Tommy Wolf, songwriter: Reference Sources

In his New York Times review of Jackie Cain and Roy Kral singing and playing at The Village Vanguard in New York in 1962, John S. Wilson writes,

[Cain and Kral] have been singing both the songs and the praises of Tommy Wolf with such persistence that Mr. Wolf's star has risen along with their own. One of Mr. Wolf's songs, " Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most ," which Mr. Kral and Miss Cain began using eight years ago, has recently become one of the more favored staples in supper club circles. When Mr. Kral introduces other songs by Mr. Wolf now -- "Season in the Sun," "You Smell So Good," "Kill 'Em with Kindness" -- he advises his audiences that "they'll be quite famous in at least ten years" ( New York Times , Feb. 10, 1962 ) .

Ted Gioia suggests that Tommy Wolf is such a little known jazz composer that most people hearing his name associated with his more well known songs such as "Ballad of the Sad Young Men" and "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" might think they had encountered musical works written by one of his more famous literary namesakes (Thomas Wolfe who wrote Look Homeward Angel in the Thirties and Tom Wolfe who penned Bonfire of the Vanities in the Eighties. But Gioia writes that although the composer Tommy Wolf never enjoyed the fame that the other "Wolfes" (with an "e") did, he was "an exceptional songwriter, one of the most talented of his generation."

Gioia points out that although his compositions are not well known to the general public they are "prized by musicians for their poetry and sophistication."

Tommy Wolf was a pianist, composer, arranger, and musical director who met Fran Landesman while she was sitting in the bar of the Crystal Palace, a night club in St. Louis, while he was on the bandstand playing. This experience inspired her to begin writing song lyrics and in 1952 Wolf began setting her lyrics to music. More Landesman–Wolf collaborations followed including the melodies for the songs for the Broadway musical The Nervous Set.

Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball comment on the team of Wolf and Landesman writing that they produced a series of songs including the anthemic "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" and Ballad of the Sad Young Men" that Wolf would later refer to as "American Lieder," songs that "took on even more resonance in the age of AIDS" (p. 581).

• Ballad of the Sad Young Men

Research Resources: Tommy Wolf

• DBOPM (Database Of Popular Music: song list; awards; hit songs; co-writers)
• Discogs.com (songwriting and arranging credits)
• Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) (Broadway productions and song credits)
• Internet Movie Database (brief biography, filmography, movie song credits)
• FranLandesman.com (extensive biography of Wolf)
• The New York Times -- articles about or related to Tommy Wolf, including The New York Times (JohN S. Wilson reviews a Bobbi Rogers show of mostly Tommy Wolf songs in New York, 1980--PDF Adobe Reader required)
• Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball (Eds.), Reading Lyrics, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000 (pp. 581-585 overview of lyricist Fran Landesman includes lyrics to four Wolf melodies. See also above. Read the introduction to this book at NYTimes.com.
• David Jenness and Don Velsey, Classic American Popular Song: The Second Half-Century, 1950-2000, New York: Routledge, 2006 (sub-chapter on plus multiple references to Wolf).
• Ted Gioia, The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012 (entry for the Wolf song "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" including list of recommended recordings, pp. 392-394).
• Kenny Burrell, "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most": Ken James

Notes

• For best on-line biography of Tommy Wolf, see FranLandesman.com .
• Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most
• Kris Berg chart: arrangement to showcase the lead trombone and trombone section.
• Ted Gioia The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoir New York: Oxford University Press, 2012 .
• Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf
• Reading Lyrics , Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball, New York: Pantheon Books, 2000.
• The Nervous Set (1959 Original Broadway Cast)

Cite this page: Tommy Wolf, songwriter: Reference Sources, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songwriters/w_sws/wolf_tommy.html