Description

Legendary rocker George Thorogood talks about his latest album with The Destroyers, The Dirty Dozen. This lesson continues when George demonstrates how to play Bad to the Bone.

Transcript

Well one of them is a Howl For My Baby, which you brought up. We have a kind of a rock version of 6 days on the road. Just covered by everybody. And I just thought we threw our hat on to the ring at that one a few years ago for the slide guitar like that. Howling Wolves, Highway 49, Boy Heads Treat It Right. Well except Blue Highway written by Nick Repnidis. They were like in past albums, some albums that are kind of out of print now. And then we had 6 more that we just did, we've been working on, Brought Myself Out Of Town by the Haze Brothers. Mortal Lover by Muddy Water. And the tune that everybody’s seem to be making a big fuzz over, Tail Dragger written by Willy Dickson and recorded by Holly Wolfe. So that’s the meat and potatoes of it. Just like any other band, were just trying to get new and exciting materials in the shows so we can keep going as long as we can. Sometimes one or two new tunes, you just have to stretch it out for a couple of years. And that’s basically what I'm trying to keep working. It’s called the Dirty Dozen. The Bad To The Bone riff is nothing more than kind of a variation of I'm A Man, Whotchie Kootchie Man. Several Mississippi delta, Chicago blues style come from that. I just kind of hone it a little bit. Originally made the song, I wanted Muddy Waters to record it. He’s people pass, that didn’t made me feel really good. I turn Bo Didly on the song, he wanted to do it. But he didn’t have a record deal. I said, okay, were going to do it. But I wanted Muddy Water to do this song. If he have lived, I would’ve have got it to Elvis Presley. That’s the guy who I was really thinking right the roof. So I was just, you got to use both of these fingers. Bring your little finger up and your thumb down at the same time. So you're like, kind of like turning the door knob, like this. So you see pull it up, you got to hit it twice. Crash, crash, crash. Then you got mayhem, pandemonia, and a whole lot of problems after that. You have a whole lot of problems after that. If Muddy Waters have just done it, I would’ve been out of my life, and I could’ve just sunk back in to wherever I was before. But the first time I met Hank Junior, I walked to him to shake his hand. He didn’t say hello to me, he comes up with his face right in my face, and he didn’t say hello. He goes, wawawawawap. And he repeated that for the next 48 hours. We’re right in the middle of talking about, well, how do you think the Mets are going to do this year? I tell you how they're going to do, wawawawawap. That guy is insane. And now you got all this. But it’s just basically, the lyrics as well, combining little things of tongue and cheek macho lines. Like a Bo Deedly or a Muddy Waters, just bad. It’s a fantasy that all males have. Sure you and I share that. Everybody wants to Errol Flynn or Sean Connery or James Cagney, but we're not. Every wants to be Steve McQueen, every girl would like to be with Steve McQueen for an hour anyway. So that’s all that song is, the fantasy song. It’s not a reality song, it’s a fantasy song. You’ll also get good stain to. Keep it out there. That Keith Richards has mastered through a years of listening to the Everly Brothers and Bo Deedly. Who used open tunings to get a very powerful sound. You know what I mean, that kind of thing. And he’s mastered that, written some incredible classics around those open tunings.