SAN FRANCISCO– Greg Kihn, a rock ‘n’ roll musician best known for his 1980s hits “Jeopardy” and “The Breakup Song,” has died.
Kihn died Tuesday of Alzheimer’s disease, his management team said in a statement on Kihn’s website. He was 75.
He was born on July 10, 1949 in Baltimore and moved to the San Francisco area in the 1970s. He was signed to Beserkley Records. With a songwriting style that blended folk, classic rock, blues and pop, his Greg Kihn Band had their first hit with “The Breakup Song,” released in 1981.
In 1983, the band’s song “Jeopardy” rose to No. 2 on the Billboard HOT 100 song chart, behind Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” The song was also regularly seen and heard in the early years of MTV.
Kihn’s albums often featured entertaining titles that played up his name – from ‘RocKihnRoll’ to ‘Kihntinued’ to ‘Kihntagious and ‘Citizen Kihn.
Martha Quinn, an original MTV VJ, posted this in her tribute on social media on Thursday. “My condolences go out to his loved ones and I thank Greg for the Rock KIHN Roll,” Quinn wrote.
“Weird Al” Yankovic did a parody of the song “Jeopardy” in the 1980s called “I Lost on Jeopardy.” Kihn said he loved it and that it gave his song more of an afterlife than it otherwise would have had, Variety reported.
“It was a brilliant parody,” Kihn said. “He invited me to appear in his video, and I had a ball.”
Kihn was also a longtime DJ beginning in the mid-1990s for KUFX radio in the San Francisco Bay Area and was a nationally syndicated late-night radio host.
Kihn also wrote novels and short stories.
On his birthday in July, Kihn posted on his Facebook page — addressing his fans as Kihnfolk — thanking them for the birthday wishes and apologizing for not posting an update in almost a year.
“After so many years of touring and doing radio shows… it’s finally time to relax,” the post said. “Thank you to all of you for all your love and support, now and over the years. Fuck off!”
