There’s not enough said for rhythm guitar. The genius of John Lee Hooker was his simplicity and his rhythm. Let’s stay with it.”įrom your perspective, what was the genius of John Lee Hooker? As I was playing it, I started talking and magically, our bass player and drummer came up and just bam, kicked it into “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.” The connection was made and the bar emptied and the dance floor was packed. ![]() I went up to the stage, picked up the guitar and started doing “House Rent Boogie” by John Lee Hooker. Everybody was watching the World Series: There was about 15 people in the club, that’s about it, including our bass player and drummer. I’d been listening to just about everything that John Lee Hooker had ever done up until that point. Jeff Simon and I had just been evicted from our house, and we didn’t really have any place to go. We were playing it in a three-piece in Boston. How did you develop your version of John Lee Hooker's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" back in the day? Be what you are.” He was the one who encouraged me and helped me to find myself as a performer. There’s only one John Hammond.” He said, “Be George. Jeff was trying to lighten me up a little bit, saying, “You know, George, there’s only one Taj Mahal. Jeff Simon, our drummer, he was the one who really inspired us. To look beyond that, people would say, “You guys are like a bar band.” We’re more like a party band. Geils leads off with “(Ain’t Nothin’ But a) House Party,” I mean, that’s who we are. ![]() Our leadoff song is “ Rock Party.” That says it all. That’s the idea of our band that’s what we’re about. It seems impossible to be in a bad mood when you're playing stuff like that. The guitar parts on that song are really fun. Watch George Thorogood Perform 'Night Time' Geils would never touch this song.” Out comes the Love Stinks album and guess what’s on the album? I think it was their first gold record. I said, “Listen, we’ve got to do this tune before J. He didn’t want to do anything, but he was a huge J. Our bass player at that time hated the song because it's a heavy bass song. It ended up on a bootleg record, like five years later, on the Better Than the Rest album – a really terrible record – but the song did finally see the light of the day. I wanted it to be our initial thing, and then we’d follow it up with an album the next year. I said, “Man, I’ve got to learn that song.” Every band I’ve ever been in since I was a kid, I made them learn the song “Night Time.” Actually, we cut it back in 1974 and we had a dynamite version of it. His band did that, and I’d never heard the song before. One of the songs that has long been a staple in your set is "Night Time." How did you first come across that one?Ī friend of ours who lived in the neighborhood was in a band called Spectrum. His tour bus had already made its way to "somewhere in Canada" for the next part of the adventure, as he continues to play additional shows. ![]() We spoke with Thorogood on the afternoon following the Ohio date. "I thought, 'Man, are you a hockey player or a rock 'n' roll star, buddy?'" I saw him on TV once and he was wearing a hockey uniform," Thorogood says. ![]() "Sammy has come a long way with his wardrobe. "That's impressive from a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer." He also commented on Hagar's stage attire. "He came out and watched our entire set," Thorogood tells UCR. The pair has shared some good times already, as a recent post on Hagar's Instagram demonstrated.
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