Greatest Hits: 30 Years of Rock (Capitol)
Back in the late 1970s, when blues was dying on its feet, the Delaware guitarist George Thorogood rode to the rescue. His eponymous debut album and its follow up, Move It On Over, brought the music back to basics — great guitar licks and vocals that could strip varnish. There was an obvious debt to Chuck Berry but there was also a flair that the blues had been lacking. For the evidence, just listen to his take on Elmore James’s Madison Blues with its stinging slide, or the crunching Bad to the Bone from 1982. He also has the ability to find good songs, whether it’s Get a Haircut, picked up from an Australian bar band, or Rockin’ My Life Away, which was hidden on a 1979 Jerry Lee Lewis album.
There may be little here that isn’t on the more comprehensive Anthology double CD, but as a single CD selection it’s as sharp as barbed wire. And now that the blues seems to be in a similarly parlous state to 30 years ago, perhaps Thorogood can come galloping to the rescue again.
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John Clarke