April 12 (UPI) — John Warren Geils, who in the 1960s formed the popular J. Geils Band that produced the hits “Centerfold” and “Love Stinks” in the 1980s, was found dead at his Groton, Mass., home Tuesday. He was 71.
Groton Police Chief Donald Palma confirmed Geils’ death to the Boston Globe in an e-mail: “He has passed.”
The band is best known for its album “Freeze Frame” and the song “Centerfold,” which hit No. 1 for six weeks in 1981.
Geils formed the band during his time at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he studied mechanical engineering, with Danny Klein, Magic Dick Salwitz, Stephen Jo Bladd and Peter Wolf, with Seth Justman becoming the last member before the band released its debut album in 1970.
The band has been nominated four times for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
According to their Facebook page, the band started as an acoustic blues trio in the mid-1960s as Snoopy and the Sopwith Camels.
“I’ve never considered myself just a blues player or just a rock player or anything like that,” Geils once said. “I just go with whatever it feels right to play at the time.”
In 1980,the band released “Love Stinks,” their first platinum-selling record, and hit No.1 with their 12th album “Freeze-Frame,” which included “Centerfold.”
The band officially split in 1985, but began to play the occasional reunion show in 1999. Geils officially quit the group in 2012 and sued his bandmates for conspiring to go on tour without him and unlawfully using the band’s trademarked name.
Geils, who released two albums with his band Bluestime in the mid-1990s, returned to his jazz roots with three solo records in the 2000s.
