George Thorogood and The Destroyers and George Thorogood

Initially a minor-league baseball player, George Thorogood decided to pursue a music career after seeing a John Paul Hammond performance in 1970. This was to be a sensible choice for the blues man, going on to release over 20 albums, selling 15 million records worldwide. Whilst his music may be dismissed by blues purists, he has become widely popular through his loud, lively hits that gained significant radio exposure in the 80s. His raucous blues channels the Chicago blues sound of the 50s, with a rampant rock & roll backed by his longterm band The Destroyers.

Through regular performances on the blues club circuit, the band were discovered by Rounder Records, releasing their eponymous debut in 1977. The band's second album, "Move It on Over" (1978) was to find them huge popularity, with a cover of Hank Williams' track receiving heavy radio airplay, boosting the album's sales which reached the American top 40 and became certified Gold.

In 1982, George Thorogood signed to major label, EMI Records, releasing their major debut in 1982, titled "Bad to the Bone." The album's title track became a massive crossover hit, appealing to a wide audience and finding extensive radio airplay and rotation on MTV. The song has gone on to be featured in several films and television productions over the years. The album went Gold and spent almost a year in the charts. This success continued for Thorogood's next three albums, all becoming certified Gold.

At the start of the following decade, Thorogood's popularity waned, although he continued to release albums and tour extensively to moderate success, drawing large crowds to his performances. In recent years, Thorogood has recorded two albums of bar blues covers, releasing "The Dirty Dozen" n 2009 and "2120 South Michigan Ave.," in 2011 as a tribute to Chess Records.

Robert Cray is the natural successor to practically every blues legend there is. Who may owe his career to the likes of Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, and Freddie King but is a touchstone in his own right, and a trailblazer for the modern day likes of Gary Clark Jr, among many others. Cray picked up the guitar in his early teens and, inspired by the legends that he would regularly see perform in the blues clubs of his native Georgia, Cray decided to form a band when he was 20 years old. His first band cut their teeth playing house parties and frat houses all the way up and down the west coast anywhere that would have them. It wasn’t until in the late seventies that Cray felt that he had the experience necessary to strike out on his own, and he did just that by forming the Robbie Cray Band.

The new project hit the road immediately and started building up a devoted local following. A following that even led to a brief, non-speaking appearance in John Belushi’s comedy classic “National Lampoon’s Animal House” as a bass player in the fictional band Otis Day and the Knights. However, true success wouldn’t knock on Cray’s door until 1982, when he secured a record deal with Mercury Records, shortly after the release of his debut album “Who’s Been Talkin’”. His first couple of albums there tided him along fine, but it was his 1986 album “Strong Pretender” that broke him into the mainstream with a top 15 placing on the Billboard 200, a crossover hit in the form of “Smokin’ Gun” and a Grammy nomination the very next year.

Having proved that he could take the blues to the upper end of the charts, Robert Cray has had no obligations since, and has just produced some of the best and most truthful soul-blues of the late eighties and nineties. He’s opened for Clapton. He performed “Sweet Home Chicago” with the one and only Stevie Ray Vaughn at the great man’s last ever concert before his tragic death in 1990. To this day, every studio album of new material he’s released since 1995 has debuted in the top five of the Billboard Blues charts. Needless to say, Cray is a man who’s done it all, and still leaves it all onstage night after night after night, because his passion for the blues burns just as bright as it did when he started. Highly recommended.