Peter Wolf
A Cure for Loneliness manifests the same vibrant passion for music that’s motivated Peter Wolf for most of his life. Growing up in an artistic, politically engaged family in the Bronx, he became an early rock ‘n’ roll convert after attending an Alan Freed rock ‘n’ roll revue that included performances by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Frankie Lymon. His thirst for new and old sounds drove him to exploring blues, soul, country, folk and jazz, inspiring weekly visits to Harlem’s Apollo Theatre and leading to acquaintances with many of the music’s surviving originators.
Wolf’s talent as a painter won him a grant to study at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. While a student there, he experienced a life-changing epiphany after jumping on stage to sing with a blues band at a loft party. He soon talked himself into membership in that band, The Hallucinations.
“I didn’t join a band to meet girls,” Wolf recalls. “I joined my first band to meet musicians. Painting was a fascination for me, but I was a music fanatic, and sitting in with that band was a born-again type of experience for me. I was transfixed, and myself and some of the guys in the band would check out performances by the musicians we admired so much, like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker and John Coltrane and Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers. Those roots stayed with me.”
Wolf’s natural loquaciousness won him a job as an all-night DJ on the fledgling FM rock station WBCN. Adopting the persona of “the Woofa Goofa,” he spun raw rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm ‘n’ blues, channeling the spirit of the flashy, fast-talking DJs he’d grown up listening to.
Wolf’s encyclopedic musical knowledge came in handy when he and some like-minded Boston players formed the J. Geils Band, much of whose early repertoire was drawn from Wolf’s vast record collection. The band soon became a local favorite injecting a much-needed jolt of raw, uninhibited rock ‘n’ roll into the ’70s scene and was soon signed by Jerry Wexler for Atlantic Records. Between 1970 and 1983, the J. Geils Band released 13 influential albums, topped the pop single charts with 1981’s “Freeze Frame,” “Love Stinks,” “Centerfold,” and earned a reputation as one of rock’s most exciting live acts, thanks in large part to Wolf’s flamboyant, hyperactive stage presence.
After going solo with 1984’s Lights Out, Wolf continued to stake out new musical territory with the subsequent releases Lights Out, Come As You Are, Up to No Good, Long Line, Fool’s Parade, Sleepless and Midnight Souvenirs, and A Cure For Loneliness. His solo work has seen him collaborate with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Merle Haggard, John Lee Hooker, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Little Milton, Wilson Pickett, Shelby Lynne and Neko Case. Wolf temporarily reunited with his J. Geils Band cohorts for live shows on several occasions between 1999 and 2015, but his solo career has remained his creative focus, as A Cure for Loneliness makes clear.
Bruce Cockburn
Bruce Cockburn
Bruce Douglas Cockburn OC is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist. His song styles range from folk to jazz-influenced rock and his lyrics cover a broad range of topics including human rights, environmental issues, politics, and Christianity. Wikipedia
RUMOURS OF GLORY– a chronicle of faith, fear, and activism, and a lively cultural, political, and musical tour through the past five decades.
Best known for his memorable songs including ‘Pacing the Cage’ (1995), ‘If a Tree Falls’ (1988), ‘If I Had a Rocket Launcher’ (1984), ‘Lovers in a Dangerous Time’ (1984) and ‘Wondering Where the Lions Are’ (1979), the award-winning songwriter and pioneering guitarist, whose life and music has been shaped by politics, protest, romance, and spiritual discovery, has released 31 albums spanning five decades.
Cockburn’s albums have sold over 7 million copies worldwide. He is revered by fans and fellow musicians alike as one of the most important songwriters of his generation.
Michael Connelly
LOCATION – LOS ANGELES
Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly is a titan of modern crime fiction, renowned for crafting intricate, gritty thrillers centered on iconic characters like LAPD Detective Harry Bosch and defense attorney Mickey Haller, evolving from a journalist’s keen eye for detail into a global bestselling author with over 90 million books sold, earning Edgar Awards, and successfully translating his complex legal and police procedurals into hit TV series like Bosch and The Lincoln Lawyer, solidifying his place as a master storyteller of Los Angeles’ underbelly and justice system.
Born in Philadelphia in 1956, Michael Connelly’s path to literary stardom began not in fiction, but in the trenches of journalism, particularly covering crime for newspapers in Florida and then the Los Angeles Times. This front-line experience, interviewing cops and victims, observing the gritty realities of law enforcement, became the bedrock of his storytelling, lending unparalleled authenticity to his future novels. His breakthrough came in 1992 with The Black Echo, the debut novel featuring Harry Bosch, which immediately earned the prestigious Edgar Award for Best First Novel, signaling the arrival of a major new voice in mystery.
