Have you ever wondered what it’s like to walk in the shoes of an iconic musician? Join host Buzz Knight on this exciting replay episode of takin' a walk-music history as he welcomes Peter Wolf, the legendary frontman of the J. Geils Band, for an unforgettable conversation about his new memoir, Waiting on the Moon. Peter opens up about his remarkable journey through the vibrant music scene of New York City, sharing personal stories that span his illustrious career, his marriage to actress Faye Dunaway, and his experiences as a musician and DJ.
As they stroll through the rich tapestry of music history, Knight and Peter Wolf explore the profound influences that shaped his artistic path. From his childhood encounters with legendary artists like Bob Dylan and Sly Stone to the invaluable mentorship from his father, Peter's reflections offer deep insights into the essence of songwriting stories and the highs and lows of fame. The conversation touches on the impact of iconic venues such as the Apollo Theater and how these experiences fueled his passion for rock music history.
Listeners will be captivated by Peter Wolf and his unique writing process as he shares anecdotes that reveal the heart of his creative journey. With Buzz Knight’s signature style, this episode of takin' a walk unfolds like a classic music story, blending personal reflection with the exploration of legendary musicians and their contributions to american music. Whether you’re a fan of classic rock, jazz music,80's music history or indie music journeys, this episode is filled with compelling tales that resonate with anyone who appreciates the power of artistic expression.
Join Buzz Knight as he dives deep into the world of Peter Wolf, offering listeners a front-row seat to the stories behind albums, the emotional healing through music, and the cultural impact of music history. Don’t miss this chance to hear from one of the most influential figures in classic rock history—it’s a conversation that will inspire and entertain, making you see the music you love in a whole new light. Tune into takin' a walk for an episode that promises to enrich your understanding of the music journey and the lives of the legendary musicians who create it.
#inspiring icons #Peter wolf interview #knight #walk #best musician interview podcast #Boston music history #music history podcast #legendary artists #80's music history #influential music figures #Bob Dylan music history #Rolling Stones Music History Van Morrison music history #music legends #J Geils Band
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm buzznight and welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Now today we're going to revisit one of my favorite
conversations my music history, on foot Walk with the legendary
Peter Wolf. As the iconic frontman of the Jay Guiles
Band and a solo artist with the Midnight Travelers, he
continues to captivate audiences. His impact on rock and roll
(00:22):
is completely undeniable. I'm just absolutely such a fan of Peter's.
The conversation takes us into a dive about his journey,
about his certainly incredibly amazing latest book, and of course
I want to put on your radars some tour dates
with Peter and the band.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
He's going to be playing in Portsmouth.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
New Hampshire, February nineteenth, the Cabot and Beverly mass on
March seventh, and also the legendary Fillmore April seventeenth in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Coming up our.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Episode, our replay with Peter Wolf on Taking a Walk.
Taking a Walk, Well, I'm pleased to welcome to the
Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
One of the great human beings in the universe, he.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Stands tall as one of music's greatest frontman ever Peter Wolf,
former lead singer of the Jay Guiles Band, amazing solo artist, painter,
former DJ. He can add author now to his resume.
His tremendous memoir is called Waiting on the Moon, and
(01:32):
now he can also add to that list New York
Times bestseller.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Pete, welcome to take out a Walk.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Well, thank you for having me buzz and the introduction.
Thank you for the plaudets and kudos. At first, I
don't know whom you might have been speaking about until
I heard my name.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We're going to talk about drifters and drifters and goddesses.
But I do have to ask you our signature taking
a walk question, since it is the name of the podcast.
If you could take a walk with someone Pete, living
or dead, who would it be and where would you
take that walk with him?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Well, living or dead makes a big ocean. There's so
many historical figures, so many important artist writers. You know,
you go from Homer to Shakespeare, interesting figures, mysterious figures.
You know. As far as musicians, there's Beethoven and artists.
(02:35):
There's just so many that I can think of one
that comes to mind. If I was able to meet
with Van go and let him know that he's what
as success he became and how important he became to
so many people. But in thinking about people, I would
probably say my wish would be to be able to
(03:00):
take a walk with my father, And the reason for
that is he was such an influence on my life,
as I stay in the book, and he was so
artistically aware that there are things that he turned me
(03:22):
on too, musically and artistically, as far as painting and
things that took me years years after he passed to
really appreciate what it was about it certain classical music.
Of course, I was not sophisticated enough to appreciate certain
(03:43):
movements and pieces that he just thought was the bee's knees,
and certain painters and artists that he loved, even contemporary
you know, like Metro, the abstract Spanish abstract expressionist, and
so many different things he knew about. He was such
(04:05):
a brilliant man. So I think walking with him and
discussing a new some of the things that I appreciate
that I learned through him, And I know that there's
a wealth of other things he could turn me on too.
(04:28):
So I would say my father would be out of
all the people I could meet would be the first
on my list.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Ah, that's so great, and that's that's I appreciate you
you sharing that for sure. You know, one of the songs,
one of the many songs that rings through my head
when I, you know, was reading the book, was your
great song from your solo work. There's a lot of
(04:58):
good ones gone, you know, and your father is certainly
one of them. But there's a lot of them in
the book who aren't with us anymore?
Speaker 5 (05:08):
Right, Yeah, you know two things.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
It's funny because Peter Girlnick, who is a great writer
who's did all those great books on Elvis Presley. You know,
anyone's interested in Elvis Presley. Peter Girlnick's book Last Trained
of Memphis and Careless Love are the definitive biographies of Elvis.
And he did one on Sam Cooke and the great
(05:33):
producer Sam Phillips, and he said to me, you know, Pete,
you've been talking about this book for over fifteen years
since then, you know, and you better finished it soon
because everybody you want, who you'll want to read it,
they'll be dead if you don't hear. And there was
some truth to that, because a lot of people had
(05:55):
passed since the time I started. It just took about
two years from now and uh yeah, so that's one
thing and an important thing. And also lots of Good
Ones Gone was a song that I wrote with Will Jennings,
who I write about in the book. He was a
(06:17):
song collaborator and Will was a great songwriter, and he
wrote songs like Tears from Heaven by You with Eric Clapton,
all the Stevie Winwood songs, Higher Love and uh and
songs that wont Academy awards, you know, went Beneath the Wings,
and I found out that John Lee Hooker passed, who
(06:41):
was an old friend. And there's a chapter in the
book about my relationship with John Lee.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
And I remember mentioning with Will.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
We worked together out of his home in Santa Barbara,
and I remember mentioning him, mentioning, you know, John Lee passed,
and uh, I said, man, there's sure a lot of
good ones gone. And then he smiled and said, that's it.
