Peter Wolf (producer)

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For the former lead singer of The J. Geils Band, see Peter Wolf.

Peter Wolf is a multiple Grammy nominated composer, producer, songwriter and arranger. He was knighted and awarded with the highest honor from his birth country of Austria: "Das Groesse Ehrenkreuz der Republik Oesterreich fuer Kunst und Kultur" (the Great Honor Cross of the Republic of Austria for Art and Culture).

Wolf was born in Vienna, Austria. Wolf studied classical piano at Vienna’s Conservatory of Music and, at the age of 16, won the European Jazz Festival as a solo pianist. He was awarded twice with the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, a German award, for his work on Andre Heller and Erika Pluhar. Wolf came to America in his early 20’s and played keyboards for Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in the late 70’s. He was one of America’s top ranking studio keyboardists and arrangers from 1980 to 1985 and became very successful as a music producer and songwriter.^{[citation needed]}

Peter Wolf wrote eight #1 songs and produced, arranged and/or written for a wide range of musical talents including

• Jefferson Starship (“We Built This City” and “Sara”)
• The Commodores (“Nightshift”),
• Wang Chung (“Everybody Have Fun Tonight”, “Let’s Go”)
• El Debarge (“Who’s Johnny” from “Short Circuit”)
• GO WEST (“King of Wishful Thinking” from the movie, “Pretty Woman”, “Faithful”)
• Heart (“These Dreams”, “What About Love”)
• Patti Labelle (“On My Own”)
• Kenny Loggins (“Playing With The Boys” from the movie, “Top Gun”, “Avalon”)
• Escape Club (“I’ll Be There”)
• And more: Pablo Cruise, Grace Slick, Santana, The Pointer Sisters, Chicago, Cliff Richard, Natalie Cole, The Scorpions, N’Sync, Oleta Adams, Sergio Mendes, Joe Sample and The Who.

In addition to his career in the world of rock and popular music Wolf has also scored a number of major motion pictures including the 1993 hit “Never-ending Story III”, and “Weekend at Bernie’s II”. Wolf has also composed many scores in Europe including the new animated picture for the recently Oscar-awarded “Best Foreign Film” producer, Sven Ebeling, entitled “Nutcracker and Mouse King” featuring a star-studded cast which was nominated for the Deutscher Filmpreis. He scored Leon DeWinter’s movie “The Hollywood Sign”, starring Rod Steiger, Burt Reynolds and Tom Berenger.

Wolf’s impressive compositional credits also include the score for the number one German picture in 1997 “Irren Ist Maennlich”(To Err is a Males Thing), as well as films such as “Die Cellistin”(The Cellist), “Widows”, “St. Pauli Nacht”(St. Pauli Night) and “The Fearless Four”. Peter Wolf is currently composing songs and score for the new American picture “Band on the Run” to be released in 2008. In 1995 Wolf received the “Billy Wilder Award” of the Austrian Film Academy and University of Vienna.^{[citation needed]}

With 75 million records sold, Peter Wolf was voted the second most successful musician of the last century by "Der Wiener" (The Viennese) Austrian magazine magazine, trailing only Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.^{[citation needed]}