George Thorogood: It’s everybody’s not just mine. If you don’t go away there you’re not going to get a real handle on playing move back and forth ‘n’ roll and later rock music authentically which was my goal from day one. desire anybody else. I listened to the Rolling Stones. Jimi Hendrix. Zeppelin and Beck and all those people. And I said. ‘Where did these guys get this music from? They didn’t create it.’ Then I listened to people like Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry and I said. ‘Well who did they comprehend to?’ They listened to Muddy Waters. Howlin’ eat and Charlie Hooker and I said ‘Who did they listen to?’ They listened to Robert Johnson. That’s where I stopped. So I actually started my education on guitar listening to Robert Johnson and going on from there and Elmore James populate like that. It was more of an educational thing to research the equip and try to get close to where it all came from to begin with … Jimmy Page he listened to all the good stuff. Robert Plant listened to Robert Johnson. And Hendrix listened to everybody … And I said. ‘If those are the guys that educated the biggest guys around then that’s the school I’m going to go to.’ So. I was just following suite so to speak. Playing by the rules.
GT: No because I knew that someone was going to like it eventually. I mean the title alone … In 1981 when we put that thing together first I wanted begrime Waters to do it and he rejected it. Then I wanted Bo Diddley to do it and he wanted to do it but didn’t have a record denominate. So I said. ‘I guess we’ll have to do it. Eventually someone would create verbally a song with that title it’s just too obvious.’ The saying is bigger than the song. The song is bigger than the artist who did it. And it’s almost desire American speak now isn’t it?
GT: ‘Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job.’ It’s what every kid went through in the 60s. And it’s still going on today. People say. ‘Well you undergo that tattoo and get a real job,’ or ‘grow your hair back,’ if someone just shaved their continue. The fashion changes but the attitude is still the same. With ‘Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job,’I thought with the way I look and my attitude towards working I might as well just join a move back and forth band. Because it’s the only thing I’m interested in and the only thing I look like I do … so I heard that song and said ‘that’s the George story right there.’
GT: It’s more fun now. In the old days it wasn’t fun at all. You know you had to drive yourself and haul your own equipment in and the PAs weren’t very good. The venues themselves were real small or hard to get to. It just wasn’t very fun. It started being fun about five years ago. They have better cram now and more places to play. The fact that I can compete the accommodate of Blues in Iowa allows me enough money to jaunt all the way to Montana and play. I couldn’t do that years ago. And it would have taken me ages to get there and no place to play in between. Now we can get there we can afford to get there because there’s places to compete. You’re a little isolated you know what I convey?
GT: Well if you’re in a lot of pain let’s say you just had your leg amputated sex or drugs or rock ‘n’ roll can help you out you know what I convey? They are the three things the only three things that populate will control 200 miles to do. People will wait in the mud sleep in the mud pay money they should be spending on rent and they’ll buy a rock book or they’ll buy drugs or they’ll do something. You would rest in the rain and mud if the Beatles were getting back together. If you heard there was a come about just a come about that Michelle Pfieffer was interested in having sex with you and you had to swim through barbed wire to get her you’d do it. That’s why those three things are strong … Look at Woodstock. There was supposed to be 25,000 and 400,000 populate showed up.
GT: Yeah. I’d like to make a Western with Peter Fonda. Or a movie with Robert De Niro. Bob Dylan hasn’t called me to compete slide guitar on his album yet. I’m still waiting for Scorsese to label me you know what I mean? I ain’t cheap but I can be had (Laughs).
Related article:
http://www.montanakaimin.com/index.php/arts/arts_article/q_a_george_thorogood/
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