Critical Acclaim

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The Wall Street Journal - March 30, 2016

 

Read online: http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-cure-for-loneliness-by-peter-wolf-review-1459374322

‘A Cure for Loneliness’ by Peter Wolf Review

On his new album, Peter Wolf considers his place in today’s rock-and-pop world.

On his new solo album “A Cure for Loneliness” (Concord), Peter Wolf considers his place in today’s rock-and-pop world. In “Peace of Mind,” he sings: “When I was a young man I believed in everything / Now I’m not a young man. I don’t know what song to sing.”

Through the disc, Mr. Wolf, the vocalist and composer for the J. Geils Band, which had a string of hits in the ’70s and early ’80s, examines his standing at this stage in his life. However, he points out in song that he doesn’t want to relive the past. He turns to metaphor in “Some Other Time, Some Other Place”: “Summer is gone and there’s no one around / The beach is all empty and the shops are closed down.” But rather than lament, he adds, “When something is over, something begins.” In “Rolling On,” a chugging ballad in a minor key, he sings: “I don’t intend to fade away or let the world run over me.”

On “A Cure for Loneliness,” which arrives on April 8, the 70-year-old shows his respect for yesteryear by tapping into the music of his youth, including R&B, Cajun, gospel and bluegrass. He brought his touring band into the studio and it supports him with alluring self-assurance. The album includes covers of Moe Bandy’s 1974 country hit “It Was Always So Easy (To Find an Unhappy Woman),” Thomas Wayne and the DeLons’s 1959 tearjerker “Tragedy”—and a live, amped-up bluegrass version of the J. Geils Band’s 1980 hit single, “Love Stinks.”

Mr. Wolf wrote most of the original songs with Grammy- and Academy Award-winning composer Will Jennings. Through the album, Mr. Wolf is his familiar self—a little cocky, a little cute and in fine voice, his delivery informed by a lifetime of studying and singing music that sprang from the blues.

In the late ’60s, the Bronx-born Mr. Wolf worked as an R&B disc jockey in Boston before beginning his singing career. When we spoke by phone last week, he revealed his encyclopedic knowledge of rock-and-pop history, alluding in rapid succession to the legendary and the obscure. “The Wind,” a 1954 doo-wop track by Nolan Strong and the Diablos, was on his mind, as was a melancholy live recording by Hank Williams of “On Top of Old Smokey.” The best art, he said, is never relegated to the past.

“If I’m looking at a Matisse or a Kirchner, it’s as alive as it was when it was painted,” said Mr. Wolf, who studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. “Louis Armstrong: His music is alive.”

It troubles Mr. Wolf that rock ’n’ roll shifted the focus of popular music toward appeasing teens, in large part by promoting young acts. “Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Art Blakey, Elvin Jones: You never thought about their age. They were just artists. But in rock ’n’ roll, that wasn’t it.”

Mr. Wolf said as a performer and recording artist he had to either “lay down and die or try to prevail.” He’s done more than merely survive: “A Cure for Loneliness” is his follow-up to the excellent “Midnight Souvenirs,” issued in 2010. Listening to Mr. Wolf’s recent recordings can feel like a visit from an old friend who is at ease with himself and willing to confide.

“A Cure for Loneliness” balances the gravitas of its theme with Mr. Wolf’s appreciation for what music has long been for him. Songs like “Some Other Time, Some Other Place” and “Rolling On” are misty and bittersweet, but there’s never a sense that he’s resigned to age and fate. Written with Don Covay, who died last year, “It’s Raining” was intended as a duet between Mr. Wolf and Bobby Womack. But Womack died before they could convene in the recording studio. The song emerges as a tribute to perseverance. “I know some sun is coming after the storm,” Mr. Wolf sings, accompanied by warm horns that echo 1960s Memphis.

In “Fun for Awhile,” Mr. Wolf sings: “No one could stop us then / Don’t want it back again, but it was fun for a while.” Though he has participated in a few J. Geils Band reunions, he said he did so to revisit the songs he wrote with Seth Justman like “Freeze-Frame” or the band’s cover of the Contours’ “First I Look at the Purse.” But, he added, “The solo work is really where my focus is. I tend to put my energy in the present and future.”

