April 15, 2025 • 39 mins
Join @thebuzzknight for this episode with the legendary musician Peter Wolf. He is the former frontman with The J Geils Band and also has a solo career with his band the midnight travelers. Peter has a new memoir "Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Grifters, and Goddesses" which takes us through his colorful life, his musical passions, his time as a disc jockey at WBCN in Boston and his many encounters with the legends of a generation. You'll love his colorful storytelling and the behind the scenes look at a music legend.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I mean after we got married, Faye Dunaway and I
got married. I remember Greg Allman and Scher got married
for about five minutes, but Fey and I had five
six years of a really incredible period and it was
based the marriage was based on we each supported each
(00:22):
other in our careers.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Well, I'm pleased to welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
One of the great human beings in the universe. He
stands tall as one of music's greatest frontmen 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.
(00:47):
His tremendous memoir is called Waiting on the Moon, and
now he can also add to that list New York
Times bestseller Pete, welcome to Take out a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, thank you for having me buzz and the introduction.
Thank you for the plaudet's and kudos. At first, I
don't know whom you might have been speaking about until
I heard my name.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
We're going to talk about drifters and grifters 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 2 (01:31):
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.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
As far as musicians, there's Beethoven and artists, there's just
so many that I can think of one that comes
to mind. And 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
(02:15):
say my wish would be to be able to 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
(02:37):
aware that there are things that he turned me 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 certain classical music. Of course, I
(02:58):
was not sophisticated enough to appreciate certain 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
(03:21):
different things he knew about. He was such 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 is a wealth
of other things he could turn me on too, So
(03:48):
I would say my father would be out of all
the people I could meet, would be the first on
my list.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Ah, that's so great, and 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
(04:18):
good ones gone, you know, and your.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
Father is certainly one of them.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
But there's there's a lot of them in the book
who aren't with us anymore?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Right, Yeah, you know two things.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
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 Train
of Memphis and Careless Love are the definitive biographies of Elvis.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
And he did one on Sam.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Cooke and the great producer Sam Phillips, and he said
to me, you know, Pete, you've been talking about this
book for overt fifteen years since then, you know, and
you better have finished it soon because everybody you'll want,
who you'll want to read it, they'll be dead if
you don't hear it. And there was some truth to that,
(05:13):
because a lot of people had passed since the time
I started it, which took about two years from now.
And 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
(05:35):
in the book. He was a song collaborator, and Will
was a great songwriter, and he wrote songs like Tears
from heaven By with Eric Clapton, all the Stevie Winwood songs,
High Love, and songs that wont Academy awards, you know.
Went beneath the Wings and I found out that John
(05:59):
Lee Hooker past, who was an old friend, and there's
a chapter in the book about my relationship with John Lee.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
And I remember mentioning with Will.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
We worked together out of this home in Santa Barbara,
and I remember mentioning, mentioning, you know, John Lee passed
and uh, I said, man, is sure a lot of
good ones gone? And he smiled and said, that's it.
He gave me a pad. He took a pad, and uh,
thanks to him. Uh we got uh that song.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
It's it's it's one of my many favorites.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
And it does nail it in terms of the 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
(06:54):
sort of musical thirst and.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
And your your passion for great performance?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Well, well it did.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
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
(07:25):
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, Bow Didley, the Everly Brothers, Dion and the Belmonts,
(07:45):
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,
uh Pound, you know, prancing around the stage singing. I
(08:06):
put a spell on you. And I think seeing all
those great first generation rock artists just blew.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
My head off.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And that was a memory I'll never forget because each
artist had a dynamic h 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
(08:36):
was the Richard boy. You know, he was just a powerhouse.
And Buddy Hollying, you know, needs no description. So it
was just amazing. There was doop bands, Chantelle's singing maybe you.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Know, and they were all young.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Everyone was young, and I was ten, and I had
an amazing impact. Now I didn't live in Harlem, but
my high school 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 is on one hundred and twenty fifth Street.
So i'd walk across, you know, and downtown and every
(09:14):
Wednesday night or Wednesday late, you know, in the evening,
late 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
(09:34):
as Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Arretha Franklin, Diane Washington. I
got 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
Kove explains to me in the book that in this
(09:56):
chapter he said, you know, Pete, all of us artists,
meaning Sam Cooke 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
(10:17):
the artist was to get the congregation you know, moving
and get them 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 4 (10:34):
And it was that.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
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
(11:01):
you know, the 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.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
So it was a.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
As far as but former and as far as learning
the craft, the Apollo was my college, my college and
musical knowledge.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
I'd say.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
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
(12:02):
amazingly diverse, you know, passion for all different styles of music.
