Thoroughly Thorogood: Some insights from an old blues rocker

George Thorogood, scheduled to play a sold-out show at the Tulalip Amphitheatre tonight, may seem like an unlikely purveyor of wisdom.

But during a recent interview with The Herald, the personable rocker most famous for singing "Bad to the Bone" offered insights on life, music and baseball that were hardly boneheaded.

Here are highlights.

On rock 'n' roll: Just to set the record straight, this is where it came from. These are the two guys. Chuck Berry invented rock 'n' roll. Bo Diddley invented rock. Not rock 'n' roll. Rock.

On playing blues rock: Rock isn't anything but blues guitar on steroids.

On retiring: You can't take yourself out of the lineup when you're 30 when you've got guys who are playing that are 38.

On the Northwest: I just think that you've got to get Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii to leave the Union and start its own country, the Great Western Republic. We'd have Whoopi Goldberg as president, and vice president would be Denis Leary. And instead of the White House, it'd be the Gold House.

On former Seattle Mariners and current Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella: Piniella belongs in baseball like Chuck Berry belongs in music. See what I'm saying? Piniella is baseball.

On the advantages of playing rock 'n' roll rather than baseball: (Rock 'n' roll is) the only business in the world where you can make $100 grand a year and be a has-been. Your fame and your fortune and your thing is very fleeting in the baseball world.

On critics: I don't care if you talk bad about me or talk good about me, just don't leave me out of the conversation.

On music: Remember, rock 'n' roll never sleeps. It just passes out.



Andy Rathbun, Herald writer, arathbun@heraldnet.com, 425-339-3455