ALWAYSBACK

11708 - PETER WOLF - SLEEPLESS (2002) (REPOST)

PETER WOLF
''SLEEPLESS''
SEP 2002
40:36
**********
1/Growin' Pain/Petraglia, Wolf/3:12
.Shawn Pelton/Drums
.Tony Gamier/Acoustic Bass
.Larry Campbell/Guitar, Fiddle, Mandolin, Backing Vocals
.Duke Levine/Guitar, Solo
.Kenny White/Organ, Backing Vocals
.Angelo Petraglia/Acoustic Guitar
.Kevin Shurtleff/Additional Drums
.Rob Eaton/Backing Vocals

2/Nothing But the Wheel/Sherrill, Wolf/4:34
.Mick Jagger/Vocals, Harmonica
.Shawn Pelton/Drums
.Tony Garnier/Acoustic Bass
.Larry Campbell/Guitars, Fiddle, Pedal Steel
.Duke Levine/Guitar, Mandolin
.Kenny White/Acoustic Guitar, Piano
.Teresa Williams/Backing Vocals

3/A Lot of Good Ones Gone/Jennings, Wolf/3:33
.Charlie Drayton/Drums
.Warren McRae/Electric Bass
.Duke Levine/Guitars
.Kenny White/Organs
.Arno Hecht/Tenor Sax
.Crispin Ciao/Alto Sax
.Ada Dyer/Backing Vocals
.Catherine Russell/Backing Vocals
.Kevin Shurtleff/Percussion
.Cire Jones/Backing Vocals

4/Never Like This Before/Hayes, Jones, Porter, Wolf/3:21
.Shawn Pelton/Drums
.Tony Garnier/Acoustic Bass
.Larry Campbell/Guitar, Resophonic Guitar
.Duke Levine/Guitar
.Kenny White/Organ
.Cornell Dupree/Electric Guitar, Solo
.Crispin Ciao/Alto And Baritone Sax
.Arno Hecht/Tenor Sax
.Laurence Etkin/Trumpet
.Robert Funk/Tenor Trombone
.Ada Dyer/Backing Vocals
.Catherine Russell/Backing Vocals
.Kenny White/Backing Vocals
.Stu Kimball/Electric Guitar
.Angelo Petraglia/Acoustic Guitar

5/Run Silent, Run Deep/Mayer, Wolf/4:13
.Shawn Pelton/Drums
.Tony Gamier/Acoustic Bass
.Larry Campbell/Acoustic Guitar, Fiddle, Pedal Steel
.Duke Levine/Electric Guitar
.Kenny White/Piano Wurlitzer
.Cornell Dupree/Electric Guitar
.Ada Dyer/Backing Vocals
.Catherine Russell/Backing Vocals
.Kenny White/Backing Vocals

6/Homework/Clark, Perkins, Rush/2:39
.Shawn Pelton/Drums
.Tony Gamier/Acoustic Bass
.Larry Campbell/Resophonic Guitar, Fiddle
.Duke Levine/Guitar, Mandolin
.Kenny White/Organ
.Ada Dyer/Backing Vocals
.Catherine Russell/Backing Vocals

7/Five O'Clock Angel/Jennings, Wolf/3:00
.Charlie Drayton/Drums
.Warren McRae/Electric Bass
.Duke Levine/Electric Guitar
.Kenny White/Piano, Organ
.Ada Dyer/Backing Vocals
.Catherine Russell/Backing Vocals

8/Hey Jordan/Jennings, Wolf/3:03
.Shawn Pelton/Drums
.John Conte/Electric Bass
.Duke Levine/Guitar
.Kenny White/Wurlitzer
.Ada Dyer/Backing Vocals
.Catherine Russell/Backing Vocals

9/Too Close Together/Williamson, Wolf/2:24
.Keith Richards/Electric Guitar, Vocals
.Magic Dick/Harmonica
.Shawn Pelton/Drums
.Paul Ossola/Acoustic Bass
.Kenny White/Piano

10/Some Things You Don't Want toKnow/Jennings, Wolf/2:31
.Steve Earle/Vocal
.Shawn Pelton/Drums
.Tony Gamier/Acoustic Bass
.Larry Campbell/Fiddle, Mandolin
.Duke Levine/Electric Guitar
.Kenny White/Wurlitzer, Acoustic Guitar
.Tom West/Organ
.Stu Kimball/Electric Guitar
.Angelo Petraglia/Acoustic Guitar
.Teresa Williams/Backing Vocals

11/Oh Marianne/Jennings, Wolf/4:19
.Shawn Pelton/Drums
.Dan Reiser/Drums
.John Conte/Electric Bass
.Duke Levine/Guitars
.Kenny White/Piano, Organ
.Brian Mitchell/Accordion
.Ada Dyer/Backing Vocals
.Catherine Russell/Backing Vocals
.Cire Jones/Backing Vocals
.Fred Griffith/Backing Vocals
.Milt Grayson/Bass Vocal

