George Thorogood readies album, tour

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April 28, 2006 03:46 PM
by Jon Zahlaway
liveDaily Senior Writer
Now in their fourth decade together, George Thorogood (tickets | music) & The Destroyers are gearing up for the May release of a new studio album that they'll support with a US tour.

The seasoned blues-rockers will issue "The Hard Stuff," their first new studio set since 2003's "Ride 'til I Die," on May 30. The new disc features a number of originals, as well as covers of several obscure blues tunes such as Jimmy Reed's "Little Rain," Hound Dog Taylor's "Give Me Back My Wig," Fats Domino's "Hello Josephine" and Johnny Shines' "Dynaflow Blues."

The group decided to make a blues-heavy album after its 2004 retrospective, "George Thorogood: 30 Years of Rock," spent 50 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Blues Albums chart, and 90 weeks on the chart overall.

"If they want the blues, we'll give it to them," Thorogood said as work began on "The Hard Stuff," according to a press release. "Let's get this sucker done and take it on the road."

The band plans to do just that, with a summer/fall US tour scheduled to launch in late July and run until at least early October. The group will warm up for the outing with a trio of mid-May club shows in the Northeast, details for which are shown below.

Sandwiched between the May warm-up shows and the full-on US run is a June European tour. More information about that trek is posted at Thorogood's website.