•
Rating: 1977, the year punk broke.
No more Elvis, no more Beatles, no more Rolling Stones, and «Going For The One» is the red cape that an unwary matador waves in front of the bull's face, and he's in for a rude awakening, because this time the bull is as angry as few others.
George Thorogood aka Georgie Ramone, the fifth brother.
If there's someone who has played the same song for the past forty years, it's George Thorogood, but all of us who love him dearly pretend not to notice and go wild to the frenzied rhythm of his big guitar; that big guitar that spits out an electric, heavy, hard blues like it was rarely heard before the fateful 1977.
It's no coincidence that on January 10 of that blessed year, an over-vitamined Muddy Waters, thanks to Johnny Winter's treatments, releases the smash of «Hard Again» and opens with «Mannish Boy», the quintessential hard blues; but Georgie would soon produce a sonic upheaval far greater. Then, not content, he would construct "his" success on a badass plagiarism of «Mannish Boy», complete with Terminator Arnold struggling to be the toughest. No point in struggling, though, because Thoro soaks him in the pint of cold beer he gulps down to gargle with in the morning, the good old Termy.
Georgie is the toughest of the tough and puts together a band, the Destroyers, and sets that hole called Delaware ablaze with his murderous voltage boogie blues and a slide technique that makes his fingertips and our hungry hearts bleed.
1977, the year Georgie broke.
But George began to stand out a few years earlier when, struck by a John Hammond concert, he decided to take action, came out of the garage, and started making a ruckus wherever he could, even in the middle of the street. Yes, right in the middle of the street.
Every self-respecting tough guy has an anecdote to tell, and you never know where the story ends and the legend begins.
So, legend has it that in those finely dressed, pop and prog anesthetized years, Georgie and the Delaware Destroyers teamed up with another gang of ruffians, the Nighthawks, led by a big friend of Georgie's, Jimmy Thackery. In their wanderings, the two bands end up in a new hole—Georgetown, if you believe in coincidence—and are hired at two adjacent venues to play the same night at the same time... Can you already imagine how the story ends? No? I'll tell you! It ends with Georgie and Jimmy agreeing to simultaneously strike up «Madison Blues» by Elmore James; during the solo, they both step off the stage, exit the venue, meet in the middle of the street, and swap guitars; Georgie enters the venue where the Nighthawks are playing and joins them to finish the performance; Jimmy enters the venue where the Destroyers are playing and joins them to finish the performance. The patrons, already drunk halfway through the first song, notice nothing!
I don't believe in rock and roll anecdotes, but this is one of the greatest I've had the fortune to know, so I believe it with my eyes closed.
George and Jimmy swap guitars to the sounds of Elmore James...
Elmore is one of Georgie's great passions, the others being Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker.
So, it's no surprise that in 1977 the eponymous debut of George Thorogood And The Destroyers is an album made almost exclusively of other people's and traditional tracks, featuring incendiary versions of «Madison Blues» and «Can't Stop Lovin'» by James, «Kind Hearted Woman» by Johnson, and «One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer» by Hooker; the latter, in particular, is over eight minutes of pure guitar delirium, with Georgie, just guitar and voice, introducing an obscure blues of times gone by, «House To Rent Boogie», and then all the Destroyers coming to his aid for a literally d-e-v-a-s-t-a-t-i-n-g «One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer»!
If someone asks me, «But how is this George Thorogood record»... The thing is, certain records aren't explained, you just need to listen at eardrum-shattering volume.
1977, the year Georgie and punk broke!
Loading comments slowly