12/Sleepless/Jennings, Wolf/4:05
.Shawn Pelton/Drums, Loop
.Tony Garnier/Acoustic Bass
.Larry Campbell/Acoustic Guitar, Pedal Steel
.Duke Levine/Electric Guitar, Baritone Guitar
.Kenny White/Piano, Organ, Acoustic Guitar
.Cornell Dupree/Guitar
.Crispin Ciao/Alto And Baritone Sax
.Arno Hecht/Tenor Sax
.Laurence Etkin/Trumpet
.Robert Funk/Tenor Trombone
.Sammy Merendino/Additional Percussion
.Ada Dyer/Backing Vocals
.Catherine Russell/Backing Vocals
**********
REVIEW/AMG
Robert L. Doerschuk
With each step he takes past his years as frontman to the J. Geils Band, Peter Wolf builds on his legacy as a solo artist of remarkable distinction. Bits of the jive caricature of his early years surface on Sleepless, especially when reunited with his old running buddies Keith Richards and Magic Dick on "Too Close Together," but most of the album documents much more skillful and sensitive approaches to interpretation. In fact, in his ability to slide from singing to a spoken word or two and back again, Wolf affirms his mastery of the Bob Dylan method for bringing a lyric to life. The musical settings throughout Sleepless vary dramatically, from roadhouse country on the highway epic "Nothing but the Wheel" through Mexican romanticism on "Oh Marianne" and to raw blues with a Tom Waits edge on "Homework." In each of these, Wolf's voice, recorded bone dry and boosted high in the mix, flawlessly nails the feel; on one track, the Stax-flavored ballad "A Lot of Good Ones Gone," his performance -- reflective, understated, delicately phrased, and soulful -- compares favorably to some of Van Morrison's best work. It is, in other words, about as good as a performance can be in this genre.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
Richard Skelly
Best known for his tenure fronting the J. Geils Band, singer Peter Wolf was born and raised in the Bronx, and came from a family active in show business. His father was a dancer, song plugger, disc jockey, and singer of light opera; his mother, an organizer for the civil rights and labor movements, was a teacher for inner-city children in the Bronx. Wolf's earliest passion was painting, and he was accepted on a scholarship to the Museum of Modern Art's Special Studies for Children, and later to the High School of Music and Art, just blocks from the Apollo Theater, where the young Wolf would make weekly visits. Seeing performers like Jackie Wilson, Dinah Washington, Otis Redding, and James Brown sparked his early interest in blues and R&B. After graduating from high school, he hitchhiked through the Midwest; in Chicago, he became involved in a couple of blues and folk music societies while studying painting at the University of Chicago. While there, he visited the South Side blues clubs, drawing influences from the musicians he saw there.

With a grant to study at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, he became a disc jockey on WBCN-FM, hosting a show called The All-Night House Party. The show touched on many musical bases, and reflected Wolf's own broad musical interests. While still in college in Boston, Wolf joined his first musical group, comprised of fellow art students. They played blues music, and later got to meet and tour with their heroes John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. In 1967, he formed the group that would go on to become the J. Geils Band, which began playing clubs around New England. Their first big break was a chance to play at the Fillmore East in New York City, and they became known for their marathon live performances, with Wolf establishing a reputation as a particularly dynamic frontman. The group was signed to Atlantic Records by producer/impresario Jerry Wexler, and toured constantly over the next couple of years, performing as special guests with the Rolling Stones throughout the U.S. and Europe. At one of these concerts, Wolf met actress Faye Dunaway, whom he later married for a short time.

Lights Out
In 1983, the group was at the height of its popularity, and had gone 17 years without a personnel change. Finally, the bandmembers went their separate ways and Wolf went on to produce numerous film soundtracks and run art exhibits of his original paintings. In 1984, he released his first solo album, Lights Out, followed in 1987 by Come as You Are, which spurred the hit single of the same name. In between albums he worked on duets with Mick Jagger and Aretha Franklin, who recruited him specifically for her Who's Zoomin' Who album. In 1989, after a six-month songwriting retreat in Nashville, he recorded his third solo album, Up to No Good, which appeared the following year. In 1994, Wolf assembled a group of musicians and began playing clubs as a way to test out newer material on live audiences. It was the live feeling he so successfully captured on Long Line, his 1996 Reprise release. While on tour in 1997, Wolf met producer Kenny White, and together the pair recorded Fool's Parade, which was released in 1998 on Mercury. It was selected by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the "50 most influential records of the decade." In 1998, he toured with the Royal Soul Review, a star-studded gathering of soul artists including Lloyd Price, Chuck Jackson, Sam Moore, Ben E. King, Irma Thomas, Percy Sledge, Gene Chandler, and Jerry Butler. Soon after, Wolf was asked to record with blues great Little Milton. They worked at the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and are featured on the Malaco album Welcome to Little Milton.

Sleepless
In 1999, J. Geils reunited for an end-of-the-century tour. Wolf reentered the studio with White and cut Sleepless for the Artemis label in 2002. This set, with guests including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Steve Earle, was almost universally regarded as Wolf's finest solo moment and garnered -- again from Rolling Stone -- the honor of being "one of the greatest 500 albums of all time." In 2005, the J. Geils Band reunited once more for a special charity event to benefit the Cam Neely Cancer Foundation, Denis Leary's Firefighters Association of New England, and Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Disease Research Foundation. The band later reunited in 2009 for a short series of sold-out shows across the U.S.; Wolf claims they were more than likely their very last. He finally re-emerged from his own recording silence in 2010 with Midnight Souvenirs on Verve, co-produced with White; the pair enlisted duet help from Shelby Lynne, Neko Case, and one of Wolf's true heroes, Merle Haggard.

The singer promoted the set on the major network late night shows, his own tour of intimate rock and folk venues, and festival performances. The recording received favorable reviews and landed inside the Top 50 on the album charts. Afterwards, Wolf resumed reunion work with J. Geils Band over the next few summers, playing the large outdoor sheds. During breaks, he was writing new material.

A Cure For Loneliness
When ready to record, Wolf enlisted members of his road band the Midnight Travelers (including keyboardist Kenny White, his co-producer). A Cure for Loneliness marked the singer's debut for Concord. It included nine new originals and three covers -- most notably a bluegrass reworking of the J. Geils Band hit "Love Stinks." It was released in early 2016.
**********
WIKIPEDIA
**********
WEBSITE
**********
TO THE TOP
********************