Richard Wolf

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Richard Wolf a.k.a. Richard “Wolfie” Wolf is a multi-Platinum selling record producer/songwrite/remixer & and Emmy Award winning film & television composer. Producing some of the seminal projects that were the first to fuse hip-hop with R&B pop, Wolf worked with artists including Prince, Bell Biv Devoe, Coolio, Seal, MC Lyte, Freddie Mercury and Sheena Easton. His work in film and television has spanned three decades and includes hit movies such as Rodney Dangerfield’s Back To School, the quirky war/anti-war pic Three Kings and long-running television shows such as America’s Next Top Model & Fox Sports Broadcasts.

Wolf’s first recordings were as a songwriter and guest vocalist for the Southern rock/funk band Crimson Tide. Wolf’s co-writer in the band was the legendary Muscle Shoals guitar player Wayne Perkins, who played with The Rolling Stones, Lynrd Skynrd, Joni Mitchell and Bob Marley. (Marley famously named Perkins “ the Great White Wonder” – see Catch a Fire: The Life of Bob Marley by Timothy White). Crimson Tide made two albums for Capitol Records, released 1979 – 1980, which enjoyed only limited regional and international success.

After Crimson Tide Wolf concentrated on writing songs for other artists and feature films. He wrote and produced several songs, including the theme, for the comedy classic Rodney Dangerfield’s Back To School. Other movies he worked on, including three other No.1 box office hits, were Karate Kid 2, Strictly Business, Madonna’s Who’s That Girl, Presumed Innocent, Three Kings, Scooby-Doo & The Cyber Chase and Material Girls. His songs were covered by Angela Bofill, Toni Basil, Tom Snow and SouthSide Johnny ( of SouthSide Johnny & The Jukes).

In 1989 Wolf formed a production team with his former studio intern Bret “Epic” Mazur which they named Peace Productions but later became known as Wolf & Epic. Wolf’s vision was to play live the kind of funk & R&B that was being sampled from old records by hip-hop producers and then sample the new performances and overlay scratching & other hip-hop techniques to give it a new dimension. Wolf played guitar & keyboards, Epic played drums and DJ’d, and other musicians were brought in to fatten the sound. The first project Wolf & Epic worked on was Laquan, a politically minded rapper that they signed to their production company and then to 4th & Broadway/Island Records. ( John Pareles in the The New York Times wrote that Laquan was “among the better new radical rappers.. and may be the most serious 16 year-old in Los Angeles”).This was one of the first rap records to combine a live band with hip-hop scratching, sampling & rapping.

Before they would help to pioneer the fusion of hip-hop & R&B, Wolf & Epic were on the cutting edge of a new jazzy variation of hip-hop that became known as acid jazz. The Laquan song “Witness The Drift” was included in the first ever acid jazz compilation Rebirth of The Cool that also included A Tribe Called Quest & Stetsasonic,

Wolf & Epic next worked on the triple-platinum selling Bell Biv Devoe album Poison. The project was noteworthy for being the first hit to bring “hip-hop smoothed out on the R&B Tip” to the top of both the R&B and the Pop charts. Wolf’s traditional songwriting and production skills and deep affinity for hip-hop along with Mazur’s talent for drumming, programming and DJ’ing were a timely combination that helped the former members of New Edition achieve their ambitious hybrid of pop, hip-hop and soul. Their production and Wolf’s wha-wha guitar playing on the remix of “Do Me”, which was the version used in the video of the song, the clubs and in substantial radio airplay, helped to propel the song’s climb to #3 on The Billboard Hot 100 chart. After “Do Me”, the funky wha-wha guitar sound, which had been largely absent in urban music during the ‘80’s, now came back to the airwaves with a new ferocity. The subsequent Wolf & Epic remix production of “BBD I Thought It Was Me ” made it to No.1 on the Hot R&B Chart. The remixes were so successful that MCA released an album of the remixes ‘WBBD - Bootcity! The Remix Album’ which reached #18 on both Billboard’s Hot 200 & The Top R&B Album Charts. The single from the album, which was only released as a video and radio single but not as a commercially available record, was the Wolf & Epic produced and written “ Word To The Mutha”. The video, which also featured the other New Edition members Bobby Brown, Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill, reached No.1 on MTV’s video Countdown.

Bell Biv Devoe’s popularity changed the course of urban music by making the fusion of soul and hip-hop a powerful new art form. And Wolf & Epic became “the hottest producing team of the early 1990’s” (Ruthless: A Memoir by Jerry Heller).

Their sound shaped projects with Prince, New Kids on the Block, MC Serch, Sheena Easton, Seal, Tyler Collins, Nona Gaye ( Marvin’s daughter), Nia Peeples and MC Lyte.

After Wolf & Epic amicably went their separate ways, Wolf continued to write, produce & remix records working on projects with Freddie Mercury, Coolio, Ce Ce Peniston, MC Lyte, Budahat ,( which contained the soon to be Dr.Dre partner and mega producer Mike Elizando), Ricky Bell and Johnny Gill, among others. But Wolf’s main focus became producing and composing themes, underscore and featured songs for movies and television. He composed numerous themes for the Fox Sports Network, including the Fox Sports Station ID theme. He scored the Warner Bros. animated cartoon “ Static Shock” which was always the No.1 show in it’s time slot. The score was noteworthy for combining hip-hop and electronica with traditional underscore and bringing an edgy urban soundtrack to Saturday morning cartoons. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized the soundtrack by twice nominating Wolf for the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Music Composition & Direction and awarding him the Emmy in 2004.

Wolf continues to compose custom underscore or songs for projects including America’s Next Top Model, N.C.I.S., Studio 60, ER, Las Vegas, The View, King Of The Hill, Charmed, The Pussycat Dolls and The Last Comic Standing.

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