Connelly’s success transcends the printed page. He has become a prolific producer for television, overseeing the highly acclaimed Bosch series (Amazon Prime/Freevee) and The Lincoln Lawyer (Netflix), which brought his beloved characters to vibrant life for a global audience. He also produced the television adaptation of his Renée Ballard novel, The Law of Innocence, and previously saw his novel Blood Work adapted into a film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.
With over forty novels, numerous awards (including the Grand Master title from the MWA), and a global readership, Michael Connelly remains a leading figure in crime fiction, continually reinventing his universe while staying true to the core themes of justice, redemption, and the relentless search for truth in a world that often hides it. His work offers readers thrilling plots, complex characters, and a deep dive into the heart of criminal investigation.
Shannon McNally
Shannon McNally
For those who have followed McNally’s nearly twenty year career the thing that most sticks with the listener about her, is the timeless effortlessness that she brings to all she does. With a long catalog and longer list of peers with whom she has written, recorded and toured, McNally continues to turn out great music that defies blatant genre-fication.
At home across the American (Americana) music spectrum, the Grammy nominee who’s live music career began on the jam band circuit of the 1990’s with bands like Robert Randolph and Derek Trucks, writes as well as she interprets the songs of others, has a top tier musicality to her craft, a soul stirring voice that immediately grabs one by the heart strings and a troubadour’s wanderlust, not to mention as it turns out, she is also an excellent electric guitar player.
Note: Embedded video goes back a few years to Shannon’s Bobby Charles Tribute recording. With so much new McNally music since and readily available online we thought this video might be missed. Enjoy.
John Hiatt
John Robert Hiatt is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including new wave, blues, and country. Hiatt has been nominated for nine Grammy Awards and has been awarded a variety of other distinctions in the music industry.
COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME® AND MUSEUM TO FEATURE JOHN HIATT AS NEXT POETS AND PROPHETS HONOREE
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – July 9, 2024 – The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum will feature singer-songwriter John Hiatt in the next installment of its in-depth interview series Poets and Prophets. The series features songwriters who have made significant contributions to country music. The program will take place on Saturday, Aug. 10, at 2:30 p.m. in the museum’s Ford Theater and is included with museum admission.
Throughout his 50-year recording career, Hiatt has established himself as one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of his generation, as well as a hit composer for country and rock artists alike. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Country Music Hall of Fame members Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson are among the artists who have covered his acerbic, soul-stirring songs.
Hiatt began his professional songwriting career at age 18, when he moved to Nashville to work at Tree Publishing. Over the next two decades, his songs became hits for Rosanne Cash (“The Way We Make a Broken Heart”), the Desert Rose Band (“She Don’t Love Nobody”) and Three Dog Night (“”Sure as I’m Sittin’ Here”). Hiatt found success as a recording artist with his landmark 1987 album, Bring the Family, which featured “Have a Little Faith in Me” and “Memphis in the Meantime,” among other enduring songs. In its wake, he went from earning cuts to being covered by some of music’s biggest names, including Bonnie Raitt (“Thing Called Love”) and B. B. King and Eric Clapton (“Riding with the King”).
Following a stint in Los Angeles, Hiatt returned to Nashville in the mid-1980s and has continued to write, perform and record. He has released more than two dozen albums, most recently 2021’s Leftover Feelings, a highly regarded collaboration with the Jerry Douglas Band, recorded at historic RCA Studio B. In 2008, Hiatt was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and received a lifetime achievement award for songwriting from the Americana Music Association. In 2019, he became the third recipient of the BMI Troubadour Award, which recognized his work as a songwriter.
Andre Dubus III
Andre Dubus III is the author of seven books: The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, Bluesman, and the New York Times bestsellers, House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, Gone So Long and his memoir, Townie, a #4 New York Times bestseller and a New York Times “Editors Choice”.
Gone So Long, is a masterpiece of thrilling tension and heartrending empathy. Few writers can enter their characters so completely or evoke their lives as viscerally as Andre Dubus III. In this deeply compelling novel, a father, estranged for the worst of reasons, is driven to seek out the daughter he has not seen in decades.
Recently published, Such Kindness, is the story of people whose stories are rarely told. The novel charts a remarkable rebirth, not from poverty to wealth but from bitter helplessness to the knowledge of self worth. The result is a gripping and transformational journey towards kindness. The result is also a tremendously moving novel.” – Ann Patchett
