J. Geils, guitarist for the J. Geils Band that bears his name, sits down with Emily Rooney Feruary 4 for an entire episode of Greater Boston. We’ll be posting outtakes from Geils home all week.
In this installment, J. explains why he’d be happy just strumming his guitar big-band style, and plays a bit.
On His Influences:
“These are some of my favorite guys: Freddie King, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, B.B. [King]. That’s Dwayne Allman, that’s Barry Tashian, a good friend of mine, people might remember from Barry and the Remains. Here’s Buddy guy and Junior Wells. I first played with them at the Unicorn the summer of ’67. They came to see us, and we were awful.”
On his guitar collection:
“This is a Stromberg with a Charlie Christian pickup that somebody put in. It’s very cool. Stromberg is an independent guitar maker in Boston. Downtown behind Filene’s somewhere. But the big three was Gibson, Epiphone, Fender came along later. And then the two major independent guys were D’Angelico in New York, and Stromberg in Boston. A lot of the big bands played Stromberg.