Midnight on any Saturday, 1979, Coconut Grove, Miami: Teenagers queued up to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show, something they’ve done so many times that they know it by heart, including the two videos (before MTV) that kick off the stoned-out evening: Meatloaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Lights and the J Geils Band’s Love Stinks.
That was my introduction to frontman Peter Wolf. Not long after, as a student at Boston University, Woofa Goofa and I happened to be in the same bar, the Rathskeller, affectionately known as The Rat, but being a less-than-confident 18-year-old, I did not speak to him. And now that I’ve read his new book, Waiting on the Moon, a memoir that’s a who’s who of blues, rock, and A-list celebrities, I sure wish I had.
What a life my fellow Hebrew has lived (by the way, all members of his band, except for Geils, were Jewish, though Wolf makes no mention of it here). A kid from the Bronx who wound up in Beantown to study art, became a renowned DJ on WBCN, and then the lead singer for the band that brought us "Musta Got Lost" and "Come Back."
If you are looking for that story, you will only find some of it here. This is not your typical music biography and it’s a better read for it. Subtitled Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses (can’t you just hear Wolf rapping that?), it’s a love letter to all the musicians and famous folk Wolf has known, worked with, adored.
Wolf recreates conversations and incidents that are hilarious and heartwarming, much like his songwriting. His affection for all his encounters, including his marriage to Faye Dunaway, is palpable. He’s lived a charmed life, and he knows it, though he doesn’t brag about it. For unexplained reasons (perhaps he IS the luckiest man in the world), he was always in the right place at the right time. Couple that with his complete lack of fear in approaching his musical heroes or Hollywood types (unlike this writer, too shy to talk to him all those years ago), and you get some crazy cool stories that include a cast of characters like no other: Aretha, Nicholson, Dylan, Hitchcock, Mick, Lynch, the list goes on.
And lucky us — the readers — we get to share these experiences, told in Wolf’s unmistakable voice. It’s incredibly engaging and a great exclamation point on a storied career. You will definitely dig it! Waiting on the Moon came out days after Wolf turned 79. It’s a great birthday gift for him but an even better one for us. To think I might have heard at least one of these stories firsthand all those years ago . .
