Interview with Jeb Wright of Classic Rock Revisited

The Dean Martin of the Blues
by Jeb Wright

I remember driving around with the top down and the stereo cranked up listening to G.T. while wearing dark shades and drinking a beer. Whether it was “Back To Wentzville” or “Bad To The Bone” Thorogood’s music has always made me feel good. Hell, that is the point ain’t it? I mean his version of “One Bourbon, One Scotch & One Beer” is only matched by “I Drink Alone.” These two songs prove that it does not matter if George is writing a song or putting his own stamp on an oldie the result is the same: FUN.

It was a thrill to catch up with Thorogood as he is starting his tour in support of his new Eagle Rock Records release Ride Till I Die. The title is as true as the music. The new album is what one would expect from the self-acclaimed “Indiana Jones of the blues.” 12 bars, slide guitar and gravel voice. The tracks “American Made” and “Greedy Man” will be welcomed by people across the country this summer.

Be sure to visit Thorgood’s official site here and pick up a copy of Ride Till I Die. While you are there you can preview the new CD and listen to streaming audio of an hour long Thorogood concert. With summertime just around the corner you will be glad you did. Besides, we need to crank up Ride Till I Die and compete with the youngsters of today as we cruise down main street. Maybe we will turn a couple of kids on to an American made rock icon named George Thorogood in the meantime.
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Jeb: How does a white boy from Wilmington, Delaware end up being struck by the blues?

George: I don’t think it had anything to do with race. I was just really into blues music. Whatever you do in your life, whether it is working at a filling station or hanging out with jazz musicians, rubs off on you. The smorgasbord of life comes out. All I went to see were blues people so it just naturally rubbed off on me. I went to see the Who when the opened up for Herman’s Hermits. I didn’t want to hear Herman’s Hermits so after the Who was done I got up and left. If the Monkey’s were my thing then evidently I would come out sounding like that, wouldn’t I? The first act I ever saw was Chuck Berry. I was 16. He was the first national, premier act that I ever saw. After that I saw everybody. I was torn between rock and blues. I would see the Doors one week and Mississippi Fred McDowell the next. That is my background. I am white -- is that what I am? Robert DeNiro is an actor and he doesn’t know what the fuck he is! You just do what you do. Buddy Guy once said this about white people playing the blues, “The guitar does not know what color the fingers are.”

Jeb: I thought it was weirder that you were from Delaware than you being white….

George: Elvin Bishop grew up in Oklahoma. He got a scholarship to the University of Chicago. He had been listening to the radio in Oklahoma and he heard all this great music coming from Chicago. The first thing he did when he got there was ditch class and go down to Checkers Lounge and hear Muddy Watters. Maybe if I were from the Chicago area or Texas then I would have been exposed to it a little more.

Nobody came to Delaware so I had to go to the bands. I would go to Philly or New York or Boston and I would go see Muddy Waters. If BB King or Paul Butterfield were in New York then I would go see them. Look where The Stones are from, man. They are farther away from it then we were and look where they ended up!

Jeb: I want to talk about the new song “American Made.” What was your inspiration for writing that song?

George: I didn’t write it. A guy named Charlie Midnight wrote it.

Jeb: I thought that was one of yours.

George: That’s the idea (laughter). It is funny, the stuff we don’t write people go, “George, that is a great song you wrote” and the stuff we do write they go, “Is that a Muddy Waters song?” In a way it kind of works for us.

“American Made” is the kind of song we want to do. With all due respect to Grand Funk Railroad, a George Thorogood tour is the all American, cheeseburger, riding around drinking Budweiser event. That is our imagery. Naturally we wanted to have a song about the regular hardworking, blue collar American citizen. That is what this song is, nothing more and nothing less. That is what the band is. I am pleased that you picked up on that.

Jeb: How long has it been since you did a record?

George: The last studio record was four years ago.

Jeb: Why the break?

George: It gets hard to find the material and we didn’t have a label. EMI ran its course and they stopped doing business with us. We had a one record deal with CMC International. I wasn’t really hung up about it. The band was working and we were doing great. Last year we did a festival that was, in order of appearance, Loverboy, Blondie, us and then Robert Plant. We went on a whole tour with Steve Miller. I am doing good. I am batting leadoff for the big boys. That is a dream come true and that is what I set out to do anyway.

Jeb: I forgot about your live album in St. Louis.

George: That was done at the Fox Theater.

Jeb: I saw you with Steve Miller the next day in Sandstone in Kansas City.

George: I must have been a mess.

Jeb: Steve Miller had a hard time following you.

George: There is only one Steve Miller. That was the dream tour. Stevie ‘Guitar’ Miller is a blues guitarist. You can count them on one hand. There is Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Elvis -- nah--, the Stones, Zeppelin, ZZ Top and Steve Miller. They all started off in the blues and broke over and became a rock act.

Once you cut a song like “Satisfaction” you’re a rock act forever. There is no going back. After “Fly Like An Eagle” or “The Joker” or “Rocking Me Baby” -- you can kiss my ass if that is not the All-American rock song.

Jeb: What about “Bad To The Bone”?

