Greg Kihn, the singer-songwriter whose band scored hits with “Jeopardy” and “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ’Em),” in the 1980s and who went on to become a popular radio disc jockey, died on Tuesday at health care facility in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was 75.
The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a statement posted on his website on Thursday.
Mr. Kihn rose to fame in the early 1980s as the frontman of the Greg Kihn Band, a California pop group. Mr. Kihn crafted songs that blended folk, classic rock, blues and pop. He’d achieved some success with several songs before his first big hit, “The Breakup Song,” written with Steve Wright, the band’s bass guitarist, reached No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1981.
“I can tell you, life with a hit record is much better than life without a hit record,” Mr. Kihn said in a 2011 interview on the website LikeTotally80s.
The band’s biggest hit, “Jeopardy,” which he also wrote with Mr. Wright, reached the No. 2 spot on the Hot 100 chart in 1983.
The “Jeopardy” music video was practically on a loop on MTV that year. Weird Al Yankovic parodied the song with “I Lost on Jeopardy,” which featured Don Pardo, who for many years was an announcer on the “Jeopardy” television game show. Mr. Kihn, who said in interviews he was flattered to be parodied, also appeared at the end of Weird Al’s video for the song, driving a convertible with the license plate “LOSER.”
In the mid-1990s, Mr. Kihn became a morning radio disc jockey for the classic rock radio station KFOX in the San Francisco Bay area, a job he held until 2012.
In 2017 he released “ReKihndled,” his first studio album in more than 20 years.
He also published six novels.
Gregory Stanley Kihn was born on July 10, 1949, in Baltimore. He moved to the San Francisco Bay area in the early 1970s, The San Francisco Examiner reported.
Mr. Kihn is survived by his wife, Jay Arafiles-Kihn;a son, Ryan Kihn; a daughter, Alexis Harrington-Kihn; a sister, Laura Otremba; and two grandchildren.
In an August 2018 interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mr. Kihn said he had had great opportunities throughout his career.
“I look back on my career and it’s been a stunning success, and I love that it was varied,” Mr. Kihn said. “I’ve been very blessed.”
A complete obituary will follow.
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