 

 

 

 

Rolling Stone - March 16, 2016

Download Rolling Stone - March 16, 2016

 

Read online: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/peter-wolf-on-rootsy-new-lp-you-just-wonder-how-you-can-endure-20160316

Peter Wolf on Rootsy New LP: 'You Just Wonder How You Can Endure'

J. Geils Band singer talks rock musicals, missing Bobby Womack, bluegrass reworking of "Love Stinks"

J. Geils Band singer Peter Wolf discusses the making of his rootsy new LP, 'A Cure for Loneliness.' Joe Greene

There's nothing abstract about the title of A Cure for Loneliness, the latest solo album by Peter Wolf. The J. Geils Band singer long ago discovered his own remedy for that universal condition, and with his new LP, he plans to share it with the world.

"Music's always been so powerful in my life," the veteran songwriter tells Rolling Stone. "I feel so grateful that I'm still absorbed by it and can continue on the path of doing what I do and meeting people like Merle [Haggard], doing a duet with Aretha Franklin, and spending time with Muddy Waters or Wilson Pickett. That to me is my cure for loneliness, and I feel so blessed for having had the opportunity."

In 2010, the singer released the widely acclaimed album Midnight Souvenirs, which featured duets with Haggard and Neko Case. He’s hit the road multiple times both with the J. Geils Band and his own regular group of players, and he’s even found time to play music journalist, engaging with Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg for a rare, hour-long interview. Starting April 9th, he'll tour the Northeast and Midwest in support of the new LP.

For his eighth solo album, out April 8th, Wolf decided to return to his musical beginnings, and the deepest roots of all American music: country and the blues. Across 12 tracks, including new originals, obscure covers and a bluegrass reimagining of the J. Geils Band classic "Love Stinks," Wolf plumbs his own emotional depths in an attempt to strike back against the forces of time and complacency.

Wolf recently spoke with RS via phone about Shakespearean rock musicals, his kinship with the late, great Bobby Womack, and the great collaborators who continue to push him in directions both old and new.

A Cure For Loneliness is your first record in about six years. What have you been up to?
Well, I do a lot of touring. There's downtime — I do painting and that takes over. Making a record is sort of like baking. You don't want to rush it. You want to cook it and make sure it turns out right. Right now I'm working on taking the entire Shakespeare tragedies and turning them into a Broadway musical.

Really?
No, that was a joke [laughs]. It seems like every rock & roller is doing a musical these days, though. I thought I would choose all of the Shakespearean tragedies, mix 'em up, put them into one and turn them into song.

Like a Shakespeare's greatest hits?
Yeah, like I Am Hamlet. "To be or not to be …"

How much of your time away from the studio these past few years did you spend really nailing down the material for this album?
Time flies by, and of course you want to find a good home for your work, and that takes time too. And before you know it, there's this space. But it's not for a lack of having material. I can go in and record tomorrow and do another kind of record, but it just wouldn't make sense. There's a certain cast of characters that I like to pull together, a certain group of players that I want to be involved because I believe in collaboration. I've had the opportunity to work with some really fine musicians, and they bring in so much personality to the work and help lift the bar up for me. 

You enlisted a number of different collaborators for this release that you've used in the past, most notably your writing partner Will Jennings and producer/keyboardist Kenny White. What is it that keeps bringing you back to those guys?
It's just that we have a camaraderie. They understand the way that I work and their contributions are so beneficial. I can say to somebody, "Give me a little Bobby Womack guitar," or "I don't know, that feels more like a [Steve] Cropper," and all of that translates. I can communicate with them in a way that they get it and we really enjoy the process of recording.

How do you build songs? What's your process like?
When I do write, if I'm doing something alone, it's just me, an acoustic guitar and a cassette. Every song is sorta different. They're there as a kind of beginning sketch, and it comes to life when I sort of sit with the musicians in the studio. We kick it around, maybe make it harder, and try different keys. I find it all very exciting because you don't quite know how's it's going to end up until the final mix.

From a sonic standpoint, there are so many different blues and country flavors on A Cure For Loneliness that it kind of has this Exile on Main Street / Let It Bleed kind of a vibe to it. Is that far off the mark of where you wanted to go?
No, I take that as a great compliment. What I loved about Exile is that it had so many different influences going from a real unique blues feel to acoustic country blues. You had the Slim Harpo impacts; you had the "Tumbling Dice." So many different roots appear on that album, and yet it all works and I think that's what made that album so important.

Was that something you tried to do yourself here, incorporate a lot of different roots flavors onto your record?
Well, it's not anything conscious. For instance, I would strum on my guitar and start playing a song like "Always So Easy" which was a song I knew by Moe Bandy. To me it, was always a honky-tonk classic, but it was pretty obscure to a lot of people I respected. For that song, I tried to kick it up but still allow it to contain that sort of honky-tonk feel to it.