I mean, you were in the village one time next
year at the Apollo. I mean, it was just it
was an endless stream of great inspiration, right.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Oh yeah. And you know.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
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, meeing a couple of guys.
(12:43):
We 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 had all the ferris wheel and a
parachute jump and uh and I would go off by myself.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
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 Flee Circus, which was sort of like Ripley's
Believe it or not, it was this amazing museum of
magic and hustlers, and Broadway was filled with all, you know,
(13:24):
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 4 (13:41):
You could drop money and a hat.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
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 out and I'd hear one week I could
hear Felonious Monk, and the next week I could hear
(14:05):
Charles Mingus and it was just non stop. So between
the folk music, you know where you would hear people
like the Green Briar Boys, or you know, Bob Dylan
in a small club, Dave van Ronk and all these
jazz greats, and sort of later on there would be
(14:26):
some rock clubs where you'd catch you know, some of
the the young rascals or you know, the beginnings of
bands like Mountain 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
(14:50):
economically it was feasible, so you could spend you know,
days upon days, a venture upon a venture, and some
of it I tried to capture in the book.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
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
(15:23):
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 2 (15:46):
Well, I never kept journal. 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
(16:10):
I printed out and put in a loose leaf folder,
and it pretty much starts from the early memories chronological
to 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 started about, you know, two
(16:34):
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 I did not want The
book is composed of really short stories. Each chapter is
(16:59):
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 some there's some early periods
of my life in there, or if you're into Louis
Armstrong or Julia Childs So or Tennessee Williams So, they're
(17:23):
all you know.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Listed there in the chapters.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
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, 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
(17:51):
to myself that I wasn't going to do was I
wasn't going to write about my marriage, 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
(18:14):
were privileged enough to get to know and just try
to not kiss and tell, but tried to demonstrate and
show what they were like as as artists, as you know,
interacting with them, you know what that personalities were like
because I read so many books. Uh and so, oh yeah,
(18:36):
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, if he
played with Chuck Berry, what was he like? Or if
you met, you know, a certain famous person and had some.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Quality time, well what were they like?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
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
that nobody would really know about unless reading the book.
So once I started writing The Little Brown, my publishing
(19:18):
company and my agent Andrew Wiley, both said, you know, Pete,
I think people are curious about the Guile's Band and
curious about your marriage.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
And I said, well, it's not one of those books.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
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 very world famous actress and at
(19:57):
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 got married, Faye
(20:18):
Dunaway and I got married. I remember Greg Allman and
Cher 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. Her career was
(20:41):
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 both shared, I
(21:05):
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 you know, the band and
this and that, and which is fine if you're really
interested in that artist or that band, and I didn't
(21:26):
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 explained my version,
(21:47):
which I you know, stand by, why it ended. And
so those were the two issues that came later on.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We'll be right back with more of that Taking a
While podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Your time at WBCN in Boston is chronicled in the
book so well, and it's you just.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
You know, once again, paint some great pictures. There was
what was going on.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
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 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 or not what you thought they would be.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
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. There was Pete Townsend.
I had Carla Thomas who was the R and B great.
There was Muddy Waters, there was John Lee Hooker. There
(23:11):
was so many different artists that James Cotton, Muddy Waters,
lou Reid I.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Had we talked with.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
And 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 kid from Alabama, keeping it all, hit
(23:43):
all the ships out of sea, doing it too, and
getting right through it. 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 4 (24:01):
I grew up with radio.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
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,
(24:24):
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. You know,
it's not like, you know, hey, he I pursued because
I was so interested in his you know, music. But
so many people I just met by just you know,
(24:44):
luck of the drawer. And as these interviews came up,
what happened was my Radioces show. Since it started at
midnight and that era, everything in Boston closed down. TV
stations went off midnight. All the stores and restaurants were closed,
and the only thing open was all night diners, you
(25:06):
know 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 or people. So
I got to get the Krem dollar krem and you
know people who you know, Freddie Hubbard from the Art
Blakey Jazz Band, and oh, just all sorts of people
(25:29):
that rolled into town that you know, I invited up
to the station because people were just unwinding and it
was great.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
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
(26:02):
telling the story how you were getting male to play more?
