George Thorogood Bad To The Bone CD

George Thorogood's first album for a major label became his commercial breakthrough precisely because it was business as usual. Again, it's a brash, rowdy take on the blues that owes as much to '60s garage bands and punk as it does to Muddy Waters. That connection is made particularly explicit here via a stomping take on the Human Beinz' '60s punk classic "Nobody But Me," itself a radical deconstruction of the Isely Brothers' original.

The title tune, of course, has become Hollywood's leading signifier of a character's toughness--pretty funny if you've ever seen the transparently goofy Thorogood mugging his way through the song on MTV. Elsewhere on the album, he renders buzz-saw homage to Chuck Berry and John Lee Hooker. But the album's most interesting moment comes on the sleazy sounding, dirge-like "As the Years Go Passing By." The group suddenly recalls John Lennon's one-time backing band, Elephants Memory, which had cut its musical teeth playing in strip joints--and sounded like it.

George Thoroughgood first released BAD TO THE BONE in 1982. The disc was his major label debut, but little had changed from his previous approach: the album was still full of the straight-ahead hard-hitting blues-based rock his following had come to expect. Not surprisingly, little about that approach has changed in the decades following, which is one of the reasons the 2007 reissue still sounds relevant. The sound of his band, the Destroyers, can still peel paint, and the covers of Albert King, Jimmy Reed, and John Lee Hooker are full of bar-band bravado. Naturally, the title track, which has grown into an FM radio classic over the years, still shines, as does Thoroughgood's stinging slide work.

Personnel: George Thorogood (vocals, guitar); Hank Carter (saxophone); Jeff Simon (drums).