Sometimes Love Doesn't Smell So Sweet
If you're on the outside looking in, Boston has always seemed like an overgrown college town with a union or blue collar bent. So maybe it's not so surprising that the electronic music scene from Boston hasn't made much of an impact on the national or global music scene.
For that to happen, you'd have to go back to Boston (the band), who helped usher in corporate rock, and, more interestingly, to the J. Geils Band, who became stars in spite of it. Back then, because rock was still inventing itself, there was a tradition of bar bands, raucous, talented ensembles that specialized in covers of "race" music that people would actually dance to. (Black singers or groups that sounded "black" couldn't be played on the "segregated" radio stations, hence giving people like Pat Boone and Elvis Presley careers just for "whitening" up the music.)
And none was better than The J. Geils Band, especially after Peter Wolf, a disc jockey on a popular Boston FM station with an extensive knowledge of r&b and the blues, joined John Geils (guitarist), Danny "Dr. Funk" Klein (bass), Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz (harp), Stehen Jo Bladd (drums) and Seth Justman (organist). They performed an explosive, raw bluesy rock and roll, and was soon building a national reputation with underground hits like "First I Look at the Purse," "Ain't Nothin' But a Houseparty" and the perfectly obscene "Love Stinks" and a raucous live show.
Then, to everyone's surprise including their own, they released an album called Freeze Frame and watched the first single, "Centerfold," stay at number one on the Billboard charts for six weeks. That, plus the Rolling Stones' endorsement as their favorite American band and opening act for their inflatable penis stadium tour made the world J. Geils' oyster for a little while.
Exhibiting all the spunk of the city that made them, the golden moment didn't last long. Wolf fell in love with Faye Dunaway, then at the height of her fame, went to Hollywood, fed his ego a bit and left the band. The band tried, with diminishing success, to go on without Wolf but this was one of those "all or nothing" cases where the band only works when everyone is there. Since the last time they performed was at Dr. Funk's 60th birthday, don't expect a Spring Club Tour anytime soon.