Speaker 5 (26:06):
Van Morrison? I love that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
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 uh,
I would start receiving these postcards and it's very feminine handwriting.
(26:30):
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 that that, and at that
(26:52):
time he had Brown Eyed Girl come out, but he
hadn't started really started as major solo career as we
know it. Then when 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
(27:13):
so I 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.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
We would rehearse in them.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
One day, this young guy came into the club, and
he came up to me and, you know, with this
strange kind of accent, Yeah, he can find 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 got to talking and
(27:59):
I asked him, you know, uh what kind of music
he played?
Speaker 4 (28:04):
And he told me he just moved to town.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And we were waiting for the manager I knew 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 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
(28:27):
liked was listening to this wolf, 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 of Goofer. He said what, I go, yeah, and
he goes now and I said, what do you mean though?
(28:49):
He said, now he's black guy. He said old black guy.
I said no, I says me, And I went through
the rap the Wolf Google Mama, and he couldn't believe,
and he said, well, hey man, you know, thank you
so much for playing my records. I said, your records
and he said, yeah, I'm Van Morrison. And I said,
(29:10):
You've 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 that started the
beginning of a friendship that still goes on to this day.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
I love it. That's so great.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
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 That
was a pivotal meeting in some regards for you, wasn't it.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Well.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I was such a huge fan and Sly was at
the height of his career and he.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Was so influential.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
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
(30:27):
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
(30:50):
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 a 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 guys band we're recording our second record. I
(31:13):
go running down the hallway and open up the men's
room door and they're sitting on the floor with three men,
all dressed in suits and ties in one corner and
on the other corner was sly Stone. And I didn't realize,
and I said, oh, and you know, I was about
(31:33):
to leave, so I didn't want to interrupt whatever was
going on.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
So said, no, man, come on in, do your thing.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
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 length
in the book, but I think what you're talking about
is witnessing the decline of Sly and seeing him where
(32:07):
he was playing arenas and you know, one of the
leading stars of the Woodstock Festival and you know, so
influential and so revered, ending up at the small, little
funky club of maybe one hundred people at most in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
And I just happened to be walking by and seeing
(32:30):
that he was going to appear that night. And it
was a surreal moment and a very heartbreaking 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
(32:54):
scared me. And I remember sitting in the club, as
I described in the book, that I just sat there
kind of stunned.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
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
(33:31):
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
(33:52):
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,
(34:13):
so I must be Jay Giles, which was very confusing.
And so the purpose for writing this book was 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
(34:35):
I 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.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
In that ocean.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
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. There's such a large, large ocean out there
that it's hard to focus even what's going on with
(35:09):
films or you 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,
in 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
(35:30):
easy for things to get lost. I decided to hold
off on finishing the record and just put all my
energies into the book.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Well, the book is fabulous, and I'm glad you brought
up the Midnight Travelers.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
So this will be the ninth album.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Right, I believe so.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, So you can't wait for that, and I'm sure
you'll be out playing live when that.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Comes out as well.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
But it's such a treasure too to be able to
speak with you, Pete talking about this this great book.
I recommend it to everybody.
Speaker 5 (36:06):
It is. It is a great read.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
It's so fun, appealing and just such 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 5 (36:27):
Peter Wilfo, I'm so thrilled to have you on.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
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 4 (36:44):
I know you have.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
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 or dead, who would it be
and where would you walk to?
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I'd say Bob Dylan comes to mind, fresh off of
reading so much of the great stories you told, and
it would have to be a walk through through the village.
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,
(37:27):
it's so has changed, right. But oh, but it would
be uh. I'd love even if it was a walk
around the corner with.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
Him, to have a walk with Bob.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Well, there you go. Well you answered it a lot
easier than I did.
Speaker 5 (37:44):
Well, it's a hard one. I know.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
It's the living or dead aspect, you know, living uh,
it's still a still a wide ocean.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Dead really gives you anything, you know, you know, because.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
They asked that question to writers, you know, I know
in the New York Times book review section is a
part where they ask writers, you know, if you can
meet a writer living in a 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
(38:22):
people pick. I'd always go for the mysterious ones, the
ones where history doesn't quite fill in all the blanks.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
Yes, got it? Well, I know.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
I'll put you high up there on the list because
I love being with you and I look forward to
the next time.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Well 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. Amen, So that's
where we're going to go walking, Buzz. So I'll take
(39:03):
a walk with Buzz, have 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 tuf. Thank
you Buzz for having me as your guest. I was
honored to walk with you and go through so much
of sharing bits and pieces of my life.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
Later later, and if.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
It's in you, it's got to come out. Take it easy,
but take it.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
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 mean after we got married, Faye Dunaway and I
got married. I remember Greg Allman and Scher got married
for about five minutes, but Fey and I had five
six years of a really incredible period and it was
based the marriage was based on we each supported each
(00:22):
other in our careers.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Well, I'm pleased to welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
One of the great human beings in the universe. He
stands tall as one of music's greatest frontmen 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.
