Still Bad

George Thorogood sums up his career with a baseball story. It’s appropriate -- since the classic-rock staple not only spent some time in the minor leagues, he’s more than a little obsessed with the national pastime. “I threw the ball out at a game 20 years ago, and they introduced me as ‘blues artist,’” he says. “Ten years later, I was a ‘rock legend.’ I threw the ball out at Wrigley a few weeks ago, and now I’m a ‘rock icon.’”

Next week, Capitol releases Bad to the Bone: 25th Anniversary Edition -- a digitally remastered and expanded version of Thorogood’s most popular album. He shrugs off its durability. “We had a very clear image of what we wanted,” he recalls. “I had good material, but I didn’t have the chops to pull it all off.” Thorogood, 56, says he started writing songs (including Bone’s title track, whose menacing opening guitar riff has become synonymous with big- and small-screen badasses) only after the obscure blues nuggets he frequently covered disappeared. “I was always afraid another hard-hitting blues-boogie outfit like J. Geils would scoop up the tunes,” he says. “By the time I got around to them, there was hardly anything left. I had no choice but to write my own songs.”
Fri., Aug. 10, 7:30 p.m.