He gave me a pad. He took a pad, and
thanks to him, we got h that song.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
It's it's it's one of my many favorites, and it
does nail it in terms of the beauty of the
storytelling here in your your great book. Did your your
proximity living so close to the Apollo Theater, did it
kind of begin the backbone of your your sort of
(07:35):
musical thirst and your your passion for great performance.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Well it did.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
But first I have to say that I followed my
sister who was going out on a date, and the
date was to the several of the Alan Freed Cavalcade
of Stars. So at the age of ten, this was
one show and I had to research it because I
couldn't quite believe it, and maybe it was a combination
(08:05):
of two shows of Alan Fried's Cavalcade of Stars. And
at ten years old, I got to see Chuck Berry,
Jerry Lee, Lewis, Little Richard, I saw Frankie Lyman and
the Teenagers Boldly, the Everly Brothers, Dion and the Belmontes,
(08:26):
Buddy Holly, Joanne Campbell, the Blonde Bombshell, and coming out
in the coffin in the middle of the stage with
stage lights all dark, and all of a sudden, the
coffin lid slowly open and out came screaming Jay Hawkins
Pound prancing around the stage singing, I put a spell
(08:47):
on you, and I think seeing all those great first
generation rock artists just blew.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
My head off.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
And that was a memory I'll never forget because each
artist had a dynamic and an individual stage presence. You know,
Chuck Berry did the Chuck walk, Jerry Lee Lewis kicked
the piano. Richard you know, you know, just was the
(09:17):
Richard boy. You know, he was just a powerhouse and
Buddy Hollying you know, needs no description. So it was
just amazing. There was doo wop bands, Chantelle's singing maybe,
you know, and they were all young. Everyone was young,
and I was ten, and I had an amazing impact.
Now I didn't live in Harlem, but my high school
(09:39):
was in Harlem, and so my high school it was
the High School of Music and Art, and it was
on one hundred and thirty fifth Street, and the Apollo
was on one hundred and twenty fifth Street. So I'd
walk across, you know, and down down, and every Wednesday
night or Wednesday late, you know, in the evening, late
(09:59):
in the afternoon, I'd go see. Wednesday they had a movie,
The Amateur Night, and then the entire Apollo Review. So
I got to see so many legendary artists such as
Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Diane Washington, I got
(10:20):
to see John Coltrane, Ray Charles, and Betty Carter. I mean,
the list is just you know, enormous in the Drifters
and just so many artists. And as don Quove explains
to me in the book that in this chapter he said,
you know, Pete, all of us artists, meaning Sam Cooke
(10:41):
and Salomon Burke and Wilson Pickett and Joe tex and
Benny king Ritha, we all came out of the church
and we felt ourselves as the minister, and the audience
was the congregation, and the job of the artist was
to get the congregation, you know, moving, and get them
(11:03):
the spirit of the music. And he said if you
didn't do that, you failed, and that the audience expected
it expected to be, you know, spiritually moved.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
And it was that.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Lesson that you know, as a performer, that I took
with me because when I was ten, I didn't realize,
you know, I just I was just so excited. But
it was at the Apollo I could see the way
Jackie Wilson would manipulate an audience or you know, different artists,
you know, James would you know, non stop pageantry, and
(11:41):
you know, then down on the knees with the cape
and the whole the whole nine yards. So and also
the great comedians at the follow Moms Maybley and pig
Meat Martin here come to judge, and uh so Flip
Wilson and so many different great comedians. So it was
(12:05):
a as far as but former and as far as
learning the craft, the Apollo was my college, my college
and musical knowledge, I'd say.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And you got to roam pretty free through through the
streets of New York. You're it's fair to say, Pete,
your parents gave you a very long leash while you
were able to go take in music, explore what was happening,
just take the vibe in and it contributed to your
(12:42):
amazingly diverse, you know, passion for all different styles of music.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I mean, you were in the village.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
One time next year at the Apollo, I mean, it
was just it was an endless stream of great inspiration, right.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Oh yeah, And you know I always had a wanderlust.
I was always a very active kid, and so my
parents were aware of that. Also New York it was
a different time. So as a kid of you know,
twelve or even younger. Sometimes I'd get on the subway
and just go all the way down to Coney Island.
(13:22):
Me and a couple of guys. We'd just say, let's
go to Coney Island, and you know, you get you
get on the train in the Bronx and the last
stop was Coney Island and you'd walk all around and
they had all the ferris wheel and a parachute jump,
and I would go off by myself.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Places I really loved to hang out was forty second Street.
Now I'm a twelve year old kid, and there was
all the penny arcades and the shooting galleries and all
the Hubitt's Fleet circus, which was sort of like Ripley's.
Believe it or not, it was this amazing museum of
mat and hustlers. And Broadway was filled with all, you know,
(14:04):
these little shops and totally different than it is now.
And then, of course once I got down to Greenwich
Village I was a little bit older. There was all
the great folk music and all the little clubs that
really didn't in the coffee houses that you really didn't
have to pay to get into.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
You could drop money in a hat.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
If you chose to, and you could get a you know,
a kind of soft drink or something and sit there
for hours. And also they had great jazz clubs like
the Village Vanguard and a five Spot, and I would
just stand outside and I'd hear One week I could
hear Felonious Monk, and the next week I could hear
(14:45):
Charles Mingus and.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
It was just non stop. So between the folk.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Music, you know, where you would hear people like the
Green Briar Boys, or you know, Bob Dylan in a
small club, Dave Van Wrong or these jazz greats, and
sort of later on there would be some rock clubs
where you'd catch you know, some of the the young
rascals or you know, the beginnings of bands like Mountain
(15:15):
and Leslie West and people like that. So there was
I remember seeing the doors when they first came to
a club in New York. So it was a cornucopia
of delights. It was all available and economically it was feasible,
so you could spend you know, days upon days, a
(15:38):
venture upon a venture, and some of it I tried
to capture in the book.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
You did it so brilliantly, and the stories, I mean
there's so many favorites. The interactions from the beginning that
you had with with Bob Dylan, observing his performance and
then being able to have some choice interactions that are
(16:04):
just incredible. When you were writing the book, had you
kept notes of things all along in your life, a
journal or whatever, or because there's a lot of stuff
that you go back into and you painted in brilliantly
colorful detail.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Well, I never kept journal.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
I mean I would keep like, you know, a calendar
would say, you know, dentists two o'clock, you know, meeting over,
you know so and so, record stational call this person
or you know. But basically, about twenty years ago, I
sat down and I was thinking about a book, and
I wrote out a outline which I printed out and
(16:52):
put in a loosely folder, and it pretty much starts
from the early memories chronological all the way up to
what then was the present. I kept referring to it,
and if I thought of something, I would add to it.
But I didn't really do anything with it until I
(17:12):
started about, you know, two years ago, and I found
the book the notes, and I just marked off the
ones I thought would be interesting to start with. And
that's how I started about five or six vignettes because
(17:32):
I did not want and the book is composed of
really short stories. Each chapter is its own short story.
