PETER WOLF
WHEN you close your eyes and listen to the chameleon voice of Peter Wolf, you hear a parade of stylists – Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke and, of course, Wolf himself, crying in the voice that powered the J. Geils Band.
Wolf played the intimate Joe’s Pub Tuesday in support of his recently released album “Sleepless.”
Like its creator, the record is underrated, but anyone who had any doubts about Wolf’s talents or his new batch of songs was straightened out at this fantastic showcase.
Wolf is a wisp of a man, rail-thin, hidden behind shades, with a mop of black hair contained by a blacker lid. Through the night, there were times when he stood in front of his six-man band, taking in the audience, that it seemed he’d blow away if he didn’t hold onto the mike stand.
But then Wolf would shake to life like an untangled marionette, and he’d shatter that image of frailty.
The man wouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t, be contained by the stage. He danced like a chicken on a hot plate and was all over Joe’s Pub – stepping on tables and crossing the main floor to get closer to the small room’s balcony.
Wolf opened the show in his best back-of-the-throat Dylan voice to perform “Growing Pain,” and it’s clear by the dark lyrics that he’s tired of learning so much about life.
Soon after, on the song “Nothing But the Wheel,” he channeled Jagger with incredible precision.
But Wolf was at his best in his own skin. That happened when he performed the pretty love song “Five O’Clock Angel,” the breezy “Hey Jordan” and the blues interpretation of “Homework” (the Otis Rush song the J. Geils Band twisted into a rocker 20 years ago).
The other welcome nods to Wolf’s past were a fine rendering of “Love Stinks” and the answer to that song, “Lookin’ for a Love.”
They were the late-show, one-two punch that unglued the crowd from their seats.
As a solo artist, Wolf has had a hard time finding his audience, but with an album like “Sleepless” and concerts like this, things might finally click for this talented musician.