George: It’s something but I don’t know what the hell it is! It fits in there somewhere. My point being that once you cross over that line you cross over that line for good. When record execs come up and say, “George, we’re waiting for you to go the way of Steve Miller, The Stones and ZZ Top.” I say, “Did you hear who you just said? Why don’t you go the way of Ted Williams? What is the matter with you?” If you look at the history of rock there has only been a few bands that have been able to do that.

I don’t want to lose that blues feel but I would like to see us looked upon as a good rock act with songs like “American Made.” J. Giels Band was another one. They had “Love Stinks.” The were a blues-boogie band at first. If anyone had the grease down it was them. They were IT. They got in there and they wrote some hits and they became a rock band. They got in the Top 40 and that is very cool. There is nothing wrong with that.

There are no rock bands now anyway. Steve Miller plays a tour and then you don’t hear from him for ten years. If I was John Fogerty I would be playing every night. If I had that repertoire I would be out playing all the time. He just goes out every 5-6 years. I go John, “You have written the greatest rock n roll songs ever in the history. The Beatles idolize you.” Bob Dylan thinks “Proud Mary” is one of the greatest American songs ever written. I would lead off with “Traveling Band” the rest of my life. He says, “I haven’t written anything new and I am working on some new stuff.” I go, “Fuck the new stuff! You don’t need the new stuff. The stuff you have got is great and you know it.” Steve Miller is like that. He says to me, ‘I want to create something new” and I go, “WHY? You have “Rockin’ Me Baby” and “Living In The USA”, you don’t need to write more songs.”

Jeb: You can’t sell yourself that short, George. You have a pretty damn good set list yourself.

George: I have been working on it for 25 years. I am getting there but I am talking about all time rock classics. Forgerty has a dozen of them. The Stones don’t need to write any more songs now do they? When people go see The Stones they want to hear “Street Fighting Man,” “Honky Tonk Woman” and “Gimmie Shelter.” They don’t need to worry about the new stuff. Nobody is going, “I wonder what is on the new record.” Give me a break over here.

Jeb: How do you decide which blues classics get to become George Thorogood songs?

George: I don’t look at them as blues classics to begin with. The idea is to take the song and to try to turn it into a classic. There is no need to cut “Hootchie Cootchie Man” or “Got My Mojo Working.” They are already classics. I heard “Bourbon, Scotch & Beer” and I heard this new song “Greedy Man” and a couple of other ones and I thought they were too good to be obscure. They needed to be exposed. I have always thought that was my job. I am the Indiana Jones of rock n roll. I am a blues archeologist. I dig around and find these songs and people go, “I never heard this song before.” We go “Duh! That’s the idea!”

Jeb: Is it a challenge to find these songs?

George: Now it is impossible because nothing is obscure anymore. With the internet and the television everything is available. It’s like getting laid at a whorehouse; it’s easy. My job is completed. There is no need to go back and go it again. The last four years the song “Greedy Man” was on my brain constantly. I drove everyone around me crazy. Not only did I end up in a straight jacket but all my friends and family ended up in one as well. “Greedy Man” is a good, funny song. I love it. The second I heard that I knew it was for me.

Jeb: You celebrated the Big 50 this year.

George: Every year is a big birthday. It has got to happen eventually. I am just glad it did happen!

Jeb: There is only one other alternative and it sucks.

George: That’s right.

Jeb: You are now in it for life.

George: There is no getting away from it now.

Jeb: Maybe you don’t realize that you have given your life to the blues.

George: The blues is the foundation of it all. That is the cornerstone of American music. You can listen to the hits of the 50’s and 60’s and blues are all over the place. They say the blues had a baby and they called it rock n roll. I say the blues and country music had a baby and that is rock n roll. The other heavy influence is country and it is derived from the blues the same way that jazz is.

You know who is really hooked on it -- I mean gone? Robert Plant. I mean he is gone, Jack. You can’t even talk about Robert Johnson around him without his eyes start twitching. He has sabbatical tours of Mississippi. He looks at himself as a total blues man and not as a rock guy at all. He is into the entire voodoo of it and the mysteriousness of it. He is into the whole black arts of it like Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil. He is even more gone than Billy Gibbons and both of them are just blues insane. They are so gone that I asked them, “How do you get through one day?” John Hammond is the worst. If it were not for the guitar he would be in prison or in an insane asylum. I am one of the lucky ones. I just tapped into it. I don’t go visit the occult shops or put a stocking cap around my head and burn my hair like they did in the 40’s. These guys just do everything.

Jeb: Thorogood music does attract a better class of women as well.

George: Now you’re talking. That is the ultimate compliment as well. I am the Dean Martin of the blues.

Jeb: The last question I have for you is not a serious one.

George: Good!

Jeb: I think I know the answer to this one… I think I know who you wrote “You Talk To Much” about because I dated her for a few years!

George: You will never guess who I wrote that song about.

Jeb: Who?

George: You’re talking to him. I am the person that I had in mind. I had too many songs with “I” in it like “I Drink Alone” so I had to put a “you” on it. The “you” is me.

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