Ticket 2 Ride

Most of us know Peter Wolf as the lead singer of the J. Geils Band. He’s also an ex-husband of Faye Dunaway.

Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses (Little, Brown, 2025) is Wolf’s long-awaited memoir, and it’s a fascinating read. I had no idea Wolf was as deep into the blues and R&B, although the J. Geils Band had that influence in their music. In his early years as a struggling musician, Wolf got to know the kings of blues, what great stories.

Wolf’s narrative is a little unconventional, it’s told through a series of stories about his connection to other people in his life. Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, John Coltrane, Andy Warhol, Tennessee Williams are just some of his friendships – absolutely incredible personal stories.

“ I noticed she was wearing house slippers and she had a fur coat on and underneath she was wearing a nightgown. As the movie progressed, she slowly gets very tired and I can feel her head slowly, slowly leaning towards my shoulder until she actually fell asleep on my shoulder.”

Young Wolf was at the movies with his parents. The woman sitting next to him was Marilyn Monroe, who with husband Arthur Miller were trying to be unnoticed in the dark of the theater.

Wolf shared an apartment with upcoming film director David Lynch, skipping out on rent owed. Wolf befriended a young Van Morrison as fame hadn’t yet hit and remained a friend.

“Many people thought I’d quit the band to pursue a solo career, which wasn’t the case at all,” Wolf told Rolling Stone about his split from the J. Geils Band. “They chose to change course and follow a captain whose blind compass would soon have them smashed against the rocks.”

The band fired him, he says. Other sources denied that. Still, it was the end of a great band that finally found the big audience. Ironic, since Wolf acted as the band’s manager, a job he didn’t ask for, and he got the band a new, more lucrative recording deal after years with Atlantic. Wolf tells that story and it’s one of the most unbelievable stories.

This is a darn good body of work, although most people may only know Love Stinks and Freeze Frame. Wolf was also a solo discography, he’s had a few known songs, but has mostly played clubs with the occasional album release.

Being involved with Dunaway gave Wolf a broader cultural and artistic social interaction. His Hollywood stories are entertaining, yet a little sad, as was his relationship with Dunaway. Wolf met with Alfred Hitchcock to discuss a potential project, as he did with the king of the B films, Roger Corman. Neither of those discussions panned out, yet the stories are great.

Wolf tells of interactions with John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Peter Sellers, Fred Astaire, George Cukor, Julia Child and many others.

There is the lifelong relationship with The Rolling Stones including traveling on tour with them, and the J. Geils Band was an opening act for the Stones.

With all the names, one might expect this to be a book about being in the light of star power; Wolf was a fan, like anyone else. Whether it was a duet with Merle Haggard, being in a recording studio with Aretha Franklin, having a drink spilled on him by Tennessee Williams, watching Sly Stone at the nadir of his career, watching a young Prince get booed of stage, watching Peter Sellers act out his characters from Dr. Strangelove, Wolf has lived an interesting life and shares it with us.

Waiting on the Moon is a book that is hard to forget.