Peter Wolf Is Born

Peter Wolf (born Peter W. Blankfield, March 7, 1946, Bronx, New York) is an American rock and roll musician, best known as the lead vocalist for the J. Geils Band from 1967 to 1983.

He planned a career as an artist, but got a job in the late 1960s as a disc jockey on then-cutting edge Boston FM radio station WBCN and began exploring his interest in blues and rhythm and blues music, giving himself the nickname "the Wolfa Goofa", sometimes expanded to "the Wolfa Goofa with the Green Teeth"(as mentioned in the intro to "Musta Got Lost" on the Blow Your Face Out album. Later as solo artist he called himself Woofa Goofa Mama Toofa). He formed a group called the Hallucinations who performed with The Velvet Underground, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters,Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, and Sun Ra. He then saw the J. Geils Blues Band in concert and quickly joined. He was the vocalist and frontman, and often acted as a sort of manager. He was known for his charismatic stage antics of fast-talking quips and "pole-vaulting" with the mic stand. He and keyboard player Seth Justman were responsible for most of the song writing. Creative differences followed their Freeze-Frame album, causing the J. Geils Band and Peter Wolf to part ways in 1983.

The J. Geils Band (pronounced "Guiles") is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Worcester, Massachusetts, that had a successful R&B-influenced blues-rock sound in the 1970s, before moving towards a more pop-influenced sound in the 1980s, which brought them MTV airplay and their 1982 international hit single, "Centerfold." Since their initial break-up in 1983, the band has reunited several times.