Henry Wolfe, formerly of NYC Indie rock band Bravo Silva and now based out of LA, performed at Joe’s Pub last Friday to a captive audience. Wolfe, gifted with some of his mother Meryl Streep’s stage talent, kept the audience in a trance with his sweet voice, swaying body, and gently waving arms. He performed his first set solo, with a full bodied electric guitar from which he coaxed mostly soft tunes with gentle strumming and light picking. Commencing with “Stop the Train,” off the soundtrack for the recent comedy Julia & Julia, the first few songs were light in every way. Lines like “If you’re thinking of leaving, then you’re already gone,” from “Third Act,” seemed to loosen the expectations of the music and lyrical content, while creating a focus on Wolfe’s movement, voice, and his innocent, squinty glances. The short set picked up a bit with the ascending outcry “Errant Lover,” which began with the strums of “No woman, No cry,” segued into a continually more forceful blues ballad (whose force incidentally coincided with Wolfe’s comfort in remembering the chords), and was capped off with an outburst reminiscent of “Dear Prudence.” In a sense, the total was like many Beatles songs, three unrelated parts in one.
After a short break, Wolfe returned to play the title act, “Wolfe sings Field!” Released in May, this collection of songs, recorded with the LA-based composer Oliwa, is based on a darkly comic story written by Wolfe’s Portland friend Peter Field. Oliwa joined Wolfe on stage for this act, along with a string quartet and harp, as well as some vocal accompaniment. In spoken-word Wolfe introduced the setting as “an old folks’ home” amidst the swamps, factories, and shipping containers surrounding the New Jersey Meadowlands. After describing a “sad, lonely tree with a bird feeder” and an old man from the home who would carry a bag of birdseed up a “rickety, old ladder” to fill it everyday, there was a short harp intro, and the verse began:
Come down out of your high places,
Come down out of your trees,
I have built a bird feeder,
and I have bought birdseed.
The refrain “Please eat my birdseed,” following along with the strings and some simple vocal harmonies, set the tone for what was a beautifully rhythmic set. The story’s simplicity and impossibly real imagery (in real life, this landscape seems to exist for the sole purpose of stealing one’s imagination) created the backdrop for Oliwa’s captivating melodies, and some further similarly charged refrains. At times lyrically similar to a less sophisticated Scott Walker, it was the moaning violins and the dreamy plucking of the harpist that lifted the mood above the ironic and created a magical fantasy world inside the bleak confines surrounding the old folks’ home where “Nobody does Nothing.”
The setting and characters came alive as Wolfe showcased his ability to feel every word as he gently followed the rhythms of the strings with his movement. Occasionally unintentionally goofy as he swayed back and forth, this only managed to endear him even more to the already enraptured audience. His immersion into Field’s world was impressive, and although he was potentially only able to realize it because he was playing the role of a singer/songwriter, his act was a stark contrast to the emotional distance and obstinacy of many contemporary singers following similar lyrical lines. He was not pretending to search for musical breakthrough, but instead he focused on pure performance. Wolfe may have lacked some authenticity with Bravo Silva and perhaps some lyrical ingenuity solo, but the ensemble he created here provided the perfect stage for his performative talent.
