‘Badder than ever’: Delaware rocker Thorogood returns for first fair gig
Courtesy Delaware State News
George Thorogood has only one request when he and the Destroyers play the Delaware State Fair Friday night.
Keep those mosquitoes away.
“Delaware mosquitoes are the worst. They are deadlier than the cobras in India,” he proclaimed.
Mr. Thorogood should know, having grown up in Wilmington, graduating from Brandywine High School in 1968, and going on to become perhaps Delaware’s best-known musical export.
He and his band play their first professional gig Downstate Friday at the Delaware State Fair during a stop on their Badder Than Ever Tour.
The Fabulous Thunderbirds will open the 7:30 p.m. show at the fair’s M&T Grandstand.
At 66 years old, George Thorogood, who grew up in Wilmington, still plays about 100 dates a year all around the world. (Submitted photo/Mitchell Glotzer)
While it is surprising to learn that the First State favorite has never played Kent or Sussex County since hitting it big, he does recall a gig at the Dover Air Force Base many years ago.
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George Thorogood keeps the blues rockin' hard
By Ed Symkus More Content Now
It doesn’t matter that George Thorogood and the Destroyers have never cracked the Top 10.
Their rock-blues-boogie is instantly recognizable, whether the first sound you hear is the purposely distorted buzz of Thorogood’s big Gibson guitar or the nasty, raspy growl of his voice.
Even without hit status, a handful of the band’s songs — “Bad to the Bone;” “Move It on Over;” “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” — get regular play on classic rock radio. Thorogood and his longtime Destroyers lineup of Jeff Simon (drums), Bill Blough (bass), Jim Suhler (lead guitar), and Buddy Leach (sax) are in the middle of yet another summer-long cross-country tour.
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George Thorogood: Still bad to the bone
Courtesy Shore News Today
In 1973, a barely-out-of-his-teens Wilmington guitarist piled his gear into a fellow musician’s Chevy van, and they drove off to play their very first gig at a University of Delaware dorm. More than four decades and 8,000 live shows later, that same guitar slinger is still considered one of the most bad-to-the-bone performers in rock.
It’s 2016, and George Thorogood & The Destroyers are badder than ever.
For Thorogood and his longtime band – Jeff Simon on drums and percussion, Bill Blough on bass guitar, Jim Suhler on rhythm guitar and Buddy Leach on saxophone – their new Badder Than Ever Tour is proof that staying true to yourself and your music can still mean something, according to his official biography.
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George Thorogood returns to Ocean City after 30-year absence
BY DAVID SPATZ
Because he grew up entrenched in the music of great blues artists, George Thorogood naively thought everybody was familiar with the uniquely all-American genre.
So it was something of a jarring wakeup call for the singer, songwriter and guitarist when his first band, The Delaware Destroyers — later simply the Destroyers — began looking to spread their wings and gain some nightclub experience. One of the first places they set their sights on was the Jersey Shore bar scene.
Thorogood knew that shore bars proved to be good training grounds for bands who took music seriously and weren’t just a bunch of college kids with marginal musical talent who formed bands and wrangled summer gigs with the express purpose of meeting girls.
“We went and asked the clubs for gigs, we just didn’t get any,” Thorogood says and he looks back across a career that spans over 40 years. “We asked everybody. Gigs were hard to find for us. We were just a three-piece band playing boogie blues.”
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