So there's about thirty five chapters. Of thirty four chapters,
I'm not sure, but if you say, like interested in
sly Stone, you can read about sly Stone, or you
can read about there's some early periods of my life
(17:57):
in there, or if you're into Louis Armstrong or Julia
Childs or Tennessee Williams, so they're all you know listed
there in the chapters. But you could just pick up
the book, read a six page chapter and put it
back down and not have to worry about any time aspect,
(18:19):
because each chapter should have its own, if I'm successful,
should have its own beginning, middle, and end. And that's
how I attempted to write it. And the two things
that I said to myself that I wasn't going to
do was I wasn't going to write about my marriage,
(18:40):
and I wasn't going to write about the Jay Giles band.
And I just wanted to make a book of short
stories of my adventures of the people that I admired
that I were privileged enough to get to know and
just try to not kiss and tell, but tried to
(19:03):
demonstrate and show what they were like as as artists,
as you know, interacting with them, you know, what their
personalities were like because I read so many books. Uh
and so, oh yeah, we played with you know, Bo Diddley,
Well we played you know, uh, well what was Bo
Diddley like? Was he friendly? Was he unfriendly? Or you know,
(19:25):
if he played with Chuck Berry, what was he like?
Or if you met, you know, a certain famous person
and had some quality time, well, what were they like?
And a lot of books would just say oh and
so I didn't want it to be just a list
of famous people. That wasn't my attention because there's a
lot of people that I write about in the book
(19:47):
that nobody would really know about unless reading the book.
So once I started writing The Little Brown, my publishing
company and my agent Andrew Wiley, both said, you know, Pete,
I think people are curious about the Guyle's band and
(20:08):
curious about your marriage.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
And I said, well, it's not one of those books.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
And my agent said, well, why don't you try just
writing a bit about each and see how that goes.
And once I started writing about my marriage. One chapter
led to another because I realized my marriage with Faye,
who was then a you know, a very world famous
(20:36):
actress and at the height of her career when we met.
I realized what an amazing time we had together because
it was at a period when there was really no
rock and rollers and actors that were married. And I'm
sure they were, but you know, I mean after we
(20:58):
got married, Fay donn Away and I got married. I
remember Greg Allman and Scher got married for about five minutes,
but Fay and I had five six years of a
really incredible period, and it was based the marriage was
based on we each supported each other in our careers.
(21:20):
Her career was you know, paramount and important to me,
and my career was paramount and important to her. And
she would fly to you know, to meet the band
on the road, and I'd fly out to see her
on a movie set. And so once I realized, you know,
how rich my marriage was and how many adventures we
(21:44):
both shared, I felt that they were right, that it needed,
it was part of the narrative. And for the Guyles band,
I read so many books by musicians that you know,
go into so much detail about the band and this
and that, and which is fine if you're really interested
(22:04):
in that artist or that band. And I didn't want
to do that sort of cookie cutter type musician memoir.
So I did a chapter on the band which basically,
in a very edited way, talked about the beginning of it,
you know, the middle of it, and I explain my version,
(22:28):
which I you know, stand by why it ended. And
so those are the two issues that came later on.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Your time at WBCN and Boston is chronicled in the
book so well, and it's you just, you know, once again,
paint some great pictures there.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
What was going on?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I know you did a fair amount of interviews while
you were working at BCN. I guess the first was
rash On Roland Kirk actually that you interviewed. Who were
some of the other folks you remember that while you
were on BCN that were interviews, whether they be memorable
(23:25):
or not what you thought they would be.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Well, there was Van Morrison, there was Rod Stewart and
Jeff Beck with Ronnie Wood when they first blew into
town under the Jeff Beck Group.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
There was.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Pete Townsend. I had Carla Thomas who was the R
and B Great. There was Muddy Waters, there was John
Lee Hooker. There was so many different artists that James Cotton,
Muddy Waters, Lou Reed I had, we talked with and
(24:03):
the wildest thing about it all My show was on
at midnight and it was it was an all night show,
which I loved because Simon and Somniac and it was
the Wolf of Goop of Mama Tooth for show making
your knees freeze. You know, Glad, that's Blad Everston. You's
got to come out, because that was rock and roll
is all about welcome the OJ's little Ladies of the
night to kids from Alabama and keeping it all hit
(24:23):
all the ships out at sea doing it too, and
getting right through. We're going to have some fun until
the midnight sun and you know, give me a call
and let me know way out there, y'all and stuff
like that. And I would just go and play and
take phone calls. And it was like a dream come
true for me because I love radio.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
I grew up with radio.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Radio was so important to me growing up that being
a DJ was you know again like almost everything in
the book. The people that I talk about Tennessee Williams,
Juliet Childs, even Faye my marriage to Fay, were all
people that I met just by, you know, by circumstances,
(25:04):
you know, serperendipity. It wasn't uh It's like I was
standing in a record store and I heard this voice
behind the curtain turned out to be Bob Dylan.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
You know, it's not like you know, he he.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
I pursued because I was so interested in his you know, music,
But so many people I just met by just you know,
luck of the drawer. And as these interviews came up,
what happened was my radio Oceans show. Since it started
at midnight and that era, everything in Boston closed down.
(25:39):
TV stations went off at midnight. All the stores and
restaurants were closed, and the only thing open was all
night diners, you know, the the Hayes, Bickford's, or you know,
Waldorf's coffee shops, and so a lot of musicians that
came to town. I was the only thing on the air
really that was of any interest to most musicians people.
(26:01):
So I got to get the Krem dollar krem and
you know, people who you know, Freddie Hubbard from the
Ark Blakey Jazz Band, and oh, just all sorts of
people that rolled into town that you know I invited
up to the station because people were just unwinding and
it was great.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Well, first of all, I can die and go to
if there is a heaven for you just doing your
PCN opening wrap there. That's the first thing I have
to say. The smile on my face hopefully comes through.
But the second part to that is, would you mind
(26:42):
telling the story how you were getting mail to play
more Van Morrison?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Oh well, when I was on the show, there was
this artist, Ordsley Beardsley, and he, you know, did these
very distinctive drawings that somebody made postcards of and I
would start receiving these postcards and it's very feminine handwriting.
(27:11):
You know, love your show, listen to it all the time.
Can you please play John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson
and Van Morrison And they would come once sometimes twice
a week and they always try to play a Van
Morrison song, and uh, because I was such a fan
in the group them and at that time he had
(27:33):
Brown Eyed Girl come out, but he hadn't started really
started as major solo career as we know it. Then
one day I got this postcard on a beard you know,
same artist on the other side, and it had this
wild kind of handwriting, Hey, Mongo bongo man, you know,
play more John Lee Hooker, more Hooker. And so I
(27:55):
was at this club which became eventually became the Boston
Tea Party, and that was a venue where we used
to practice My first band of all art students we
got together and I think nineteen sixty four, and we
were called the Hallucinations and we would rehearse in them.