(00:47):
His tremendous memoir is called Waiting on the Moon, and
now he can also add to that list New York
Times bestseller Pete, welcome to Take out a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, thank you for having me buzz and the introduction.
Thank you for the plaudet's and kudos. At first, I
don't know whom you might have been speaking about until
I heard my name.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
We're going to talk about drifters and grifters 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 2 (01:31):
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.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
As far as musicians, there's Beethoven and artists, there's just
so many that I can think of one that comes
to mind. And 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
(02:15):
say my wish would be to be able to 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
(02:37):
aware that there are things that he turned me 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 certain classical music. Of course, I
(02:58):
was not sophisticated enough to appreciate certain 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
(03:21):
different things he knew about. He was such 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 is a wealth
of other things he could turn me on too, So
(03:48):
I would say my father would be out of all
the people I could meet, would be the first on
my list.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Ah, that's so great, and 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
(04:18):
good ones gone, you know, and your.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
Father is certainly one of them.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
But there's there's a lot of them in the book
who aren't with us anymore?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Right, Yeah, you know two things.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
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 Train
of Memphis and Careless Love are the definitive biographies of Elvis.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
And he did one on Sam.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Cooke and the great producer Sam Phillips, and he said
to me, you know, Pete, you've been talking about this
book for overt fifteen years since then, you know, and
you better have finished it soon because everybody you'll want,
who you'll want to read it, they'll be dead if
you don't hear it. And there was some truth to that,
(05:13):
because a lot of people had passed since the time
I started it, which took about two years from now.
And 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
(05:35):
in the book. He was a song collaborator, and Will
was a great songwriter, and he wrote songs like Tears
from heaven By with Eric Clapton, all the Stevie Winwood songs,
High Love, and songs that wont Academy awards, you know.
Went beneath the Wings and I found out that John
(05:59):
Lee Hooker past, who was an old friend, and there's
a chapter in the book about my relationship with John Lee.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
And I remember mentioning with Will.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
We worked together out of this home in Santa Barbara,
and I remember mentioning, mentioning, you know, John Lee passed
and uh, I said, man, is sure a lot of
good ones gone? And he smiled and said, that's it.
He gave me a pad. He took a pad, and uh,
thanks to him. Uh we got uh that song.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
It's it's it's one of my many favorites.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
And it does nail it in terms of the 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
(06:54):
sort of musical thirst and.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
And your your passion for great performance?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Well, well it did.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
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
(07:25):
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, Bow Didley, the Everly Brothers, Dion and the Belmonts,
(07:45):
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,
uh Pound, you know, prancing around the stage singing. I
(08:06):
put a spell on you. And I think seeing all
those great first generation rock artists just blew.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
My head off.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And that was a memory I'll never forget because each
artist had a dynamic h 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
(08:36):
was the Richard boy. You know, he was just a powerhouse.
And Buddy Hollying, you know, needs no description. So it
was just amazing. There was doop bands, Chantelle's singing maybe you.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Know, and they were all young.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Everyone was young, and I was ten, and I had
an amazing impact. Now I didn't live in Harlem, but
my high school 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 is on one hundred and twenty fifth Street.
So i'd walk across, you know, and downtown and every
(09:14):
Wednesday night or Wednesday late, you know, in the evening,
late 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
(09:34):
as Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Arretha Franklin, Diane Washington. I
got 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
Kove explains to me in the book that in this
(09:56):
chapter he said, you know, Pete, all of us artists,
meaning Sam Cooke 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
(10:17):
the artist was to get the congregation you know, moving
and get them 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 4 (10:34):
And it was that.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
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
(11:01):
you know, the 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.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
So it was a.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
As far as but former and as far as learning
the craft, the Apollo was my college, my college and
musical knowledge.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
I'd say.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
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
(12:02):
amazingly diverse, you know, passion for all different styles of music.