On the opposite end of that spectrum, you have a song like "Mr. Mistake," which is kind of a jump-and-jive jazz track.
Yeah, that was kind of an homage to a Wynonie Harris kind of a feel. Like "Your eyes look like cherries in buttermilk." Lines like that, but with a "Whoo!"

In the song "Peace of Mind," you sing, "When I was a young, I used to believe in everything/Now I'm not a young man and I don't know what song to sing." Could you comment on what you mean there?
Well, "Rolling On" became sort of the template for the songs, and the working title of the record was "Rolling On." Both "Peace of Mind" and "Rolling On" have a sense of "How do you endure? How do you keep going as the landscape is constantly changing?"

The song "Peace of Mind" and that precise lyric has to do with constantly trying to figure out where do you fit in the landscape, what are those big questions all about. To quote an Delmore Schwartz poem, "Time is the school in which we learn/Time is a fire in which we burn." As you find yourself reeling in the solar globe, you just wonder how can you endure as an artist and as a person. I think that's what that song is about. One is searching for answers and some kind of peace of mind through it all.

Have you found an answer that works for you?
That's a good question and the answer for me is my cure for loneliness and that's music. As things change, music still prevails. As long as I have the ability to keep doing what I do, I feel a satisfaction.

What compelled you to revisit the J. Geils Band song "Love Stinks" in the bluegrass style that you did here?
The whole recording of it was unexpected. I had gotten to meet Bill Monroe and bluegrass is one of the things I'm a fan of. As a young kid growing up in the Bronx, on Thursday nights on my AM radio, I used to get WWGA from Wheeling, West Virginia, and there were these girls singing this haunting ballad and when they got done, the DJ said, "That was the Stanley Brothers!" I thought it was two girls! That was my first turn-on to this strange-sounding music called bluegrass, and it just sort of stayed with me.

So we were backstage before a show, and we were doing some Bill Monroe songs during the show, and we were just messing around back-porch style and I started doing "Love Stinks" and the band followed me. Anyway, that night, I called out that song onstage and we happened to be recording so we captured it. When we went back and listened to it, it was something that we enjoyed so much that we ended up keeping it on the record.

Do you think a good song should be adaptable to different styles and flavors?
Oh, yeah. Time has proved that to be true as songs from the Thirties continue to endure. Great standards like "I Only Have Eyes For You" became a doo-wop classic. That's one of the reasons that "Tragedy" appears on the record. When it first came out, it had such an impact on me — the lyrics and the chord construction of it. It was recorded many times. Thomas Wayne did it originally and it was produced by Elvis' guitar player Scotty Moore. I think that Paul McCartney did a version of it, and each version has a unique element to it. Once again, there were people I knew that weren't familiar with it, and it was something that I always thought was a brilliant piece of music that again had a haunting quality to it, so we just started messing with it and it just sorta fell into place. Not all songs do that. 

Is it true that you were planning on recording "It's Raining" with Bobby Womack?
Yeah, that's a interesting tale. Bobby and I were going to try and do something on the Midnight Souvenirs record, but the schedules wouldn't allow it. We had talked about doing a song on this new recording and I found a song I did with Don Covay. He and Bobby were very close. So we were recording "It's Raining," and I was getting ready to put down a vocal and send it out to Bobby, and as we got done with the studio, Kenny White, who produces with me, said, "Pete, you're not going to believe this." I said, "What?" He said, "It just came across my phone: Bobby Womack passed."

It was so eerie because we had just finished the track. I had Bobby's number and was about to call him and tell him, "Hey, it's done," because we had talked a while before about the possibility of doing something and that I would send him something when the time was right. It made it even eerier so I went back in and put down the introduction sending it out to Don and to Bobby.

Bobby was one of those artists that I find such an amazing personality. His songwriting, his stuff that he did with Wilson Pickett, and his own recordings, just the lyrical aspect — he was such a unique character. The texture of his voice just thrills me.

Do you have a favorite Bobby Womack song?
Oh, there's just so many of them. To me, it'd be like picking a favorite Otis [Redding] song or a favorite Stones song. His early period with the Valentinos is so special, and he progressed more and more ... There's just so many periods. It's too vast for me to focus in on.

Was the first single, "Wastin' Time," recorded live, or was the crowd noise a studio effect added later?
No, that was recorded live. It might have been done on the same night as the "Love Stinks" recording. I loved the feel of that and the sound of the recording, and the distortion of the organ. The whole thing just sorta came alive. It's one of the decisive moments where, just like a photograph, you capture a moment in time. 

