George Thorogood and the 47 Year Grudge

by editor Michele Catalano

I have a list of grudges. Some of them are new (Juan Soto) and some go back to 1980 (Teri from high school). But my oldest grudge, going back 47 years, is against musician George Thorogood. When I tell people this, I get a lot of questions. What could mild-mannered George Thorogood have done to you? Mild-mannered? The man was bad to the bone! He said it himself! 

Maybe it’s time to talk about this grudge. I’m sure that, once you read this story, I’ll be vindicated. 

It’s the end of January 1978. I’m 15, and Thorogood’s album Move It On Over is a huge hit. I develop a little crush on both George and the album, and I’m overjoyed to find out he’ll be doing an in-store appearance at Jimmy’s Record World or Bill’s Record Emporium or something like that. Whatever the name was, the store was about a mile and a half from my house.

A couple of friends said they’d go to the store with me that day, so we could meet George and get our albums signed and maybe get a chance to talk with him. How cool would that be to sit around in this small record store with George Thorogood, talking about music and maybe convincing him that he needs a 15-year-old girl as a roadie, and I’m just the person for the job? Or, you know, just talk with him.

A major winter storm rolled in the night before his appearance. I woke up the next morning to several inches of snow outside, and it was still coming down. I called my friends and said neither sleet nor snow nor blizzard conditions would keep me from my appointed rounds of meeting George Thorogood. My friends, however, bailed.

I called the record store, and they assured me that George would still be there. His dedication to the fans of Long Island warmed my heart. I was hoping that all the other people who wanted to come out to see him were wimps like my friends who didn’t want to go out in the snow, and I’d have George all to myself. Maybe we’d get snowed in at Jimmy’s Record World, and we’d have to spend hours just talking and would end up being best friends! The mind of a 15-year-old star-struck fan is a dangerous thing.

I walked to the record store. The wind was blowing, and the snow was coming down hard and icicles were forming on my face. But I didn’t care. I trudged on, walking through deep piles of snow, climbing over snow banks, pushing off thoughts of frostbite and death. This would be something to tell my children about. “Why, in my day, I had to walk uphill through a blizzard to get to see my idols!” It was tough going, but I had to get there. I would show George Thorogood that I was a faithful, devoted fan, and that faithfulness would surely pay off. Maybe his people would even give me a ride home.

I got to the record store at noon, just when George was supposed to show up. I was the only person in the store besides the clerk. I waited. And waited. And waited. I went through every album in the store, from Aerosmith to ZZ Top. The snow came down harder. I started to panic a little about walking home.

The clerk—sympathetic toward me and I think a little disappointed himself—said he was going to close up the store soon. I asked him, “What about George?” He said that George’s people had not called to say they weren’t coming but at this point—it was almost 2 p.m.—it was a good assumption that he was a no-show.

I looked out the window of the store. The snow was still coming down. I had to walk home in that. My boots were soaked, my hands were numb, my heart was broken. He didn’t show. A fifteen-year-old kid walked an hour and a half in a blizzard to see a guy who couldn’t be bothered to have someone drive him to an appearance, albeit in a blizzard.

The whole way home, I just kept repeating, “Fuck you, George Thorogood,” in time to my feet sloshing through the snow. It took me almost two hours to get home. It took me another week to warm up. I took my George Thorogood cassettes and albums and defaced them in a fit of sullen anger. I pulled the tape out of the cassette and left it in a heap on my bedroom floor. I drew a mustache and devil horns on the pictures of George that I had lovingly cut out of Rolling Stone magazine. And I vowed to never listen to his music again.

Forty-seven years later, I still can’t listen to him. Though maybe that’s not so much about the grudge as it is about me wondering what the hell it was that I ever heard in his music.

Okay, maybe it’s about the grudge.

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