George Thorogood wants to rock with McCartney and play the blues with Dylan

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON APRIL 26, 2014

By Steve Newton

I’ve always enjoy asking guitar heroes which players they’d most like to jam with if they could pick anyone, living or dead. And the last one I interviewed, George Thorogood, had a pretty interesting bucket list.

“Well you can’t jam with Robert Johnson ’cause he didn’t need anybody,” replied the 64-year-old blues-rocker, who plays the Hard Rock Casino Vancouver May 2 and 3. “And I can’t jam with Elmore James because he plays slide guitar like me! You know, I already jammed with Muddy Waters, and I already jammed with John Lee Hooker. I already jammed with Hound Dog Taylor and John Hammond and all the others–[Charlie] Musselwhite and [Paul] Butterfield and all those people.

“So I can’t really think of anybody. I guess the one blues guy I’d like to jam with is Bob Dylan. He’s a blues guy, you know–listen to a lot of his lyrics, they’re very bluesy, right? I’d like to do a blues song with him. We could write a song together–let him write it and me play slide.

“He’s about the only cat left, man. I’d like to play a rock song with Paul McCartney and a blues song or a country song with Bob Dylan. Aim high!”

For more from Thorogood–including how he originally wanted Muddy Waters to record “Bad to the Bone”–read the full interview here.