, John Lee Hooker, Don Convay and Wilson Pickett among others.

In 2008, he toured with Kid Rock and Rev. Run (Run DMC) on the Rock and Roll Revival Tour. He performed the J. Geils’ hits “Love Stinks,” “Musta Got Lost,” “Centerfold” and Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” with Kid Rock’s band. Once, after finishing a performance at the Narrows Center For The Arts in Fall River, he went across the street and joined a J. Geils tribute band onstage for “Ain’t Nothin’ But A Party.” Stories like this only add to his living-legend status. “Well, I enjoy clubbing and I enjoy seeing new bands,” he says. “It was such a surprise to be walking towards the parking lot while hearing that song. So I figured why not jump in, take it to the bridge and kick it high?”

J. GEILS BAND REUNIONS, RECENT ALBUMS, FUTURE ALBUMS

The J. Geils Band regrouped for a bunch of shows in 2009 including the opening night at the House of Blues on Lansdowne Street in Boston and in August 2010 they opened up for Aerosmith at Fenway Park. Wolf’s 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs won Album of the Year at the Boston Music Awards; the disc includes duets with Shelby Lynne, Neko Case and Merle Haggard.

Wolf’s eighth solo album, A Cure For Loneliness, dropped in April 2016 and he went on tour with his band, The Midnight Travelers, to support it.  Asked if he thinks any future co-songwriting with Seth Justman in the future, his answer was simple: “Never can tell.”

(by A.J. Wachtel)