Rock Star Peter Wolf’s Irresistible Autobiography
By Albert Stern / BJV Editor
It is basically impossible to write about Peter Wolf’s wildly entertaining memoir, Waiting On the Moon, without using the description ‘Zelig-like’ to describe the life and career of the former lead singer of The J. Geils Band. Derived from the title character of Woody Allen’s comedy classic from 1983, ‘Zelig-like’ connotes (per The Collins Dictionary) “a person, typically an ordinary, unimportant person, who seems to turn up with surprising or unaccountable frequency in a variety of settings.”
While Wolf is neither ordinary nor unimportant, the part about turning up with surprising or unaccountable frequency certainly applies. But what is perhaps even more uncanny about Wolf’s life is the cavalcade of kismets that parachute extraordinary and important people into his story – there is simply no accounting for the sheer number of such coincidences, which occurred both before and after he became famous and started living in the fast lane.
For example, an ordinary art student living in Boston might meet an aspiring filmmaker near Harvard University and end up rooming with him for a time; in Wolf’s story, the aspiring filmmaker he randomly connects with (and later stiffs for the rent) turns out to be David Lynch. An ordinary person might find himself living across the hall from a noted literary scholar; in Wolf’s story, that scholar also happens to be friendly with Andy Warhol, and so Wolf gets to hang out with The Factory crowd at the height of their 1960s notoriety. An ordinary person might be rehearsing with his band in an empty dive bar one afternoon and be interrupted from their practice session by a stranger looking for the establishment’s owner; in Wolf’s story, that random stranger turns out to be Van Morrison. And this is just scratching the surface.
The table of contents alone is a pileup of stellar names – Eleanor Roosevelt, Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters, Julia Child, John Lee Hooker, Alfred Hitchcock, The Rolling Stones, Tennessee Williams, Sly Stone, Robert Lowell, Merle Haggard, and George Cukor, to name but a few of the luminaries whose lives intersect with Wolf’s. That he develops deep, enduring friendships with many of them will not be surprising to readers of Waiting On the Moon – as you’ll apprehend from his storytelling, Peter Wolf is a charming raconteur, erudite, thoughtful, artistic, and curious, no doubt a dream highbrow/lowbrow drinking buddy (and there’s a lot of drinking involved).
But as remarkable as these chance encounters and relationships are, as a narrator and a human being, Peter Wolf remains grounded by the fact that he is also a shlimazel – a chronically unlucky person. Wolf might be the luckiest shlimazel in history, but, in the end, shlimazeldik is as shlimazeldik does, or perhaps as is done to him.
For example, a talented performer might rise to fame as the lead singer of one of the most popular rock bands in the world; in Peter Wolf’s story, that band makes virtually no money in their first ten years or so of stardom (in large part due to lousy contracts entered into by Peter Wolf). That rock band might reverse its fortunes and finally break through with massively popular and remunerative hit songs; in Peter Wolf’s story, immediately on the heels of achieving rock superstardom, The J. Geils Band summarily fires its lead singer and primary songwriter, Peter Wolf. Along this wild ride, such a man might marry one of the most beautiful women in the world; in Peter Wolf’s story, that stunning goddess is Faye Dunaway, a difficult sort.
Although Wolf does not explicitly frame his life story as a Jewish tale, a Jewish sensibility (bemused outsider perspective, never self-serious) permeates the narrative. Some of the most moving and entertaining parts of the book are about his boyhood in working class Bronx of the 1950s.
His parents were both intelligent and artistic spirits of the thwarted variety. His mother, Pinkie, was so nicknamed because she was “highly political and had great sympathies for the progressive movement of the far left.” Her activism attracted the notice of the FBI, whose agents repeatedly come to knock on the family’s front door, only to have Peter lie that his mother is not at home. His father was well-read and a fine singer, but “lacked the confidence to pursue these talents…[and] the ambition needed to succeed in the business world.” The elder Wolf was something of schlemiel, as well, as his son relates in two hilarious, poignant anecdotes that are among the highlights of the memoir. I won’t give too much away, only to say that one story ends with Wolf hearing Merv Griffin calling his father “a schmuck,” while the other ends with he and his father sitting in expensive front row tickets at a sold out Louis Armstrong concert (so that young Peter would be able “to witness one of the greatest musicians in history doing what he does best”) and still being unable to lay eyes upon Satchmo while he played.
And a bit of that schlemielishness rubs off on Peter the Shlimazel, as well – the story of his experience being in charge of operating the sound system when Eleanor Roosevelt comes to speak in a packed auditorium at his middle school is a scream, as funny an episode of teenaged bumbling as you’ll ever read.
Which leads me to confess that I didn’t actually read Waiting On the Moon – I listened to the audiobook, which Wolf voices himself. To my mind, the gold standard of audiobook autobiographies is The Kid Stays in the Picture, read by its author, Hollywood producer Robert Evans. I had a hunch that Wolf’s audiobook might be the ideal way to experience Waiting On the Moon, and boy, was I right – it’s almost as good as the Evans. Even if you choose the print version, I highly recommend that you at least stream the audio chapter about Bob Dylan, which winds up with the story of young Peter ambuscading the Bard of Hibbing at a Greenwich Village café and schlemielishly asking him: “I don’t want to interrupt you, but I wonder if you can tell me…uh…tell me…what is truth?” Bob Dylan’s choleric response (which begins “You mean you want ME to tell YOU what truth is? You want ME to explain to YOU what is TRUTH?”) delivered by Wolf in character on the audiobook, is alone worth the price of admission.
Despite his extraordinary adventures, Peter Wolf never loses his winning Everyman quality. Perhaps the reason he has been able to make friends among the luminaries with whom he has crossed paths is that they respond not only to his charm, but recognize that he is an artist in his own right, a peer. As such, Wolf gains access to unguarded aspects of their personalities that might be closed to journalists and biographers approaching them as subject matter. Not only do you get to know Wolf, but you get to find out about aspects of other performers you admire, as.