(28:17):
One day, this young guy came into the club and
he came up to me and with a strange kind
of accent, the manager, that convent manager. I said, well,
I don't know if the manager's here, I'll search around
for him. And I couldn't find the manager. So we
(28:38):
got to talking and I asked him, you know, what
kind of music he played, and he told me he
just moved to town. And we were waiting for the manager.
I knew it would be coming back in about an
hour or so, so we were just having a rap
and he was asking me about other clubs, and I
mentioned some other clubs that you know he might want
(29:00):
to check out. Then he was telling me about, you
know what things he liked in Boston. He said one
of the things he really liked was listening to this
wolf I got for you know, late at night. I
said really, he said, oh yeah, he said, you know
I love his show. I said, well, I'm the Wolf
(29:23):
of Goofer. He said what. I go yeah, and he
goes now and I said, what do you mean though?
He said, now he's black guy. He said, old black guy.
I said no, I say it's me and I went
through the wrap the Wolf go Mama too. And he
couldn't believe it. And he said, well, hey man, you know,
thank you so much for playing my records. I said,
(29:46):
your records. He said, yeah, I'm Van Morrison. And I said,
you got to be kidding me, because you know, I
really don't know what you know. Van looked like I've
seen pictures, but you know. And so started the beginning
of a friendship that still goes on to this day.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I love it. That's so great.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And I have to ask you, though the interaction with
sly Stone, and in particular the brilliant quote the cherries
swimming in buttermilk, I believe was the quote. When you
looked at him, looked at his eyes. That was a
pivotal meeting in some regards for you, wasn't it.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Well.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
I was such a huge fan and Sly was at
the height of his career, and he.
Speaker 5 (30:43):
Was so influential.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
I mean, along with James Brown, those two gentlemen created
what we know is funk, and so many bands that
came after, you know, even Philly Sound when you hear
the Temptations, you know, Papa was a rolling stone. So
much of the arrangements and things were really due to
Sly's influence on the music scene, and then of course
(31:07):
James Brown, and between the two of them, you know,
one could say they were the roots of funk music
and their impact was enormous. James obviously came first and
affected Sly, but Sly developed another kind of funk that
the Jackson five, and you know, everybody tried to emulate
(31:30):
so many R and B artists especially and even rock bands,
you know, like Rare Earth and things like that. And
so meeting him, which is quite an amazing encounter. We
were in a recording studio and I had to go
to use the men's room, take a break, and with
the Guyles band. We're were recording our second record. I
(31:53):
go running down the hallway and open up the men's
room door and they're sitting on the floor. Were three men,
all dressed in suits and ties in one corner, and
on the other corner was sly Stone And.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
I didn't realize that.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
I said, oh, and you know, I was about to leave,
so I didn't want to interrupt whatever was going on,
so I said, no, man, come on in, do your
think And apparently they were having a marketing meet in
the bathroom on the floor. And that's the beginning of
a wild story. That's you know, I go into greater
(32:34):
length in the book, but I think what you're talking
about is witnessing the decline of sly and seeing him
where he was playing arenas and you know, one of
the leading stars of the Woodstock Festival and you know,
(32:56):
so influential and so revered ending up at this small,
little funky club of maybe one hundred people at most
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I just happened to be walking
by and seeing that he was going to appear that night.
And it was a surreal moment and a very heartbreaking
(33:16):
moment for me to see someone who had achieved so
much that could you know, the depths of the fall
could be so great that it really really shook me
up and scared me. And I remember sitting in the club,
(33:38):
as I described in the book, that I just sat
there kind of stunned.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
You know.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
The bartender was lifting up all the chairs and I
knew I had to leave. But that was a very
sobering moment for me, an unforgettable one. And I remember
as I wrote it, it brought back that whole feeling
of what one can gain out of notoriety or fame,
(34:11):
and what one can lose, and how easily one can
lose notoriety and fame. And it's not just the money
aspect of it, but it's the freedom that fame gives
you to be able to continue on your own terms.
At least for me, that's what it means. And that's
(34:32):
why I worked so hard on this book. Was hopefully,
you know, to widen the audience because you know, so
many people, you know, they know the Jay Giles band
through MTV and through all the years of records, But
Peter Wolf, you know a lot of people think I'm
Jay Giles, or they assume you know I'm the front guy,
(34:53):
so I must be Jay Giles, which was very confusing.
And so the purpose for this book goes to widen
the audience and maybe get to interest people that I
normally wouldn't because I have a CD you know, recording
that's ready to almost about eighty percent finished, and I
(35:16):
knew if I released it, like almost all of the recordings,
it would just you know, get lost in the ether,
and you know, ten days or so it'd be out there,
but it would just be in that ocean because there's
no real record stores, there's no record day releases, there's
no one particular radio station that has the power to influence.
(35:38):
There's such a large, large ocean out there that it's
hard to focus even what's going on.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
With films or you.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Know, with television, with all the different Netflix series and
all the different episodes, and hey, are you watching this
episode and you're watching that? Or you know, the time
of say, like the Sopranos came, it was like the
only game in town. And now there's so many different
series and episodes of things, it's so easy for things
(36:12):
to get lost. I decided to hold off on finishing
the record and just put all my energies into the book.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Well, the book is fabulous, and I'm glad you brought
up the Midnight Travelers.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
So this will be the ninth album.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Right I believe so yeah, So you can't wait for
that and I'm sure you'll be out playing live when
that comes out as well. But it's such a treasure
to be able to speak with you, Pete talking about
this great book. I recommend it to everybody. It is
a great read. It's so fun, appealing and just such
(36:53):
a walk through music history. And I'm grateful that you
took the time to come on taking a walk and
talk about Waiting on the Moon and your amazing career.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Peter Wilfo, I'm so thrilled to have you on.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Well, thank you, Buzz. You know we're both old, you
know radio. When I say old, I don't mean necessary age.
But we we spent many, many years in the world
of radio.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
I know you have.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
But let me ask you, if not anyone that you're
related to, but if you had a choice of taking
a walk with anyone living or dead, who would it
be and where would you walk to?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I'd say Bob Dylan comes to mind, fresh off of
reading so much of the great stories you told.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
And it would have to be a walk through through
the village.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
And I know it would probably be ironic because he'd
probably look and go, this is not the same village
I remember from from that period, because as you know,
it's so has changed.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
But oh, but it would be Uh. I'd love even
if it was a walk around the corner with him,
to have a walk with Bob.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Well, there you go. Well you answered a lot easier
than I did.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Well, it's a hard one.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
I know, it's hard. It's it's the living or dead aspect.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
You know. Living, Uh, it's still a still a wide ocean.
Dead really gives you anything, you know. You know because
they asked that question to writers, you know, uh, I
know in the New York Times book review section is
(38:50):
a part where they asked writers, you know, if you
can meet a writer living, you know, dead, or have
a dinner party with three people, you know, who might
it be? And it's really interesting to see who people pick.