I mean, you were in the village one time next
year at the Apollo. I mean, it was just it
was an endless stream of great inspiration, right.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Oh yeah. And you know.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
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, meeing a couple of guys.
(12:43):
We 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 had all the ferris wheel and a
parachute jump and uh and I would go off by myself.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
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 Flee Circus, which was sort of like Ripley's
Believe it or not, it was this amazing museum of
magic and hustlers, and Broadway was filled with all, you know,
(13:24):
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 4 (13:41):
You could drop money and a hat.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
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 out and I'd hear one week I could
hear Felonious Monk, and the next week I could hear
(14:05):
Charles Mingus and it was just non stop. So between
the folk music, you know where you would hear people
like the Green Briar Boys, or you know, Bob Dylan
in a small club, Dave van Ronk and all these
jazz greats, and sort of later on there would be
(14:26):
some rock clubs where you'd catch you know, some of
the the young rascals or you know, the beginnings of
bands like Mountain 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
(14:50):
economically it was feasible, so you could spend you know,
days upon days, a venture upon a venture, and some
of it I tried to capture in the book.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
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
(15:23):
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 2 (15:46):
Well, I never kept journal. 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
(16:10):
I printed out and put in a loose leaf folder,
and it pretty much starts from the early memories chronological
to 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 started about, you know, two
(16:34):
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 I did not want The
book is composed of really short stories. Each chapter is
(16:59):
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 some there's some early periods
of my life in there, or if you're into Louis
Armstrong or Julia Childs So or Tennessee Williams So, they're
(17:23):
all you know.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Listed there in the chapters.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
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, 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
(17:51):
to myself that I wasn't going to do was I
wasn't going to write about my marriage, 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
(18:14):
were privileged enough to get to know and just try
to not kiss and tell, but tried to demonstrate and
show what they were like as as artists, as you know,
interacting with them, you know what that personalities were like
because I read so many books. Uh and so, oh yeah,
(18:36):
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, if he
played with Chuck Berry, what was he like? Or if
you met, you know, a certain famous person and had some.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Quality time, well what were they like?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
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
that nobody would really know about unless reading the book.
So once I started writing The Little Brown, my publishing
(19:18):
company and my agent Andrew Wiley, both said, you know, Pete,
I think people are curious about the Guile's Band and
curious about your marriage.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
And I said, well, it's not one of those books.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
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 very world famous actress and at
(19:57):
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 got married, Faye
(20:18):
Dunaway and I got married. I remember Greg Allman and
Cher 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. Her career was
(20:41):
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 both shared, I
(21:05):
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 you know, the band and
this and that, and which is fine if you're really
interested in that artist or that band, and I didn't
(21:26):
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 explained my version,
(21:47):
which I you know, stand by, why it ended. And
so those were the two issues that came later on.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We'll be right back with more of that Taking a
While podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Your time at WBCN in Boston is chronicled in the
book so well, and it's you just.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
You know, once again, paint some great pictures. There was
what was going on.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
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 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 or not what you thought they would be.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
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. There was Pete Townsend.
I had Carla Thomas who was the R and B great.
There was Muddy Waters, there was John Lee Hooker. There
(23:11):
was so many different artists that James Cotton, Muddy Waters,
lou Reid I.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Had we talked with.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
And 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 kid from Alabama, keeping it all, hit
(23:43):
all the ships out of sea, doing it too, and
getting right through it. 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 4 (24:01):
I grew up with radio.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
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,
(24:24):
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. You know,
it's not like, you know, hey, he I pursued because
I was so interested in his you know, music. But
so many people I just met by just you know,
(24:44):
luck of the drawer. And as these interviews came up,
what happened was my Radioces show. Since it started at
midnight and that era, everything in Boston closed down. TV
stations went off midnight. All the stores and restaurants were closed,
and the only thing open was all night diners, you
(25:06):
know 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 or people. So
I got to get the Krem dollar krem and you
know people who you know, Freddie Hubbard from the Art
Blakey Jazz Band, and oh, just all sorts of people
(25:29):
that rolled into town that you know, I invited up
to the station because people were just unwinding and it
was great.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
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
(26:02):
telling the story how you were getting male to play more?
Speaker 5 (26:06):
Van Morrison? I love that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
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 uh,
I would start receiving these postcards and it's very feminine handwriting.
