Modern Music

Right after I was put through to George Thorogood, a voice came on the line singing “O Canada,” followed by a stab at a favourite French phrase: “Les femmes sont tres jolies.”

It seemed a perfect opening to comment on how many of those beautiful women had been spotted — quite unexpectedly — among the bikers and veteran rock fans the last time I attended one of his shows. They were everywhere. I have witnesses.

What’s the deal, I wondered? “It’s my natural sex appeal,” the singer and guitarist shot back. “Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, George Thorogood. They always mention me in the same breath.”

Then he had a question: “Who made Valentino?” he asked. I hesitated and he provided the answer: “Women!” “Sinatra?” I began to join in with the same answer. He continued: “Elvis? The Beatles?” I replied “Women” each time. “Thorogood?” There was only one correct response and I gave it. “See? I just follow the formula, baby,” he said, in a perfect combination of bravado and self-deprecation.

But the subject matter at hand was a bit weightier than the physical allure of some of his fans. Thorogood’s new disc with the Destroyers, 2120 South Michigan Ave., was released last week. On the album, easily one of his best, the guitarist pays high voltage tribute to Chicago’s Chess Records label, which produced seminal records by the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.

But a 30-minute conversation with Thorogood can be more than an interview. This one felt, at times, like a class on blues and rock history, albeit one that might make you laugh out loud. Thorogood is both a scholar and a fanatic when it comes to the music he loves.

Like anyone with an encyclopedic knowledge of a topic, Thorogood seems to see things in linear, cause-and-effect terms. He has a narrative on rock ‘n’ roll that draws a line from Robert Johnson through Chess artists to Bill Clinton in the White House.

It’s impressive, and I had to piece it together from parts of our interview and the liner notes to the new disc. But it goes something like this: Johnson was the source of knowledge for Waters, who inspired the likes of Diddley and Berry. It was Berry who tweaked the already rocking sound of the bluesmen and created rock ‘n’ roll with the guitar lick heard around the world: “Johnny B. Goode.” The new music spawned a powerful youth culture that grows more dominant by the decade. Clinton was the first president to understand that and court the youth constituency. To do so, he paid serious attention to a new MTV-affiliated lobby group called Rock the Vote.

Thorogood’s journey to becoming a Chess obsessive came through the Rolling Stones. In his liner notes, Thorogood thanks “Nanker Phelge and the boys” — Stones devotees will recognize the group’s alter-ego songwriting moniker — for turning him on to the blues and rock ‘n’ roll. But he said British Invasion bands weren’t the first to popularize the blues.

“The British were exposed first, due to the Beatles,” he said. “But the Butterfield Blues Band, the Musselwhite Blues Band and Steve Miller (in the United States) were doing the same thing. They just weren’t getting the exposure. Anybody with long hair who came from England got a shot at the Ed Sullivan Show. That was in vogue, but they weren’t the first. They were just the first that everybody noticed. Can you dig that? Have you ever heard the first Butterfield album that came out in 1965? That’s like a bible of the blues. That is the album we used to play over and over.”

A recurring theme with Thorogood is his unwillingness to acknowledge a serious demarcation point between the blues and rock ‘n’ roll.

“People like Son House, the Rev. Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt didn’t like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf,” he said. “They thought that was like punk rock. Putting drums to it? And putting a bass to it? People getting up and dancing? They were bastardizing the blues.

“You ever listen to a song called ‘Roller Coaster’ by Little Walter? It is not a blues song. If that’s not rock ‘n’ roll, I’ll kiss your a–on French TV,” he said.

Following that line of reasoning, Thorogood mixes what would normally be considered both blues and rock ‘n’ roll standards on 2120 South Michigan Ave. Bo Diddley’s self-titled classic falls in the latter group. Thorogood remembered sitting in a trailer with the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer when the two once played a blues festival together.

“There was nobody else there. It was just him and me,” Thorogood recalled. “And I said, ‘I don’t know why they keep hiring me at these blues festivals.’ I did know why, really: They wanted a rock act they could afford, because that brings in 50 per cent of the commerce. They’d get Aerosmith if they could afford them, but they cost too much, so they get me. But I said to Bo, ‘Technically, I’m a rock act. I can’t play blues.’ He said, ‘Neither can I.’ His fingers are too big. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I’m a rhythm Mutha Fuyer.’ And I said, ‘You are. You’re the greatest rhythm player ever.’”

Thorogood followed up with a story he heard about Chet Atkins. Atkins, he said, wanted to go on the road with the Everly Brothers so they could teach him the Bo Diddley rhythm. When the Everlys asked Atkins why he didn’t seek out Diddley himself, he said he was scared to. “Chet Atkins! One of the greatest guitar players ever!” Thorogood exclaimed. “And he was fascinated with Bo Diddley. Who isn’t?”

It’s understandable, then, that Thorogood seems to have little patience with guitarists who haven’t properly studied the Diddley oeuvre.

“I’d say (to some guitarists), ‘What Bo Diddley songs are you doing?’ And they’d go, ‘I don’t know anything about Bo Diddley,’” Thorogood said, with a mixture of astonishment and contempt. “And I’d go, ‘Well, how can you be a rock guitarist?’ How can you be a director if you’ve never studied John Ford or Otto Preminger? So I’m saying, ‘When you play your guitar, it’s just a lot of sound coming out. It doesn’t come from anywhere.’ “

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