George Thorogood Quotes (29 Quotes)

I know I'm not going to sing like Aretha Franklin or Elvis Presley or any of those people.

When people come to the show they think we are a legendary band because they hear us on Classic Rock radio all the time. It is psychological. That's okay - I'm down with that.

I wanted to write songs that were as good as the covers.

I went after that sort of music. It's the best music I could play. I pretty much chose this music, not only out of passion but by a process of elimination.

Look at Gleason in The Honeymooners. He was humorous but the way he lived wasn't really humorous. He was a bus driver. Who wants to be a bus driver? He didn't have any money and he was not famous. But despite that, the show is humorous.

Rounder Records decided to call the album Move It On Over, much to my chagrin but they knew what they were doing. It took off and to this day I can't figure out why.

There is no doubt in my mind who is number one - I have always been number one.

I'm talking like 10, 12 years old. Either junior brings Mom and Pop or Mom and Pop bring the kids. I'm talking young here, not a college drinking crowd.

The reason it has lasted for 30 years is for one reason and one reason only: Classic Rock radio.

This music has been around since before the beard on Moses. I happed to do it very well and I happen to have a lot of groovy songs that I know people are going to dig. I know more about it than you do.

Every time the guys were knocked out by my guitar playing and the girls were knocked out by the type of songs I did. That set us apart from the average blues band.

I was a big J. Geils fan, a Steppenwolf fan and a Savoy Brown fan.

I liked all music when I was a kid blues, rock 'n' roll, country and reggae. I don't think I can play (rock 'n' roll) any better or worse. I think it has to do with the songs I picked, the material I introduced to the mainstream.

All I have is my performance, I try to feed in the best of everything that I could possibly do into those 90 minutes and to make a live entertainment show out of it.

I don't mind hearing new stuff if the new stuff is good. But if it's not good, then I just want to hear the old stuff. John Fogerty is going to be very hard pressed to write any more songs that are as good as 'Fortunate Son' and 'Green River' and 'Old Man Down The Road.' He's a hard act to follow. He's trying to follow himself.

I take it that some of you people have heard this song before.

I figured the people who liked the sort of thing I was doing would come see it. If it was only 200 then that was alright and if it was 2000 then that is alright as well. I wasn't really interested in the big numbers; I was just interested in some numbers.

There are now grandmothers and grandfathers coming to see us because they are of that age, they grew up in the '50s and '60s and they bring their sons and their daughters to hear the songs they heard when they were young.

We've plotted through the years of how to get to here, where we are now, or we would have never made it.

I didn't live in the world of disco or the world of the Eagles.

I knew I had the right material and I knew what I was going after.

You can't rely on luck. I've had some stages in my career where I've said we're going to wing it, and we've always ended up in trouble.

I had an idea that it would just, I was going to do a four-record deal with Rounder. I was going to do two studio albums, a live album and an all-acoustic album, a solo album, which I have yet to do. And then I was just going to take whatever notoriety I had and I was going to come to like California and try to get small bit parts in movies or something. Small parts, not leading parts, not like Elvis Presley did. I'm talking about just small parts and then maybe just play music on the side. It just didn't work out that way.

Did I think it would last 30 years? No, I didn't think it would have those kind of legs.

I guess a good song is a good song is a good song, ya know.

Not to this extent but from day one I had an awful lot of confidence when I got started.

Whatever title you want to lay on me is fine. I am still working; you know what I'm saying?

Classic Rock radio gave us our longevity.

I was not a big Allman Brothers fan but I could relate to that because that is what the flavor of the day was at that time - at least it was like that for me.