On this episode of Everything American singer-songwriter Peter Wolf joins host Ken Womack to discuss Wolf’s life in music and his earliest musical influences.

A native of the Bronx, Wolf spent his youth soaking up New York City’s music scene, especially the Apollo Theater’s array of soul, rhythm & blues, and gospel performers. After moving to Boston, he attended Tufts University’s Museum of Fine Arts. During this period, he formed his first band, The Hallucinations, which performed in area clubs. 

In 1967, Wolf and drummer Stephen Jo Bladd joined the J. Geils Band, which had recently formed in Worcester. During the 1970s, the group notched several Top 40 singles, including a cover of the Valentinos’ “Lookin’ for a Love” and the singles “Give It to Me,” “Must of Got Lost,” and “Come Back.” By this point, Wolf had emerged as the band’s principal songwriter. With “Love Stinks,” the J. Geils Band enjoyed breakthrough success, followed by the megahits “Centerfold” and “Freeze-Frame.” 

In 1983, Wolf and the J. Geils Band parted ways after the singer expressed his interest in returning to the band’s rock ‘n’ roll roots. As a solo artist, he notched several hits, including “Lights Out” and “Come as You Are.” The latter song was featured in Rob Reiner’s acclaimed film The Sure Thing. 

Wolf continues to enjoy accolades for his solo career. His 2002 album Sleepless featured guest performances by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and was feted by Rolling Stone as one the 500 Greatest Albums of all time. His 2010 album Midnight Souvenirs earned Album of the Year honors at the Boston Music Awards and featured duets with Shelby Lynne, Neko Case, and Merle Haggard. Wolf recently published his memoirs. Entitled Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses, the book traces Wolf’s six-decade career in a series of unforgettable vignettes. 

On this episode of Everything Fab Four, actor and comedian Paul Reiser joins to discuss his first memories of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and share the Beatles song that “still kills [him].”

Reiser began his career as a stand-up comedian, breaking into film with Barry Levinson’s 1982 movie Diner. Reiser starred in the sitcom My Two Dads in the late 1980s, and later co-created the television show Mad About You, one of the defining comedy series of the 1990s. For his role in Mad About You, Reiser earned nominations for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Reiser has also appeared in movies like Aliens and the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, and more recently, in the Netflix series Stranger Things and Amazon Prime’s The Boys. 

Comedy Central has ranked Paul Reiser as the 77th greatest stand-up comedian of all time. He has also established himself as a bestselling author, with such books as Couplehood and Babyhood. Earlier this year, he co-authored the memoir What a Fool Believes with Michael McDonald. This month, Reiser is releasing his first comedy special in more than 30 years, called Life, Death, and Rice Pudding.

On today’s episode, American jazz fusion guitarist and singer-songwriter George Benson drops by to discuss what gave the Beatles “prestige” and how the band helped Black musicians succeed.

Benson recorded his first album The New Boss Guitar, at 21, and followed it up with It’s Uptown with the George Benson Quartet. In 1969, he recorded his homage to the Beatles’ album Abbey Road, entitled The Other Side of Abbey Road.

Things really took off for Benson in the mid-1970s, beginning with the LP Bad Benson, which topped the Billboard jazz charts in 1974. Benson scored a triple-platinum hit with his 1976 album Breezin’, and in 1978, he earned a Grammy award for his live rendition of “On Broadway.”

In 1980, Benson took the pop charts by storm with his studio album Give Me the Night. Produced by Quincy Jones, the LP yielded several hit singles including the upbeat, jazz-infused title track. 

Benson’s latest LP Dreams Do Come True features orchestrations that had been lost for 35 years, and were recently unearthed from his archive. The collection includes Benson’s takes on such standards as “Autumn Leaves,” “At Last,” “My Romance,” “A Song for You,” and the Beatles’ “Yesterday.”

Over the years, Benson has earned 10 Grammy Awards, while seeing his career memorialized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On this bonus episode of Everything Fab Four, we trace two television icons from the 1970s—both very different in terms of target audience, but united in the inspiration that they drew from the Beatles. 

First is the New Zoo Revue, the children’s TV show that was broadcast from 1972 through 1977. Designed as a musical comedy, it ran for 196 episodes and imparting valuable life lessons to the program’s legions of child viewers. The show was hosted by husband and wife duo Doug and Emmy Jo. On the New Zoo Revue, they interacted with an array of loveable costumed characters, including Henrietta Hippo and Freddie the Frog. 

At the other end of the TV demographic spectrum is George Schlatter, the founder of network television’s groundbreaking Laugh-In. The hilarious sketch comedy program ran for more than 140 episodes between 1968 and 1973.

With Dan Rowan and Dick Martin as Schlatter’s irreverent hosts, Laugh-In thrived on its moveable feast of guest stars, including the likes of Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Phyllis Diller and more. Laugh-In also launched the careers of series regulars Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin. Last year, Schlatter released his memoir, Still Laughing: A Life in Comedy.

On this episode of Everything Fab Four, actor and activist Rosanna Arquette shares her favorite Beatles song and recounts where she was when John Lennon died.

As part of a large show business family—including siblings Patricia and David Arquette—Rosanna began acting as a child. Her father, character actor Lewis Arquette, was well known as “J.D. Pickett” on The Waltons, while her mother Mardi was a poet, political activist, and therapist. Rosanna started working professionally as a teenager and has never stopped. 

She has since appeared in over 70 films, which have earned over $450 million in domestic box office sales. In addition to such early successes as The Executioner’s Song and Baby, It’s You, Arquette has appeared in such beloved classics as After Hours and Pulp Fiction.

