George Thorogood Praises Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley & Little Richard

05/16/2002 3:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Jerry Armor

(5/16/02, 3 p.m. ET) -- George Thorogood was among those on hand to sing the praises of rock 'n' roll legends Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Little Richard, who were honored with the first BMI Icon Awards at the performing rights organization's 50th annual Pop Awards Tuesday (May 14) in Beverly Hills, California.

Thorogood gave LAUNCH the rundown on the rock icons. "With Chuck Berry, you've got the all-time four-star player," Thorogood said. "He's a great performer, a great writer, a great singer, and a great player. Not many people have that, all four things combined. Some can sing great, but they don't write. Some write, but they don't sing. Chuck Berry was the first of that. There's only a handful of them. John Fogerty is one, the Beatles...There's very few that have all that covered. And I'm talking about great writing and great performing. I'm not just talking about, 'Oh, he plays guitar pretty good or he writes pretty good.' (He's) up there on the top with all four things...Arguably, probably the greatest rock 'n' roll star ever."

Thorogood continued, "And the only person that would probably argue about that is Little Richard, and he's got a good argument, because he is, after all, Little Richard, the one, the only. And then you got Bo Diddley, who is a man amongst men. To play with Bo Diddley you just can't be a heterosexual, you've got to be a confident heterosexual! And they picked me to do this. So, I hope all those years of watching Tom Jones paid off."

Although Thorogood didn't get to play on stage with Bo Diddley at the event, he did perform a trio of the rock legend's best-known songs, including "Who Do You Love." Thorogood's version of the song appeared on his 1978 album, Move It On Over.

Other performers at the event included Ivan Neville, who performed some of Little Richard's classics, and Jonny Lang and Mavis Staples, who offered their takes on some of Berry's best-known tunes.

-- Craig Rosen, Los Angeles

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