Courtesy: The Guardian

‘There was a lot of fighting and drinking at our shows. We played for bikers, for Hell’s Angels. We would break records for beer sales everywhere we played’

George Thorogood, songwriter/vocals/guitar

Before Bad to the Bone, we just played obscure blues songs from the archives. But when we toured with the Rolling Stones, I noticed the reaction to their Start Me Up. I said: “Man, we’d better hurry up and write an original song with a catchy intro or, five years from now, people will go, ‘Oh yeah, George Thorogood – wasn’t he good at playing Chuck Berry or something?’”

Bad to the Bone is a male fantasy. Let’s face it: every guy wants to be bad. We were raised on Hollywood movies and all those tough guys, like Bernardo from West Side Story, or Howlin’ Wolf – we opened for him in 1974 and he had a ferocious reputation.

Johnny Cash’s advice for songwriters was to write down a bunch of words that rhyme then work around that. So I started with “bone”. Then I remembered that in our neighbourhood, the word “bad” meant “cool”. Like, Steve McQueen was cool, but James Bond was bad, y’know?

First, we shopped the song to Muddy Waters, but his manager got very irritated, saying Muddy would never record a blues song by a white guy. And I said: “That’s a bunch of horse manure.” If Eric Clapton or Keith Richards had written it, they’d have recorded it in a minute. But me being a nobody from Delaware, they turned us down.

Recording is expensive, so we rehearsed Bad to the Bone so that it wouldn’t take long when we got in the studio. The stutter in the vocal just seemed natural to me. In 1965, there was “talking about my g-g-g-generation”. A decade later, there was “b-b-b-baby you just ain’t seen nothing yet”. Every 10 years in rock’n’roll, something is up for grabs.

I didn’t have any expectations for Bad to the Bone. But when classic rock radio stations got hold of the song, it took off. They played it right next to Led Zeppelin, Steve Miller and the Stones, and the young people listening just figured: “Well, Bad to the Bone is a classic.”

Then it appeared in Terminator 2. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not somebody to be trifled with. We got a call from him saying in his Terminator voice: “Your song. Give it to me. Now.” It was perfect for the biker and bar fight scenes, because it was rough. There was a bit of violence, but it was tongue-in-cheek.

That’s the whole idea of the song. None of us in the band are tough guys. Bad to the Bone brings out the lion in the mouse, but it’s not to be taken that seriously. It’s an over-masculine chuckle. These days, I’ll be pushing a baby buggy and some people will go: “Oh, you’re supposed to be some kind of bad guy, huh?” And I’m like: “Well, y’know, even wolves have babies – it doesn’t make ’em any less bad!”

Jeff Simon, drums

I remember being in George’s house in Delaware when he came in saying: “Hey, I’m working on this song.” He hadn’t done a lot of writing before that, but at some point you have to make that step, because material is everything.

We started out with a lot of blues influences, like Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters. Bad to the Bone was right along those lines. It has a popular hook and similar things have been done many times before. We’re equal-opportunities thieves: we steal from everybody. And everybody does it. You take your influences and make them your own.

Bad to the Bone is not Beethoven – we just went in there and knocked it out. And George isn’t Tom Jones, but he really delivered that vocal. I didn’t chart out my drum part, I just played what felt right. But later I had an interesting conversation with Joey DeFrancesco – a musical genius who played with Miles Davis. He told me my intro reminded him of something [jazz great] Elvin Jones would’ve played. And I thought: “Well, that’s the only time our names will be said in the same sentence.”

There was a lot of drinking at our shows. We would break records for beer sales everywhere we played. And there was fighting. One time, we were playing at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver and the crowd were just going at it. George put his guitar down and jumped off the stage to break it up. We played for a lot of bikers too. One time, these Hells Angels came in demanding Born to be Wild. We said: “Sorry, we don’t know that one.” They said: “You’re gonna play it.”

But our most memorable performance of Bad to the Bone was at Universal Studios, when they opened the Terminator ride in 1996. It was a big production, with Arnold coming down on to the stage from a helicopter. That was something, y’know?

 The Baddest Show on Earth: Greatest Hits Live is released on 12 June, and the band play the UK on 29/30 June

The Musicians Hall of Fame inducted a new class of members during a Nashville ceremony on April 28.

By Jessica Nicholson | Billboard.com

Back Row, L-R: Linda Chambers, Co-Founder and CEO of the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum; Don Felder, Britt Chambers-Hawker, Artist Relations, Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum; Keith Urban, John Boylan, Moira Hopkins, Dann Huff, Michael McDonald, Leland Sklar, Ricky Skaggs, Richie Owens Front Row: George Thorogood & The Destroyers L-R: Buddy Leach, Bill Blough, George Thorogood, Jeff Simon, Jim SuhlerRoyce DeGrie/ The Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum

On April 28, the Musicians Hall of Fame welcomed a dozen new members, as it inducted its ninth class during a ceremony held at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Belmont University.

Dann Huff, Dolly Parton (recipient of the industry icon award), George Thorogood & the Destroyers, John Boylan (recipient of the producer award), Keith Urban, Leland Sklar, Michael McDonald and the late Nicky Hopkins were all inducted.