I'd always go for the mysterious ones, the ones where
history doesn't quite fill in all the blanks.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yes, got it. Well, I know I'll put you.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
High up there on the list because I love being
with you, and I look forward to the next time.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
But we have we our next get together. Our next
walk is going to go to a restaurant that has
a nice, fine wine list and we have a bottle
to open and two glasses to fill.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
So that's where we're going to go walking Buzz. So
I'll take a walk with Buzz, has some fine wine,
have a good time and do it up and do
it do it nice, oh man, and all like sugar
and spice. So this is woof of goof of Mama tufa.
Thank you, Buzz for having me as your guest. I
was honored to walk with you and go through so
(40:01):
much of sharing bits and pieces.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
Of my life.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 5 (40:06):
Later or later and if it's in you, it's got
to come out. Take it easy, but take it.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm buzznight and welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Now today we're going to revisit one of my favorite
conversations my music history, on foot Walk with the legendary
Peter Wolf. As the iconic frontman of the Jay Guiles
Band and a solo artist with the Midnight Travelers, he
continues to captivate audiences. His impact on rock and roll
(00:22):
is completely undeniable. I'm just absolutely such a fan of Peter's.
The conversation takes us into a dive about his journey,
about his certainly incredibly amazing latest book, and of course
I want to put on your radars some tour dates
with Peter and the band.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
He's going to be playing in Portsmouth.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
New Hampshire, February nineteenth, the Cabot and Beverly mass on
March seventh, and also the legendary Fillmore April seventeenth in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Coming up our.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Episode, our replay with Peter Wolf on Taking a Walk.
Taking a Walk, Well, I'm pleased to welcome to the
Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
One of the great human beings in the universe, he.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Stands tall as one of music's greatest frontman ever Peter Wolf,
former lead singer of the Jay Guiles Band, amazing solo artist, painter,
former DJ. He can add author now to his resume.
His tremendous memoir is called Waiting on the Moon, and
(01:32):
now he can also add to that list New York
Times bestseller.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Pete, welcome to take out a Walk.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Well, thank you for having me buzz and the introduction.
Thank you for the plaudets and kudos. At first, I
don't know whom you might have been speaking about until
I heard my name.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We're going to talk about drifters and drifters and goddesses.
But I do have to ask you our signature taking
a walk question, since it is the name of the podcast.
If you could take a walk with someone Pete, living
or dead, who would it be and where would you
take that walk with him?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Well, living or dead makes a big ocean. There's so
many historical figures, so many important artist writers. You know,
you go from Homer to Shakespeare, interesting figures, mysterious figures.
You know. As far as musicians, there's Beethoven and artists.
(02:35):
There's just so many that I can think of one
that comes to mind. If I was able to meet
with Van go and let him know that he's what
as success he became and how important he became to
so many people. But in thinking about people, I would
probably say my wish would be to be able to
(03:00):
take a walk with my father, And the reason for
that is he was such an influence on my life,
as I stay in the book, and he was so
artistically aware that there are things that he turned me
(03:22):
on too, musically and artistically, as far as painting and
things that took me years years after he passed to
really appreciate what it was about it certain classical music.
Of course, I was not sophisticated enough to appreciate certain
(03:43):
movements and pieces that he just thought was the bee's knees,
and certain painters and artists that he loved, even contemporary
you know, like Metro, the abstract Spanish abstract expressionist, and
so many different things he knew about. He was such
(04:05):
a brilliant man. So I think walking with him and
discussing a new some of the things that I appreciate
that I learned through him, And I know that there's
a wealth of other things he could turn me on too.
(04:28):
So I would say my father would be out of
all the people I could meet would be the first
on my list.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Ah, that's so great, and that's that's I appreciate you
you sharing that for sure. You know, one of the songs,
one of the many songs that rings through my head
when I, you know, was reading the book, was your
great song from your solo work. There's a lot of
(04:58):
good ones gone, you know, and your father is certainly
one of them. But there's a lot of them in
the book who aren't with us anymore?
Speaker 5 (05:08):
Right, Yeah, you know two things.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
It's funny because Peter Girlnick, who is a great writer
who's did all those great books on Elvis Presley. You know,
anyone's interested in Elvis Presley. Peter Girlnick's book Last Trained
of Memphis and Careless Love are the definitive biographies of Elvis.
And he did one on Sam Cooke and the great
(05:33):
producer Sam Phillips, and he said to me, you know, Pete,
you've been talking about this book for over fifteen years
since then, you know, and you better finished it soon
because everybody you want, who you'll want to read it,
they'll be dead if you don't hear. And there was
some truth to that, because a lot of people had
(05:55):
passed since the time I started. It just took about
two years from now and uh yeah, so that's one
thing and an important thing. And also lots of Good
Ones Gone was a song that I wrote with Will Jennings,
who I write about in the book. He was a
(06:17):
song collaborator and Will was a great songwriter, and he
wrote songs like Tears from Heaven by You with Eric Clapton,
all the Stevie Winwood songs, Higher Love and uh and
songs that wont Academy awards, you know, went Beneath the Wings,
and I found out that John Lee Hooker passed, who
(06:41):
was an old friend. And there's a chapter in the
book about my relationship with John Lee.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
And I remember mentioning with Will.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
We worked together out of his home in Santa Barbara,
and I remember mentioning him, mentioning, you know, John Lee passed,
and uh, I said, man, there's sure a lot of
good ones gone. And then he smiled and said, that's it.
He gave me a pad. He took a pad, and
thanks to him, we got h that song.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
It's it's it's one of my many favorites, and it
does nail it in terms of the beauty of the
storytelling here in your your great book. Did your your
proximity living so close to the Apollo Theater, did it
kind of begin the backbone of your your sort of
(07:35):
musical thirst and your your passion for great performance.
Speaker 5 (07:40):
Well it did.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
But first I have to say that I followed my
sister who was going out on a date, and the
date was to the several of the Alan Freed Cavalcade
of Stars. So at the age of ten, this was
one show and I had to research it because I
couldn't quite believe it, and maybe it was a combination
(08:05):
of two shows of Alan Fried's Cavalcade of Stars. And
at ten years old, I got to see Chuck Berry,
Jerry Lee, Lewis, Little Richard, I saw Frankie Lyman and
the Teenagers Boldly, the Everly Brothers, Dion and the Belmontes,
(08:26):
Buddy Holly, Joanne Campbell, the Blonde Bombshell, and coming out
in the coffin in the middle of the stage with
stage lights all dark, and all of a sudden, the
coffin lid slowly open and out came screaming Jay Hawkins
Pound prancing around the stage singing, I put a spell
(08:47):
on you, and I think seeing all those great first
generation rock artists just blew.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
My head off.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
And that was a memory I'll never forget because each
artist had a dynamic and an individual stage presence. You know,
Chuck Berry did the Chuck walk, Jerry Lee Lewis kicked
the piano. Richard you know, you know, just was the
(09:17):
Richard boy. You know, he was just a powerhouse and
Buddy Hollying you know, needs no description. So it was
just amazing. There was doo wop bands, Chantelle's singing maybe,
you know, and they were all young. Everyone was young,
and I was ten, and I had an amazing impact.
