As a blues-rock guitarist, George Thorogood never earned much respect from blues purists but he became a popular favourite in the early 80s through repeated exposure on FM radio and the arena rock circuit. Thorogood’s music was always loud, simple and direct—his riffs and licks were taken straight out of ‘50s Chicago blues and rock & roll—but his formulaic approach helped him gain a huge audience in the ‘80s when his albums went Gold. Originally Thorogood was a minor-league baseball player but decided to become a musician in 1970 after seeing John Paul Hammond in concert. Three years later, he assembled the Destroyers who came out of Delaware in the ‘70s as a jarringly high-energy bunch featuring in addition to Thorogood, bassist Billy Blough and drummer Jeff Simon. Together their raucous, slide guitar-stoked, blues-rock takes on tunes by Chuck Berry, Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley and others helped land them a contract with Cambridge’s Rounder Records. They had moved to Boston and cut their teeth in the city’s blues circuit before their second album for Rounder, Move It On Over struck big with the title track, an amped-up cover of a Hank Williams tune. They later added saxophonist, Hank Carter and further fame came in the ‘80s through a signing to EMI Records which released a series of Gold records by the band. These included 1982’s Bad to the Bone (the title track is Thorogood’s best-known composition and its video became a staple on MTV) and 1988’s Born to be Bad with the swaggering hit, “You Talk Too Much.” The ‘90s saw more hitmaking with 1993’s “Get a Haircut” from the album Haircut. In 2003 they released Ride ‘Til I Die on Eagle Records which also put out a 2004 Capitol compilation disc, Greatest Hits: 30 Years of Rock which went Gold and topped Billboard’s blues charts for sixty weeks and won the magazine’s award for “Blues Record of the Year.” Their most recent album, The Hard Stuff was released in 2006. The Destroyers have expanded through the years and now includes Simon and Blough along with new members, guitarist Jim Suhler and saxophonist Buddy Leach. Today they continue to tour always drawing in large audiences.

Tickets: Cabaret Seating | $59.50 | plus service charges