(26:30):
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 that that, and at that
(26:52):
time he had Brown Eyed Girl come out, but he
hadn't started really started as major solo career as we
know it. Then when 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
(27:13):
so I 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.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
We would rehearse in them.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
One day, this young guy came into the club, and
he came up to me and, you know, with this
strange kind of accent, Yeah, he can find 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 got to talking and
(27:59):
I asked him, you know, uh what kind of music
he played?
Speaker 4 (28:04):
And he told me he just moved to town.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And we were waiting for the manager I knew 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 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
(28:27):
liked was listening to this wolf, 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 of Goofer. He said what, I go, yeah, and
he goes now and I said, what do you mean though?
(28:49):
He said, now he's black guy. He said old black guy.
I said no, I says me, And I went through
the rap the Wolf Google Mama, and he couldn't believe,
and he said, well, hey man, you know, thank you
so much for playing my records. I said, your records
and he said, yeah, I'm Van Morrison. And I said,
(29:10):
You've 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 that started the
beginning of a friendship that still goes on to this day.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
I love it. That's so great.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
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 That
was a pivotal meeting in some regards for you, wasn't it.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Well.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I was such a huge fan and Sly was at
the height of his career and he.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Was so influential.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
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
(30:27):
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
(30:50):
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 a 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 guys band we're recording our second record. I
(31:13):
go running down the hallway and open up the men's
room door and they're sitting on the floor with three men,
all dressed in suits and ties in one corner and
on the other corner was sly Stone. And I didn't realize,
and I said, oh, and you know, I was about
(31:33):
to leave, so I didn't want to interrupt whatever was
going on.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
So said, no, man, come on in, do your thing.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
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 length
in the book, but I think what you're talking about
is witnessing the decline of Sly and seeing him where
(32:07):
he was playing arenas and you know, one of the
leading stars of the Woodstock Festival and you know, so
influential and so revered, ending up at the small, little
funky club of maybe one hundred people at most in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
And I just happened to be walking by and seeing
(32:30):
that he was going to appear that night. And it
was a surreal moment and a very heartbreaking 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
(32:54):
scared me. And I remember sitting in the club, as
I described in the book, that I just sat there
kind of stunned.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
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
(33:31):
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
(33:52):
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,
(34:13):
so I must be Jay Giles, which was very confusing.
And so the purpose for writing this book was 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
(34:35):
I 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.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
In that ocean.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
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. There's such a large, large ocean out there
that it's hard to focus even what's going on with
(35:09):
films or you 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,
in 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
(35:30):
easy for things to get lost. I decided to hold
off on finishing the record and just put all my
energies into the book.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Well, the book is fabulous, and I'm glad you brought
up the Midnight Travelers.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
So this will be the ninth album.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Right, I believe so.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, So you can't wait for that, and I'm sure
you'll be out playing live when that.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Comes out as well.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
But it's such a treasure too to be able to
speak with you, Pete talking about this this great book.
I recommend it to everybody.
Speaker 5 (36:06):
It is. It is a great read.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
It's so fun, appealing and just such 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 5 (36:27):
Peter Wilfo, I'm so thrilled to have you on.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
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 4 (36:44):
I know you have.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
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 or dead, who would it be
and where would you walk to?
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I'd say Bob Dylan comes to mind, fresh off of
reading so much of the great stories you told, and
it would have to be a walk through through the village.
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,
(37:27):
it's so has changed, right. But oh, but it would
be uh. I'd love even if it was a walk
around the corner with.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
Him, to have a walk with Bob.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Well, there you go. Well you answered it a lot
easier than I did.
Speaker 5 (37:44):
Well, it's a hard one. I know.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
It's the living or dead aspect, you know, living uh,
it's still a still a wide ocean.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Dead really gives you anything, you know, you know, because.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
They asked that question to writers, you know, I know
in the New York Times book review section is a
part where they ask writers, you know, if you can
meet a writer living in a 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
(38:22):
people pick. I'd always go for the mysterious ones, the
ones where history doesn't quite fill in all the blanks.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
Yes, got it? Well, I know.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
I'll put you high up there on the list because
I love being with you and I look forward to
the next time.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Well 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. Amen, So that's
where we're going to go walking, Buzz. So I'll take
(39:03):
a walk with Buzz, have 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 tuf. Thank
you Buzz for having me as your guest. I was
honored to walk with you and go through so much
of sharing bits and pieces of my life.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 4 (39:25):
Later later, and if.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
It's in you, it's got to come out. Take it easy,
but take it.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
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
Host
Lynn Hoffman
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