Now I didn't live in Harlem, but my high school
(09:39):
was in Harlem, and so my high school it was
the High School of Music and Art, and it was
on one hundred and thirty fifth Street, and the Apollo
was on one hundred and twenty fifth Street. So I'd
walk across, you know, and down down, and every Wednesday
night or Wednesday late, you know, in the evening, late
(09:59):
in the afternoon, I'd go see. Wednesday they had a movie,
The Amateur Night, and then the entire Apollo Review. So
I got to see so many legendary artists such as
Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Diane Washington, I got
(10:20):
to see John Coltrane, Ray Charles, and Betty Carter. I mean,
the list is just you know, enormous in the Drifters
and just so many artists. And as don Quove explains
to me in the book that in this chapter he said,
you know, Pete, all of us artists, meaning Sam Cooke
(10:41):
and Salomon Burke and Wilson Pickett and Joe tex and
Benny king Ritha, we all came out of the church
and we felt ourselves as the minister, and the audience
was the congregation, and the job of the artist was
to get the congregation, you know, moving, and get them
(11:03):
the spirit of the music. And he said if you
didn't do that, you failed, and that the audience expected
it expected to be, you know, spiritually moved.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
And it was that.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Lesson that you know, as a performer, that I took
with me because when I was ten, I didn't realize,
you know, I just I was just so excited. But
it was at the Apollo I could see the way
Jackie Wilson would manipulate an audience or you know, different artists,
you know, James would you know, non stop pageantry, and
(11:41):
you know, then down on the knees with the cape
and the whole the whole nine yards. So and also
the great comedians at the follow Moms Maybley and pig
Meat Martin here come to judge, and uh so Flip
Wilson and so many different great comedians. So it was
(12:05):
a as far as but former and as far as
learning the craft, the Apollo was my college, my college
and musical knowledge, I'd say.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And you got to roam pretty free through through the
streets of New York. You're it's fair to say, Pete,
your parents gave you a very long leash while you
were able to go take in music, explore what was happening,
just take the vibe in and it contributed to your
(12:42):
amazingly diverse, you know, passion for all different styles of music.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I mean, you were in the village.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
One time next year at the Apollo, I mean, it
was just it was an endless stream of great inspiration, right.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Oh yeah, And you know I always had a wanderlust.
I was always a very active kid, and so my
parents were aware of that. Also New York it was
a different time. So as a kid of you know,
twelve or even younger. Sometimes I'd get on the subway
and just go all the way down to Coney Island.
(13:22):
Me and a couple of guys. We'd just say, let's
go to Coney Island, and you know, you get you
get on the train in the Bronx and the last
stop was Coney Island and you'd walk all around and
they had all the ferris wheel and a parachute jump,
and I would go off by myself.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Places I really loved to hang out was forty second Street.
Now I'm a twelve year old kid, and there was
all the penny arcades and the shooting galleries and all
the Hubitt's Fleet circus, which was sort of like Ripley's.
Believe it or not, it was this amazing museum of
mat and hustlers. And Broadway was filled with all, you know,
(14:04):
these little shops and totally different than it is now.
And then, of course once I got down to Greenwich
Village I was a little bit older. There was all
the great folk music and all the little clubs that
really didn't in the coffee houses that you really didn't
have to pay to get into.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
You could drop money in a hat.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
If you chose to, and you could get a you know,
a kind of soft drink or something and sit there
for hours. And also they had great jazz clubs like
the Village Vanguard and a five Spot, and I would
just stand outside and I'd hear One week I could
hear Felonious Monk, and the next week I could hear
(14:45):
Charles Mingus and.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
It was just non stop. So between the folk.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Music, you know, where you would hear people like the
Green Briar Boys, or you know, Bob Dylan in a
small club, Dave Van Wrong or these jazz greats, and
sort of later on there would be some rock clubs
where you'd catch you know, some of the the young
rascals or you know, the beginnings of bands like Mountain
(15:15):
and Leslie West and people like that. So there was
I remember seeing the doors when they first came to
a club in New York. So it was a cornucopia
of delights. It was all available and economically it was feasible,
so you could spend you know, days upon days, a
(15:38):
venture upon a venture, and some of it I tried
to capture in the book.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
You did it so brilliantly, and the stories, I mean
there's so many favorites. The interactions from the beginning that
you had with with Bob Dylan, observing his performance and
then being able to have some choice interactions that are
(16:04):
just incredible. When you were writing the book, had you
kept notes of things all along in your life, a
journal or whatever, or because there's a lot of stuff
that you go back into and you painted in brilliantly
colorful detail.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
Well, I never kept journal.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
I mean I would keep like, you know, a calendar
would say, you know, dentists two o'clock, you know, meeting over,
you know so and so, record stational call this person
or you know. But basically, about twenty years ago, I
sat down and I was thinking about a book, and
I wrote out a outline which I printed out and
(16:52):
put in a loosely folder, and it pretty much starts
from the early memories chronological all the way up to
what then was the present. I kept referring to it,
and if I thought of something, I would add to it.
But I didn't really do anything with it until I
(17:12):
started about, you know, two years ago, and I found
the book the notes, and I just marked off the
ones I thought would be interesting to start with. And
that's how I started about five or six vignettes because
(17:32):
I did not want and the book is composed of
really short stories. Each chapter is its own short story.
So there's about thirty five chapters. Of thirty four chapters,
I'm not sure, but if you say, like interested in
sly Stone, you can read about sly Stone, or you
can read about there's some early periods of my life
(17:57):
in there, or if you're into Louis Armstrong or Julia
Childs or Tennessee Williams, so they're all you know listed
there in the chapters. But you could just pick up
the book, read a six page chapter and put it
back down and not have to worry about any time aspect,
(18:19):
because each chapter should have its own, if I'm successful,
should have its own beginning, middle, and end. And that's
how I attempted to write it. And the two things
that I said to myself that I wasn't going to
do was I wasn't going to write about my marriage,
(18:40):
and I wasn't going to write about the Jay Giles band.
And I just wanted to make a book of short
stories of my adventures of the people that I admired
that I were privileged enough to get to know and
just try to not kiss and tell, but tried to
(19:03):
demonstrate and show what they were like as as artists,
as you know, interacting with them, you know, what their
personalities were like because I read so many books. Uh
and so, oh yeah, we played with you know, Bo Diddley,
Well we played you know, uh, well what was Bo
Diddley like? Was he friendly? Was he unfriendly? Or you know,
(19:25):
if he played with Chuck Berry, what was he like?
