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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‘Bad to the Bone’ rocker returns to Happy Valley
Courtesy Centre Daily Times
Legendary rocker George Thorogood will return to Happy Valley on July 26 to play to a sold-out crowd at The State Theatre. Thorogood will bring along his longtime backing band, The Destroyers.
The slick slide guitarist discovered music early.
“I heard (music) on the radio just like everyone else,” Thorogood said. “I couldn’t sing like Roger Daltrey or Robert Plant. And, I certainly knew I wasn’t going to write ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ or ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash.’ I knew that wasn’t going to happen.”
Thorogood said he didn’t realize his potential on the six string until he heard it from his friends.
“I had other people come to me — friends of mine, accomplished guitarists — and they heard me fooling around doing John Lee Hooker-type stuff or Robert Johnson-type stuff or Jimmie Reed, and they said, ‘you know, you can really do that,’ ” Thorogood said.
