Peter Wolf Blames Radio for Dividing Music Fans

Back in 1981, the Rolling Stones put together a dream rock 'n' soul revue, inviting the J. Geils Band, George Thorogood and a young singer named Prince to join them for a sold-out show at the L.A. Coliseum. While the Stones and Geils wear their soul influences proudly and Thorogood is a bluesman, the predominantly rock crowd was not ready for the flamboyant Prince, throwing bottles and other objects at the singer until he was forced to flee the stage.

Though it obviously didn't hurt Prince's career, J. Geils frontman Peter Wolf is still ashamed of the crowd 29 years later. "Yeah, that was terrible, wasn't it?" he asks Spinner. "What was so sad about it was he was asked to be on because Mick Jagger and myself included were such huge fans." So what happened? "The fans on that hot afternoon didn't quite understand it."

Those kinds of cross-music bills were always big, as Wolf points out. "If you look at the shows at the Fillmore by Bill Graham you would see Muddy Waters on the same bill with the Band, who was on the same bill with Eric Dolphy or something," he says, blaming rock radio for causing the divide. "There were always exceptions -- you had Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone -- but I think AOR was very segregated," he says.

Wolf agrees that with iTunes and festivals like Bonnaroo placing all music side by side, fans might be more open-minded now. "The color lines in music have broken down and even someone like Taylor Swift can relate to a lot of young people in rock 'n' roll and country," he says.

For Wolf, that reflects his own music tastes as heard on his upcoming albums, 'Midnight Souveniers.' "What I tried to do with 'Midnight Souvenirs' is make it encapsulate my interests, because there are country influences," he says. "If you listen to a song like 'Overnight Lows,' there's definitely an homage to the Philly sound and if you listen to something like 'There Is No Time,' it's more sort of an episodic rocker. There are a lot of different textures there and that's kind of what my tastes are about and when I'm listening to music at night or going to music it's open territory. I'll go from A to Z."