The J. Geils Band: An Appreciation

By Crispin Sartwell

In the seventies, which I traversed between the ages of 12 and 22, there was no doubt who my favorite band was (or, looking at it from another angle, who was my favorite band). I loved the Stones, who put out some masterpieces in the decade (Sticky Fingers, Exile, Some Girls). I loved AC/DC. I loved (loved) the Ramones. By the end, I was checking out Minor Threat and Black Flag.

But if you want me to tell you how a rock band should sound, I'd say they should sound like the J. Geils Band.

Now partly this was because I played (and play) harmonica, and the featured instrumentalist in Geils was Magic Dick. Dick is to rock harp what Hendrix is to rock guitar: utterly the man. Maybe within his instrument, Dick was more important. He invented a whole vocabulary for the rock harp. But unlike Hendrix, and incomprehensibly, he spawned almost no imitators; the only vaguely comparable figure was Lee Oskar, who played harp for War.

And Dick, looking back on it, is still the only real innovator on the instrument between here and Little Walter. (I might be wrong about that: if so, send me the fucking cds). Not that there haven't been great players: Rod Piazza, William Clarke, Kim Wilson, Gary Primich), just that they're all elaborating the blues styles that already existed.

I don't know why Dick's influence didn't make the harp a standard feature of a rock band. It sounded so damn good. Dick played absolutely clean, with amazing focus. I tried to learn every single riff off the records, but I *still* can't play Whammer Jammer note for note, much less find the right tone everywhere.

If I have any criticism of Dick, it's that he plays almost *too* clean, and Christ he was as perfect live as in the studio (I saw Geils with Mountain long about '74 at the Cap Center in DC, certainly one of the best of hundreds of rock concerts I've attended).

Anyway, the first four albums - The J. Geils Band, the Morning After, Live Full House, and Bloodshot - were damn near perfect soul/blues party music. My very favorite might even be the first, eponymous LP, where Dick just blew me away. But I loved them all. Ex-Boston-DJ Peter Wolf with that cool goatee, the money-symbol tux, the insane raps, the immense attitude. Later Peter married Faye Dunaway. How much better can you than that? Seth Justman, known as Tarzan, was a keyboard athlete. Wolf/Justman wrote the songs, but there was always maybe a certain tension, with Wolf a bit more of a Don-Covay soul fundamentalist and Justman ready to go in poppier, more synth-driven directions. J. Geils was a juicy if relatively low-key blues guitar player, and the rhythm section of bassist Danny Klein and (especially) drummer Stephen Jo Bladd, flat rocked.

Their first hit single was probably the first reggae song I ever heard, the semi-obscene Give it to Me from Bloodshot. But by that time they'd already recorded a round dozen rock classics, from Wait and Ice Breaker on the first album to First I Look at the Purse and Whammer Jammer and Hard Drivin Man etc etc.

The sound was essentially extremely direct blues-rock read through the history of rock bands like the Stones. In a way it was already neo-classical when it began: they were bringing back sixties soul, fifties electric blues and Brit Invasion rock and turning it all into a hyper-rowdy party soundtrack.

After Bloodshot they were good, but uneven. Ladies Invited showed them getting smoother, maybe keeping up a little with the black pop of the era. Also I wasn't going to like them as much after that because they de-emphasized the harp. And the writing tried to get a bit more sophisto, with mixed results. Dick continued to innovate, playing really amazing and fresh rhythm lines on songs in which you wouldn't have expected a harp.

But Dick could obviously still get it, as on the insane harp solo that starts Stoop Down on the album Nightmares. And they had a top ten hit (their first) with the good basic soul tune Musta Got Lost. They did an amazing version of the Supremes' Baby Don't Leave Me on a live double set.

By the time they had their next hit, Love Stinks, they were driven by Justman's keyboards and production. And then they hit like a motherfucker in the early eighties with Centerfold and Flamethrower off the Freeze Frame album.

They promptly fired Wolf, for reasons that remain obscure, at least to me. And then their goose was cooked. They made another album - You're Getting Even While I'm Getting Odd - with Justman and others on vocals. It was good pop, but the singing wasn't strong enough to carry it. Unforgivably, from my point of view, there only two harp soloes on the whole thing, though Dick was also playing a lot of great sax by then (1984). The album stiffed and the band called it quits.

Since then it's been surprisingly interesting. Justman produced some albums, notably Rock Bird by Debbie Harry, a neglected classic on which he also played keyboards.

Peter Wolf has struggled commercially, but not artistically. I've got three of his solo albums, and they're all frigging great: Lights Out, where he actually tried out some hip hop and other stuff, co-produced with Michael Jonzun and co-wrote the title track with Covay (!); Up to No Good, where he just rocked out in the classic vein (it would have been a perfect frame for Dick, dammit); and '99's Fool's Parade, a really beautiful, mellow soul record: just fucking perfect.

Magic Dick and J. Geils started a band called Bluestime that showed their hearts were in the tradition. But though there's some great playing on the Bluestime albums, Dick's vocals are kind of embarassing.

Geils reformed with a different drummer and toured briefly in '99. Is it too much to hope there might be another album or two in these guys? Shit, brothers, get it together. Swear to God, if you put it out, I'll buy it.