The evening launched with a private medallion ceremony, held in the Fisher Center’s Brad Paisley Ballroom, where Linda Chambers, Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum co-founder and CEO, presented Hall of Fame medallions and custom-made jackets to honorees, with help from guests and 2016 Musicians Hall of Fame inductees Ricky Skaggs and Don Felder.

Later, actor/musician Sam Palladio oversaw an all-star concert held to celebrate the honorees.

The Musicians Hall of Fame all-star band featured musicians Brent Rader, Mark Beckett, Paul Franklin, Mark Hill, Chris Leuzinger, John Jarvis, Michael Rojas, Sam Levine, Eric Darken, Alicia Enstrom, and Gordon Kennedy, as well as background vocalists Marcia Ware Wilder, Brent Rader and Tania Hancheroff.

Dweezil Zappa presented George Thorogood & The Destroyers (Thorogood, Jeff Simon, Bill Blough, Jim Suhler and Buddy Leach) with a Musicians Hall of Fame accolade, and joined the band for their first song, “Move It On Over.” The band followed with “Who Do You Love” and “Bad to the Bone.”

“With humility, we say thank you,” Thorogood told the audience in accepting the induction.

Producer/music executive Tony Brown honored bassist Sklar, known for his work with artists including James Taylor, Carole King and Lyle Lovett. Wendy Moten sang a powerful rendition of “Running on Empty” and Garth Brooks performed a joyous version of “How Sweet It Is.”

“You guys all light the paths that the rest of us try to follow,” Brooks told the evening’s honorees.

Bernie Leadon presented the accolade to John Boylan, known for his production work on Boston’s self-titled debut, as well as multiple albums recorded by Linda Ronstadt (whom he has also managed), Charlie Daniels Band and many more. Johnson performed “More Than a Feeling,” and Trisha Yearwood performed the Ronstadt-recorded songs “Love Has No Pride” as well as “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” joined by Felder and Alicia Enstrom.

To honor guitarist Dann Huff, known for his work as a producer and musician on scores of albums (including a 25-year relationship working with fellow inductee Urban), but also for his keen guitar skills on albums by everyone from Michael Jackson to Kenny Rogers and Taylor Swift — and even on the Celine Dion smash “My Heart Will Go On” from the Titanic soundtrack. Along the way, Huff also performed as part of the Christian rock band White Heart.

Wendy Moten performed “My Heart Will Go On.”

Huff told the audience, “I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I know it’s cliche to say this, but just to be inducted in the class with these people, it’s astounding.”

Peter Frampton honored the late pianist Nicky Hopkins, known for his work on albums by The Who, The Beatles, The Kinks and The Rolling Stones. Frampton called Hopkins “a piano player’s piano player,” while Hopkins was honored by performances of “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Revolution” and “Angie.” Vince Gill then sang a tender rendition of “You Are So Beautiful.” Hopkins’ wife Moira accepted the honor on his behalf.

Sheryl Crow presented the honor to Parton, who shared her acceptance remarks via a pre-recorded video message. While Parton is known for writing and performing all-time country hits like “9 to 5” and “Jolene,” she is also a multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, banjo, piano, dulcimer and more.

“I am very humbled to be inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame,” Parton said. “My songwriting is more important to me than anything, but as much as I’ve crafted lyrics in my mind, and then eventually started writing them down on paper, I realized early on that if I was going to write songs, I needed to be able to play instruments to bring them to life. I knew this would allow people to hear them in ways that I heard them playing in my head… I understood how important it was to speak to the instrumentation. I learned to communicate what I wanted to hear on records because I could play them.”

Guitarist-vocalist-writer Steve Wariner then performed a medley of Parton hits including “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors” and “9 to 5.”

Gill and Skaggs presented the honor to Urban, who then took the stage to perform renditions of “Long Hot Summer,” “When Summer Comes Around” and “Who Wouldn’t Wanna Be Me.”

“This is a bit surreal honestly,” Urban said in accepting his honor. To his fellow honorees, he said, “It’s a huge honor to be with every one of you in this class, it’s insane.” He said of his fellow inductee Huff, “I’ve grown so much from Dann about just being a better musician. I think when we started working together, I was just all stubble and rough as hell and all disheveled, like, that’s a vibe, let’s move on, next song. And Dann, who was from the Mutt Lange world, was like… play that solo 464 frickin’ times more. There was that learning curve. Somewhere in between the way the two of us were making records was how we ended up making records and I’m so honored that 25 years later we’re still making records together and have a new album coming out that we both got to do [Urban’s newly-announced yacht rock album Flow State, out June 12].”

Gill also presented the Musicians Hall of Fame accolade to McDonald, saying, “He possesses maybe the most identifiable voice.”

McDonald then sat at a keyboard to perform rousing versions of “What a Fool Believes” and “I Keep Forgettin'” and was then joined by his fellow honorees and the evening’s presenters for an all-star rendition of “Takin’ It To The Streets.”

Following the induction of the new members, the Musicians Hall of Fame has now inducted 200 musicians, producers, engineers and other industry members.

“Each new class of inductees reminds us why we do what we do — preserving and celebrating the legacy of the musicians who bring songs to life,” Chambers said in a statement. “We couldn’t be more excited to welcome these artists into the Musicians Hall of Fame.”

Throughout the evening, many also paid tribute to a producer and musical colleague who had been heavily involved in the making of the event, Musicians Hall of Fame Induction producer Cliff Downs, who died April 24 following a battle with cancer.

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