George Thorogood or the last sweats of the blues | TV

George Thorogood raised the temperature of an already suffocating night in Madrid in which the sweaty public couldn’t stop dancing your blues downloads, boogie y rock and roll. The 72-year-old guitarist from Delaware belongs to that category of artists who, without considering themselves stars, have a global and loyal audience. And he is very loyal to the public: he has given more than 8,000 concerts in his career, and in each one he gives himself as if it were the last.

The blues took off a century ago, in the harshness of the plantations of the southern United States, where the songs of Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson or Ma Rainey sprouted. Then came the golden age of electric blues with the African-American migration to the north: that of BB King, Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, Albert King or John Lee Hooker. But, starting in the last 1960s, that legacy was taken up by a wave of white musicians, from the US and the British Isles, who raised the decibels to reach what was called blues rock: Johnny Winter, ZZ Top, Eric Clapton, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Page, Rory GallagherStevie Ray Vaughan… It was a smooth transition: those young people were sponsored by veterans, with whom they often shared stages. A rare generational as well as racial change. Thorogood belongs to that series of white artists comfortable in the blackest music, to which they imprint a hedonistic mood rather than a melancholy one.

There are great albums, but blues is better understood in the magic of the live show. The tradition is to spin nonstop. George Thorogood insisted, in 1981, on playing in all 50 US states in 50 days. And he lived his glory day in 1985, when he performed at Live Aid, the first major live televised festival for a worldwide audience, with two legends at his side: Bo Diddley and Albert Collins. Today he is still on the road, and he is also active on the networks: on his YouTube channel, he produces a series of very short videos, One Bourbon, One Scotch & One Story, in which, in addition to giving himself self-promotion, stories are told about the figures that influenced him, the members of his band (The Destroyers) and guests of different ages who fit his style.

The best days of the blues are behind us. Some musicians today (Jack White, The Black Keys) drink from it, but avoid pigeonholing themselves into a minority genre, which they understand is not very commercial. Watching Thorogood give it his all at 72 years old, the question is who will pick up the baton. Or if the blues will only remain as the father of other music.

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