What is it about that song in particular that stood out to you enough to make it the single?
I think the spirit of it. There's an intensity to it and the quality of the playing is to such a high bar that for me it just emotionally seems to work. I thought that would be a good way of presenting what A Cure For Loneliness is all about.

Going back to the title of the album, do you want listeners to come to it as a place where they can find some solace from their own loneliness? What do you hope people glean from it?
You just do your work and you just hope that there's some kind of response. You put an invite out and you hope that people will come to the party. You hope that people get the chance to know that it's there and you hope that it resonates with them in some way or another. That's all you can really do.

 

 

 

Rolling Stone - February 18, 2016

Download Rolling Stone - February 18, 2016

 

Read online: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/peter-wolf-5-songs-to-cure-loneliness-20160218

Peter Wolf: 5 Songs to Cure Loneliness

Former J. Geils Band singer shares his tearjerking faves, from Hank Williams to the Platters

"Dwelling in the world of sad songs is my antidote for loneliness," says Peter Wolf, whose new solo album, A Cure for Loneliness, will be released on April 8th. The J. Geils Band singer spoke to Rolling Stone about five songs that help him ward off — or revel in — the blues.


Nolan Strong and The Diablos: "The Wind"

This song has a great cult following, especially with doo-wop fans. Even just the intro has the power to bring you back to the sadness of a lost love.
 

Dorothy Moore: "Misty Blue"

This started out as a country song but became an R&B tour de force. Every time I hear it, it transports me into a state of misty blue.

 

The Platters: "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"

This came from the 1933 production of Roberta, starring Bob Hope. When the Platters recorded it, they ended up owning it.
 

Little Walter: "Blue and Lonesome"

Little Walter did for the harmonica what Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar. He took it to another place.

 

Hank Williams: "On Top Of Old Smokey"

You can't go wrong hanging around with Hank. His version of this song is sadness and loss personified.

 

 


 

Billboard Premiere - Jan 17, 2016

Download Billboard Premiere - Jan 17, 2016


Read online: http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7262948/peter-wolf-peace-of-mind-song-exclusive

The J. Geils Band's Peter Wolf Returns With New Song 'Peace of Mind': Exclusive Premiere

If you've ever seen one of Peter Wolf's frenetic live performances, particularly with the The J. Geils Band, he's doesn't seem like a guy who's looking for a peaceful, easy feeling. But on his new solo album, A Cure For Loneliness, the singer does express a longing for some "Peace of Mind" -- at least for one song.

"We're all kind of searching for a peace of mind, one way or another," Wolf tells Billboard about the smooth, soulful track, which Billboard is premiering exclusively below. It was also a team effort, co-written with Duke Levine, the guitarist in Wolf's Midnight Travelers troupe as well as The J. Geils Band, and lyricist Will Jennings. "Duke's the person I call The Maestro, and Will is one of the most important people in my career, such a unique talent," Wolf notes. "So it was a really great cast. We tried different variations, different tempos. This one just seemed to have the right feel for the lyric."

 

 

American Songwriter - March 22, 2016

Download American Songwriter - March 22, 2016

 

Read online: http://americansongwriter.com/2016/03/peter-wolf-release-eighth-studio-album-cure-loneliness/

Peter Wolf To Release Eighth Studio Album, A Cure For Loneliness

Widely known as the frontman of the popular rock and roll band The J. Geils Band, Peter Wolf will return to his musical roots on his forthcoming eighth studio album, A Cure For Loneliness. The new release drops on April 8 and will be Wolf’s first for the Beverly Hills-based Concord Records.

The 12-song album features a collection of both covers and originals, heavily influenced by blues, R&B and country music. Nine of the album’s tracks are originals, four of which Wolf co-wrote with longtime collaborator and Grammy-winning songwriter Will Jennings. The album’s full track list can be seen below.

The new album also features a reworking of Wolf’s song “Love Stinks,” which became a hit for The J. Geils band off their 1980 album of the same name. For A Cure For Loneliness, Wolf brings a bluegrass interpretation to the originally synth-heavy track.

Wolf’s most recent effort is also unique for blending both studio and live recordings into one comprehensive record.

“Performing in front of an audience is one of the things I enjoy most, and it’s a different energy from the energy that comes out in the studio,” Wolf said of the decision in a press release. “So mixing studio and live tracks is like using different lighting for different scenes in a film.”

In advance of the record, Wolf has already given fans a taste of both types of “lighting,” releasing the studio recording “Peace of Mind” and a live cut of “Wastin’ Time.” Both tracks can be streamed on Spotify.

Wolf will hit the road for a short string of gigs in support of A Cure For Loneliness, and a list of tour dates can be found below.