Or if you met, you know, a certain famous person
and had some quality time, well, what were they like?
And a lot of books would just say oh and
so I didn't want it to be just a list
of famous people. That wasn't my attention because there's a
lot of people that I write about in the book
(19:47):
that nobody would really know about unless reading the book.
So once I started writing The Little Brown, my publishing
company and my agent Andrew Wiley, both said, you know, Pete,
I think people are curious about the Guyle's band and
(20:08):
curious about your marriage.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
And I said, well, it's not one of those books.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
And my agent said, well, why don't you try just
writing a bit about each and see how that goes.
And once I started writing about my marriage. One chapter
led to another because I realized my marriage with Faye,
who was then a you know, a very world famous
(20:36):
actress and at the height of her career when we met.
I realized what an amazing time we had together because
it was at a period when there was really no
rock and rollers and actors that were married. And I'm
sure they were, but you know, I mean after we
(20:58):
got married, Fay donn Away and I got married. I
remember Greg Allman and Scher got married for about five minutes,
but Fay and I had five six years of a
really incredible period, and it was based the marriage was
based on we each supported each other in our careers.
(21:20):
Her career was you know, paramount and important to me,
and my career was paramount and important to her. And
she would fly to you know, to meet the band
on the road, and I'd fly out to see her
on a movie set. And so once I realized, you know,
how rich my marriage was and how many adventures we
(21:44):
both shared, I felt that they were right, that it needed,
it was part of the narrative. And for the Guyles band,
I read so many books by musicians that you know,
go into so much detail about the band and this
and that, and which is fine if you're really interested
(22:04):
in that artist or that band. And I didn't want
to do that sort of cookie cutter type musician memoir.
So I did a chapter on the band which basically,
in a very edited way, talked about the beginning of it,
you know, the middle of it, and I explain my version,
(22:28):
which I you know, stand by why it ended. And
so those are the two issues that came later on.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Your time at WBCN and Boston is chronicled in the
book so well, and it's you just, you know, once again,
paint some great pictures there.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
What was going on?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I know you did a fair amount of interviews while
you were working at BCN. I guess the first was
rash On Roland Kirk actually that you interviewed. Who were
some of the other folks you remember that while you
were on BCN that were interviews, whether they be memorable
(23:25):
or not what you thought they would be.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Well, there was Van Morrison, there was Rod Stewart and
Jeff Beck with Ronnie Wood when they first blew into
town under the Jeff Beck Group.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
There was.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Pete Townsend. I had Carla Thomas who was the R
and B Great. There was Muddy Waters, there was John
Lee Hooker. There was so many different artists that James Cotton,
Muddy Waters, Lou Reed I had, we talked with and
(24:03):
the wildest thing about it all My show was on
at midnight and it was it was an all night show,
which I loved because Simon and Somniac and it was
the Wolf of Goop of Mama Tooth for show making
your knees freeze. You know, Glad, that's Blad Everston. You's
got to come out, because that was rock and roll
is all about welcome the OJ's little Ladies of the
night to kids from Alabama and keeping it all hit
(24:23):
all the ships out at sea doing it too, and
getting right through. We're going to have some fun until
the midnight sun and you know, give me a call
and let me know way out there, y'all and stuff
like that. And I would just go and play and
take phone calls. And it was like a dream come
true for me because I love radio.
Speaker 5 (24:41):
I grew up with radio.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Radio was so important to me growing up that being
a DJ was you know again like almost everything in
the book. The people that I talk about Tennessee Williams,
Juliet Childs, even Faye my marriage to Fay, were all
people that I met just by, you know, by circumstances,
(25:04):
you know, serperendipity. It wasn't uh It's like I was
standing in a record store and I heard this voice
behind the curtain turned out to be Bob Dylan.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
You know, it's not like you know, he he.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
I pursued because I was so interested in his you know, music,
But so many people I just met by just you know,
luck of the drawer. And as these interviews came up,
what happened was my radio Oceans show. Since it started
at midnight and that era, everything in Boston closed down.
(25:39):
TV stations went off at midnight. All the stores and
restaurants were closed, and the only thing open was all
night diners, you know, the the Hayes, Bickford's, or you know,
Waldorf's coffee shops, and so a lot of musicians that
came to town. I was the only thing on the air
really that was of any interest to most musicians people.
(26:01):
So I got to get the Krem dollar krem and
you know, people who you know, Freddie Hubbard from the
Ark Blakey Jazz Band, and oh, just all sorts of
people that rolled into town that you know I invited
up to the station because people were just unwinding and
it was great.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Well, first of all, I can die and go to
if there is a heaven for you just doing your
PCN opening wrap there. That's the first thing I have
to say. The smile on my face hopefully comes through.
But the second part to that is, would you mind
(26:42):
telling the story how you were getting mail to play
more Van Morrison?
Speaker 3 (26:48):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Oh well, when I was on the show, there was
this artist, Ordsley Beardsley, and he, you know, did these
very distinctive drawings that somebody made postcards of and I
would start receiving these postcards and it's very feminine handwriting.
(27:11):
You know, love your show, listen to it all the time.
Can you please play John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson
and Van Morrison And they would come once sometimes twice
a week and they always try to play a Van
Morrison song, and uh, because I was such a fan
in the group them and at that time he had
(27:33):
Brown Eyed Girl come out, but he hadn't started really
started as major solo career as we know it. Then
one day I got this postcard on a beard you know,
same artist on the other side, and it had this
wild kind of handwriting, Hey, Mongo bongo man, you know,
play more John Lee Hooker, more Hooker. And so I
(27:55):
was at this club which became eventually became the Boston
Tea Party, and that was a venue where we used
to practice My first band of all art students we
got together and I think nineteen sixty four, and we
were called the Hallucinations and we would rehearse in them.
(28:17):
One day, this young guy came into the club and
he came up to me and with a strange kind
of accent, the manager, that convent manager. I said, well,
I don't know if the manager's here, I'll search around
for him. And I couldn't find the manager. So we
(28:38):
got to talking and I asked him, you know, what
kind of music he played, and he told me he
just moved to town. And we were waiting for the manager.
I knew it would be coming back in about an
hour or so, so we were just having a rap
and he was asking me about other clubs, and I
mentioned some other clubs that you know he might want
(29:00):
to check out. Then he was telling me about, you
know what things he liked in Boston. He said one
of the things he really liked was listening to this
wolf I got for you know, late at night. I
said really, he said, oh yeah, he said, you know
I love his show. I said, well, I'm the Wolf
(29:23):
of Goofer. He said what. I go yeah, and he
goes now and I said, what do you mean though?
He said, now he's black guy. He said, old black guy.
