As noted here on a recent post, there have been a lot of benefit concerts in town lately, even for our perennially cause-oriented populace.
So tonight could be a good change of pace as veteran guitar-slinger George Thorogood comes to town with his band, the Destroyers, with no agenda other than loud but light-hearted rock and roll.
Thorogood and band - nee the Delaware Destroyers, from greater Wilmington - emerged from that smallest of states with modest ambition, entertaining bar crowds with covers of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and blues songs.
The landscape widened with a record contract and some hit songs, still heard on radio today. The first was an amalgam of two songs by John Lee Hooker. Another was a faithful version of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love."
Under pressure from his record label to write some material, Thorogood protested. "Why should I try to write songs when Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley already wrote them all?," he said.
When he tried, he had some success. The material sounds a lot like his mentors. But this is not unusual in art, nor commerce.
However modest his reach, he is good at what he does, and has been doing it a long time with essentially the same band he started with, 30 years ago.
The show comes to the State tonight at 8.
Small World Music is featuring GT & the DD's Greatest Hits CD, and CD/DVD, along with a number of the band's old LP's.
Steve Burke
for Ithaca Blog
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