The J. Geils Band
American rock band

The J. Geils Band (formerly known as The J. Geils Blues Band) was an American rock band formed in 1967, in Worcester, Massachusetts, under the leadership of guitarist John "J." Geils. The original band members included vocalist Peter Wolf, harmonica, trumpet, and saxophone player Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz (lead blues singer before Wolf joined the band), drummer Stephen Bladd, vocalist/keyboardist Seth Justman, and bassist Danny Klein. Wolf and Justman served as principal songwriters. The band played R&B-influenced blues rock during the 1970s, and achieved commercial success before moving toward a more mainstream new wave sound in the early 1980s, which brought the band to its commercial peak.
They performed a mix of cover songs of classic blues and R&B songs, along with original compositions written primarily by Wolf and Justman, as well as some group compositions written under the pseudonymous name Juke Joint Jimmy. After Wolf left the band in 1983 to pursue a solo career, the band released one more album in 1984 with Justman and Bladd on lead vocals, before breaking up in 1985. Beginning in 1999, the band had several reunions until the death of its namesake, J. Geils, on April 11, 2017.
The band first released several Top 40 singles in the early 1970s, including a cover of the song "Lookin' For A Love" by The Valentinos (which reached No. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972), as well as the single "Give It to Me" (No. 30 in 1973).
“The J. Geils Band” enters the record as american rock band. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Geils, Band and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1542906. VIAF identifies the subject as 121011523. The Library of Congress control number is n82215278. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1983, 1984 and 1985.
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This entry incorporates text from “The J. Geils Band” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.