Henry Wolfe is a crooner, but I am not saying this in a pejorative way at all, he is in fact a musician with such a talent for melodies that immediately curl in your ears. On Monday night, I tried to catch his last week of residency at the Bootleg theater, just after my adventures into metal-hardcore territory at Vacation vinyl.
Indeed, he started his show with his song ‘Little Room’, serenading the crowd or his pianist Tyler Cash, sitting close to him and holding his mic in one hand.
But the next song, he was behind his guitar and harmonica, in his troubadour outfit, unassumingly singing his catchy tunes with ease, surrounded by a quite talented band.
I had seen him performed at Amoeba with a few of them, but this time, there were the grand piano (but actually Tyler Cash managed to play another keyboard at the same time), and an unexpected saxophonist in addition to the usual bassist, guitarist and drummer.
His songs are immediately likeable and have this undeniable instant quality of romantic comedy soundtrack, like for example the melancholic and sweet ‘The Third Act’ which starts with some drama, ‘Something bad is gonna happen’, and it may be a little too easy to say this knowing his mother is the great actress Meryl Streep, but it is true. His songwriting is impressive knowing he has said to have no formal music training at all (he started an acting school, are you surprised?) but being self-taught is probably the case for many musicians.
The instrumental ‘Linda Vista’ was particularly great live, infused with a sweet nostalgia, and I kept seeing some movie when they were playing this foot-stomping uplifting tune, may be an European one for some reason. ‘Someone Else’ had this delicateness in the guitar, and a Randy Newman quality in its upbeat development.
His songs had distinctive personalities and style, and not all was sweet and romantic, and the fact he chose to cover Neil Young’s ‘For the Turnstiles’ accentuated the diversity of the show as the song was slowing expanding, into a sort of atmospheric rock number, with an epic finale of harmonica-guitar-drums.
He closed the show with ‘Stop the Train’, probably one of his catchiest songs, pleasing the audience with the oo-oos back-up vocals from the band, a song which is featured on the soundtrack of Streep’s movie ‘Julie and Julia’,… he can’t escape it, but why would he?