Arquette expanded her talent as a filmmaker by directing and producing the documentaries, 2002’s Searching for Debra Winger and 2005’s All We Are Saying. She is currently developing projects for both television and film through her company, Flower Child Productions.

Author and filmmaker Jamie Bernstein joins Everything Fab Four to discuss growing up with a world-famous father, and why Leonard Bernstein chose Beatles songs to explain musical concepts.

Jamie Bernstein’s 2018 memoir, Famous Father Girl, traces

Over the years, Bernstein has written and narrated concerts about Mozart, Aaron Copland, and Stravinsky, as well as “The Bernstein Beat,” a family concert about her father. She performs concert narrations all over the world, including for Copland’s “A Lincoln Portrait” and her father’s Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish.” Bernstein has also produced and hosted the New York Philharmonic’s live national radio broadcasts, and recently narrated the podcast “The NY Phil Story: Made in New York.” Her other works include co-directing the award-winning documentary film Crescendo: the Power of Music, about children from struggling urban communities who participate in youth orchestra programs, and articles and poetry in Symphony, Town & Country, and Opera News.

On this episode, legendary singer-songwriter Darius Rucker joins Everything Fab Four to share how he first discovered the Beatles at five, and which Beatles album he thinks is the “most perfect album ever made.” 

Rucker first achieved multi-Platinum status in the music industry as lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the GRAMMY Award-winning band Hootie & the Blowfish, who have sold more than 25 million albums worldwide. Their Double Diamond-certified (21x Platinum) debut Cracked Rear View remains among the best-selling studio albums of all time. Since releasing his first country album in 2008, Rucker has earned four No. 1 albums on the Billboard Country chart, 10 No. 1 singles at Country radio, and 11 Gold, Platinum or multi-Platinum certified hits. Rucker was also inducted as a Grand Ole Opry member in 2012, and his GRAMMY-winning version of “Wagon Wheel,” has become one of the top five best-selling Country songs of all time. His brand-new album Carolyn’s Boy is available everywhere now and his first book, a memoir titled “Life’s Too Short,” is set for release via Dey Street Books on May 28th.

A lifelong philanthropist, Rucker co-chaired the campaign that generated $150 million to help build the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital in his hometown of Charleston, S.C., and has raised over $3.6 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital through his annual Darius & Friends benefit concert and golf tournament. In addition, Rucker has advocated for over 200 charitable causes supporting public education and junior golf programs in South Carolina through the Hootie & the Blowfish Foundation and serves as a National Chair for the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, Tennessee.

Grammy-nominated American recording artist Joan Osborne joins Everything Fab Four to talk about hearing “Revolution 9” at a makeout party and how her music career began.

Osborne moved to New York City to attend film school at NYU in the late 1980s, dropping out after becoming involved in the city’s downtown music scene. In 1991, Osborne formed her own record label Womanly Hips, releasing her first album Soul Show: Live at Delta 88. She later signed with Mercury Records, and in 1995 she made her major label debut with the album Relish, which reached the Top 10 on the back of “One of Us,” an international hit that propelled Osborne to stardom.

Osborne has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards, and has performed duets with such icons as Luciano Pavarotti, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Patti Smith, Emmylou Harris, and Isaac Hayes. She has toured with Mavis Staples, the post-Jerry Garcia Grateful Dead, and Motown's Funk Brothers, while also performing for the Dalai Lama at his monastery in Dharmsala, India. She also regularly records and performs with Trigger Happy, founded by Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman.

This summer, she will go on tour in support of her latest album Nobody Owns You.

On this episode, acclaimed actor and Beatles fan Jeff Daniels joins “Everything Fab Four” to discuss his experience filming a movie scene with George Harrison and getting his guitar signed by the Quiet Beatle.

Across his five decade-long career, Jeff Daniels has worked with some of the world’s most revered filmmakers. He made his screen debut in Miloš Forman's Ragtime, and followed with James L. Brooks's Terms of Endearment, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Mike Nichols's Heartburn. Daniels has been nominated for numerous Golden Globe and Screen Actors Awards for his dramatic turns, including such films as Jonathan Demme's Something Wild and Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale.

In 2012, Daniels joined the cast of HBO’s political drama The Newsroom, which earned him a Prime Time Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Playing Will McAvoy, Daniels’ monologue about American exceptionalism in the series pilot has been viewed more than 22 million times on YouTube. His acclaimed television work also includes his portrayal of John O'Neill in the Hulu miniseries The Looming Tower and FBI director James Comey in Showtime’s The Comey Rule.

In May 2024, stars in the new Netflix limited series A Man In Full, based on Tom Wolfe’s novel of the same name.

English-American music icon Billy Idol joins Everything Fab Four to discuss the exhilaration of being a Beatle fan “in real time” and how his voice was mistaken for Paul McCartney’s.

Billy Idol began his rock n roll career as the guitarist for Chelsea, subsequently achieving renown on the London punk rock scene in the 1970s, when he performed as the lead singer for Generation X. His career truly exploded in the 1980s when he moved to New York City to pursue a solo career working in collaboration with guitarist Steve Stevens. His eponymous debut LP yielded monster hits in “White Wedding” and “Dancing with Myself,” while his 1983 sophomore album Rebel Yell achieved double-platinum success on the heels of “Eyes without a Face” and the sizzling title track “Rebel Yell.” 

Over the years, he has continued to burnish his star on the shoulders of such albums as Whiplash Smile, Charmed Life, Cyberpunk, Devil’s Playground, and, most recently, Kings and Queens of the Underground.

In 2024, Rebel Yell was remastered in a deluxe new edition to celebrate Billy’s incredible 40-year run as one of music’s most beloved, and most notorious, artists.