Dr. Dwight Wolf once owned 13 guitars, but he thought that number was unlucky, so he added more. He won’t say how many guitars he owns today, but he plays in four different bands when he’s off the clock.
“I grew up in Southeast Texas,” Wolf said. “Whenever I was a teenager, you either played sports or you played music, and I played music.”
Wolf, 59, is vice chair of clinical services for the Department of Psychiatry at UTMB and the outpatient medical director for the psychiatry clinics at UTMB.
“And I am the chair of the two institutional review boards that review all human subject research,” he said. “I teach and see patients, and I see patients with my trainees.”
Away from work, he plays guitar, sings lead and writes songs with his band, Alligator Handshake. The music spans everything from classic country from the ‘50s and ‘60s to the Great American Songbook, from Frank Sinatra to surf music to rockabilly.
Wolf also plays with Kevin Anthony and G Town.
“Kevin’s a singer-songwriter and does a lot of original music,” Wolf said. “It's a lot of Cajun and country. And I got a chance to play on the last two studio albums that Kevin recorded.”
The third band he is in is Joel Mora and the Honey Badgers, a kind of rockabilly-punk band. Mora owns the Old Quarter Acoustic Café in Galveston. That’s also where rehearsals take place.
“And then the fourth band that I play with, I've played with probably the longest,” Wolf said. “It's a band called Midlife Crisis, which is a group of doctors and lawyers here in Galveston. We've been together for over 20 years.”
He rehearses about 30 hours a week with the bands. Most Sundays, Wolf also plays at an open-jam hootenanny at Galveston Island Brewing Co.
Wolf balances his professional work and his music with well-organized passion.
“I work hard at my job and put my full efforts into that,” he said. “Then, when I'm not at work, I put time really focusing on playing. I've kind of gotten past the point of practicing being a duty, and now I just I play. It's just sort of like breathing or eating. I just play music. It's really part of my life.”
Bridge City boys
Wolf and his twin brother learned to play guitar when they were growing up in Bridge City, near Beaumont and close to the Louisiana border.
It’s an area thick with music. George Jones was from Beaumont. So were Johnny and Edgar Winter. Janice Joplin was from Port Arthur.
“And then just across the border, you know, there was always that Cajun influence,” he said.
Learning to play the guitar was hard for Wolf as a 10-year-old, but gradually he got it and started enjoying it and learning how to play well with others. Now, it’s intuitive for him.
“Generally, songs are structured in a similar fashion, so you know where the next note or the next chord is going,” Wolf said. “You can anticipate the next chord change because the structures are there. It's hard to explain, but there are rules for songs and songwriting, and if you play enough, you begin to anticipate how the song is structured and what the next change will be. I can play along with any song that comes up pretty much.”
The Wolf brothers played in a band through high school and college. They played mostly country music, some rock, but then they took a hiatus when both brothers got into medical school at UTMB. They sold their equipment and moved to Galveston in 1986. Wolf has been at UTMB ever since, including his residency and every other step in his medical and academic career.
Wolf didn’t play much music for the first couple of years of medical school, but in his third year, he picked the guitar back up.
“I’ve been pretty busy with music ever since,” he said. “I was mostly playing for myself, just getting back into it. During my residency or shortly thereafter, I joined up with these guys in Midlife Crisis and started playing guitar for them. From that time onward, I've pretty much been immersed in in music.”
His twin, Dr. Dwayne Wolf, is a forensic pathologist who recently retired. He still plays guitar, bass and banjo.
Mindfulness
Wolf’s creative outlet has beneficial side effects. In the medical field, burnout is a significant issue, and playing music is one thing that can help.
“One of the ways to prevent burnout is to practice mindfulness, which is being in the moment,” Wolf said. “Playing music is an example of mindfulness. I mean, you're really, truly in the moment. You're really, truly listening to the other people that are playing. You're working on how you fit within that context. You truly have to be present in the moment to do this and to do it well.
“One of the most important qualities for a musician is the ability to listen. A lot of very good musicians or very technically competent musicians don't have that skill,” he said. “It's a team activity if you're playing with other people or playing in a band, but you really have to be aware and you really have to be listening to everything that's happening because everything that you play has to fit within that context. If you're not adding to that, then you're distracting from it.”
Wolf sees other parallels between practicing medicine and playing music.
“You can never master the instrument, no matter how much you play,” Wolf said. “We don't actually master medicine, we practice medicine. So, you can't master either of those things. When I'm with patients, I'm truly in the moment.”
And when he is playing for an audience, he’s focused on them also.
“You hope that the audience enjoys the music and that you've helped other people enjoy time spent listening at that event that you're playing,” Wolf said.
One Friday night this October, some people came up to the stage as the band was finishing. Wolf recognized one couple. They had come to dance to the music many times over the years. On this particular night, they told Wolf how much they enjoyed coming, how much they look forward to hearing the band and how much they always looked forward to dancing.
“It's a really rewarding kind of experience whenever people express gratitude for the pleasure that they get from hearing the music that you’re creating,” Wolf said.