GEORGE THOROGOOD & THE DESTROYERS

A heady, haunting bass line, a riff that tears the silence up and seek for desperate words, as black as the soul of the one who is bad to the bone but who might, some day, find redemption with love, a few simple notes - they're always the best! - which immediately propel us to this beautiful year of 1982 with “Bad to the Bone”, unstoppable blues rock with rough edges, and George Thorogood, its creator, to Music Pantheon. Since then, in the company of the members of his band, The Destroyers, native like him from sweet Delaware state, he has never stopped holding the banner of a music which does not seek extreme complexity but speaks directly to the guts, makes our sensitive strings vibrate with raw sounds and takes one, two or three chords and stretch them to our senses intoxication point. No wonder, then, that this ultra catchy rhythm track, as well as others from the sixteen studio albums of that little band, have become over time an hymn for bikers and other truckers around the world, symbol of a music that smells like hot asphalt, overheated rubber and the incredible feeling of freedom that comes with long-distance riding.

And if, at their beginning, George and his “Destroyers” roamed the roads with a based on covers repertoire, the success of “Bad to the bone”, often used in cinema, TV or mechanical sports competitions, diverted their trajectory, pushing them to compose, at their fans' delight, titles of great efficiency in-between blues, boogie-blues and rock,. With his skill that neither Chuck Berry nor John Lee Hooker would deny - two musicians you can't help but to think of when you see his hands twirling on his six strings neck - his energy fully serving only music and seeming to draw his inspiration from the Chicago of the 50's, when the songs had to be simple and direct, without frills or concessions, without unnecessary effect and an intensity of every moment, George Thorogood, over decades, has imposed himself as one of the most formidable guitar knights in activity, of those who give everything on stage to provide some magnificent thrills to a captivated audience but know too well not to take themselves seriously. All this is very much enough to make some engines roar furiously under Guitare en Scène dome of thunder.