(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The J. Geils Band, formed in Boston within a milieu of young Jewish students, reinvented garage rock and blues rock with an almost punk-like exuberance and an almost parodistic edge.
They debuted under the banner of the southern rock that was fashionable in the early 1970s, serving as a link to the Rolling Stones and the blues revival of the 1960s. On their side they had an unhinged singer like Peter Wolf, extremely skilled at mimicking doo-wop and shouting, the abrasive guitar of Jerome Jay Geils, the atmospheric organ of Seth Justman, and above all the harmonica of Magic Dick (Dick Salwitz), perhaps the greatest white musician ever on the instrument. J Geils Band (Atlantic, 1970), The Morning After (Atlantic, 1971), with Bobby Womacks Looking For A Love, and Full House (Atlantic, 1972), with Whammer Jammer, Dicks overwhelming masterpiece, were diligent works but certainly not revolutionary. Gradually Justman and Wolf began writing original songs, which took the place of the blues classics.
Thanks to the fractured reggae of Give It To Me, the pounding and obsessive funk rock of Houseparty, and the vehement jam Southside Shuffle, the album Bloodshot (Atlantic, 1973) instead catapulted them into the charts.
Ladies Invited (Atlantic, 1973) was a transitional album, but Nightmares (Atlantic, 1974) still included the noble boogie tension of Musta Got Lost and the satanic rhythm and blues of Detroit Breakdown.
After another transitional effort, Hotline (Atlantic, 1975), on Monkey Island (Atlantic, 1977) the nine minutes of sparkling hard rock of Monkey Island projected them into the wake of Led Zeppelin, but with a melodic and enthusiastic approach entirely their own, and marked the beginning of Justmans dominance, now also as producer. The new trademark of their sound was precisely Justmans organ, which drives their jovial songs with an unmistakable beach-like tonality.
Just Cant Wait, a Dylan-esque folk rock adapted for dance halls, comes from Sanctuary (EMI, 1978), which also contains One Last Kiss and Sanctuary. Love Stinks, a slow and demented blues from Love Stinks (Atlantic, 1980), is the song that clearly separates the bands serious career from its comic one.
Freeze Frame (EMI, 1981) was their new wave album and perhaps their best, or at least the most entertaining. The group dishes out Centerfold, a wild summer dance that harks back to 1960s bubblegum; Freeze Frame, a comic nursery rhyme stuffed with doo-wop backing vocals and handclaps and driven by a pounding, organ-led crescendo; the overwhelming rock and roll and doo-wop ditty I Do; and Angel In Blue, with Dick in splendid form now also on trumpet and sax.
A singles-oriented group, none of their albums is a masterpiece. Better is the anthology Best vol. 1 & 2 (Atlantic, 1981).
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Peter Wolf, more famous as Faye Dunaway's husband, launched a solo career
with Lights Out (EMI, 1984) and kept it alive with the more generic
Come As You Are (1987) and Up To No Good (1990),
the very personal Sleepless (Artemis, 2002) and
Midnight Souvenirs (2010).
In 2005 Jay Geils released albums of jazz music such as
Jay Geils Plays Jazz! (2005) and Jazzthing II (2007).
Geils died in 2017 at the age of 61.