I said no, I say it's me and I went
through the wrap the Wolf go Mama too. And he
couldn't believe it. And he said, well, hey man, you know,
thank you so much for playing my records. I said,
(29:46):
your records. He said, yeah, I'm Van Morrison. And I said,
you got to be kidding me, because you know, I
really don't know what you know. Van looked like I've
seen pictures, but you know. And so started the beginning
of a friendship that still goes on to this day.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I love it. That's so great.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
And I have to ask you, though the interaction with
sly Stone, and in particular the brilliant quote the cherries
swimming in buttermilk, I believe was the quote. When you
looked at him, looked at his eyes. That was a
pivotal meeting in some regards for you, wasn't it.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Well.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
I was such a huge fan and Sly was at
the height of his career, and he.
Speaker 5 (30:43):
Was so influential.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
I mean, along with James Brown, those two gentlemen created
what we know is funk, and so many bands that
came after, you know, even Philly Sound when you hear
the Temptations, you know, Papa was a rolling stone. So
much of the arrangements and things were really due to
Sly's influence on the music scene, and then of course
(31:07):
James Brown, and between the two of them, you know,
one could say they were the roots of funk music
and their impact was enormous. James obviously came first and
affected Sly, but Sly developed another kind of funk that
the Jackson five, and you know, everybody tried to emulate
(31:30):
so many R and B artists especially and even rock bands,
you know, like Rare Earth and things like that. And
so meeting him, which is quite an amazing encounter. We
were in a recording studio and I had to go
to use the men's room, take a break, and with
the Guyles band. We're were recording our second record. I
(31:53):
go running down the hallway and open up the men's
room door and they're sitting on the floor. Were three men,
all dressed in suits and ties in one corner, and
on the other corner was sly Stone And.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
I didn't realize that.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
I said, oh, and you know, I was about to leave,
so I didn't want to interrupt whatever was going on,
so I said, no, man, come on in, do your
think And apparently they were having a marketing meet in
the bathroom on the floor. And that's the beginning of
a wild story. That's you know, I go into greater
(32:34):
length in the book, but I think what you're talking
about is witnessing the decline of sly and seeing him
where he was playing arenas and you know, one of
the leading stars of the Woodstock Festival and you know,
(32:56):
so influential and so revered ending up at this small,
little funky club of maybe one hundred people at most
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I just happened to be walking
by and seeing that he was going to appear that night.
And it was a surreal moment and a very heartbreaking
(33:16):
moment for me to see someone who had achieved so
much that could you know, the depths of the fall
could be so great that it really really shook me
up and scared me. And I remember sitting in the club,
(33:38):
as I described in the book, that I just sat
there kind of stunned.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
You know.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
The bartender was lifting up all the chairs and I
knew I had to leave. But that was a very
sobering moment for me, an unforgettable one. And I remember
as I wrote it, it brought back that whole feeling
of what one can gain out of notoriety or fame,
(34:11):
and what one can lose, and how easily one can
lose notoriety and fame. And it's not just the money
aspect of it, but it's the freedom that fame gives
you to be able to continue on your own terms.
At least for me, that's what it means. And that's
(34:32):
why I worked so hard on this book. Was hopefully,
you know, to widen the audience because you know, so
many people, you know, they know the Jay Giles band
through MTV and through all the years of records, But
Peter Wolf, you know a lot of people think I'm
Jay Giles, or they assume you know I'm the front guy,
(34:53):
so I must be Jay Giles, which was very confusing.
And so the purpose for this book goes to widen
the audience and maybe get to interest people that I
normally wouldn't because I have a CD you know, recording
that's ready to almost about eighty percent finished, and I
(35:16):
knew if I released it, like almost all of the recordings,
it would just you know, get lost in the ether,
and you know, ten days or so it'd be out there,
but it would just be in that ocean because there's
no real record stores, there's no record day releases, there's
no one particular radio station that has the power to influence.
(35:38):
There's such a large, large ocean out there that it's
hard to focus even what's going on.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
With films or you.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Know, with television, with all the different Netflix series and
all the different episodes, and hey, are you watching this
episode and you're watching that? Or you know, the time
of say, like the Sopranos came, it was like the
only game in town. And now there's so many different
series and episodes of things, it's so easy for things
(36:12):
to get lost. I decided to hold off on finishing
the record and just put all my energies into the book.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Well, the book is fabulous, and I'm glad you brought
up the Midnight Travelers.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
So this will be the ninth album.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Right I believe so yeah, So you can't wait for
that and I'm sure you'll be out playing live when
that comes out as well. But it's such a treasure
to be able to speak with you, Pete talking about
this great book. I recommend it to everybody. It is
a great read. It's so fun, appealing and just such
(36:53):
a walk through music history. And I'm grateful that you
took the time to come on taking a walk and
talk about Waiting on the Moon and your amazing career.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Peter Wilfo, I'm so thrilled to have you on.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Well, thank you, Buzz. You know we're both old, you
know radio. When I say old, I don't mean necessary age.
But we we spent many, many years in the world
of radio.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
I know you have.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
But let me ask you, if not anyone that you're
related to, but if you had a choice of taking
a walk with anyone living or dead, who would it
be and where would you walk to?
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I'd say Bob Dylan comes to mind, fresh off of
reading so much of the great stories you told.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
And it would have to be a walk through through
the village.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
And I know it would probably be ironic because he'd
probably look and go, this is not the same village
I remember from from that period, because as you know,
it's so has changed.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
But oh, but it would be Uh. I'd love even
if it was a walk around the corner with him,
to have a walk with Bob.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Well, there you go. Well you answered a lot easier
than I did.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Well, it's a hard one.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
I know, it's hard. It's it's the living or dead aspect.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
You know. Living, Uh, it's still a still a wide ocean.
Dead really gives you anything, you know. You know because
they asked that question to writers, you know, uh, I
know in the New York Times book review section is
(38:50):
a part where they asked writers, you know, if you
can meet a writer living, you know, dead, or have
a dinner party with three people, you know, who might
it be? And it's really interesting to see who people pick.
I'd always go for the mysterious ones, the ones where
history doesn't quite fill in all the blanks.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yes, got it. Well, I know I'll put you.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
High up there on the list because I love being
with you, and I look forward to the next time.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
But we have we our next get together. Our next
walk is going to go to a restaurant that has
a nice, fine wine list and we have a bottle
to open and two glasses to fill.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
Amen.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
So that's where we're going to go walking Buzz. So
I'll take a walk with Buzz, has some fine wine,
have a good time and do it up and do
it do it nice, oh man, and all like sugar
and spice. So this is woof of goof of Mama tufa.
Thank you, Buzz for having me as your guest. I
was honored to walk with you and go through so
(40:01):
much of sharing bits and pieces.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
Of my life.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 5 (40:06):
Later or later and if it's in you, it's got
to come out. Take it easy, but take it.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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