In the tradition of classic collections of observations and musings such as Christopher Isherwood’s I Am a Camera and Truman Capote’s The Dogs Bark, Waiting on the Moon is a treasure trove of vignettes from a legendary musical figure whose career spans more than six decades and is still going strong.
Peter Wolf grew up in the Bronx, a child of “fellow travelers” whose artistic inclinations influenced both his love of music and his initial desire to become a painter. Stories of his loving and sometimes eccentric parents complement scenes depicting a very young Bob Dylan as he arrived on the Greenwich Village folk scene. Reflections on Wolf’s studies in Boston—where he shared an apartment with David Lynch—are braided with accounts of first love, an untraditional literary education, and early musical influences such as Muddy Waters.
After Wolf joined the J. Geils Band as their front man and his musical fame grew, he rubbed shoulders with other notables who left significant impressions on him, including members of the Rolling Stones, Sly Stone, Tennessee Williams, Alfred Hitchcock, and Van Morrison. Wolf’s marriage to Faye Dunaway is presented in a clear yet balanced and nuanced light.
Told with gentle humor and often heart-rending poignancy, the word portraits in Waiting on the Moon provide a revealing glimpse of artists, writers, actors, and musicians as they work—the creative forces that drive them to achievement; the demons they battle; the patterns of their human relationships. They are meant to inspire not only empathy but also admiration. Like Isherwood, Wolf remains “a camera with its shutter open.”
Peter Wolf, born in the Bronx NY, became a rock ’n’ roll convert at the age of eleven after attending an Alan Freed revue that included performances by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others. Although at first, he aspired to a career as a painter and studied at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, he experienced a life-changing epiphany after jumping onstage with a band of fellow art students at a loft party forming one of Boston’s early rock bands, the Hallucinations.
Shortly thereafter, Wolf secured a job as an all-night DJ on the fledgling FM radio station WBCN, where he adopted the persona of the “Woofa Goofa” and spun obscure rock ’n’ roll and early rhythm and blues. His encyclopedic musical knowledge came in handy when he and some like-minded Boston players formed the J. Geils Band, much of whose early repertoire was drawn from Wolf’s vast record collection. In 1970 the band was signed by Jerry Wexler for Atlantic Records where they went on to release nine influential albums and earned a reputation as one of rock’s most exciting live acts. In 1979 they were signed by EMI America topping the charts world-wide with their hit songs “Freeze Frame,” “Love Stinks,” and “Centerfold.”
With the 1984 album Lights Out, Wolf began his career as a solo artist. In the ensuing years he collaborated with Aretha Franklin, Merle Haggard, John Lee Hooker, and Mick Jagger, among others. His album Sleepless was voted one of the top five hundred albums of all time by Rolling Stone. He currently tours with his band ‘The Midnight Travelers’ and will be releasing his ninth solo album in 2025. He lives and works from his home base in Boston, Massachusetts.
