BLUES-ORIENTED PERFORMER : THOROGOOD TAKES THE ‘MAVERICK’ APPROACH

When it comes to pursuing a career in rock ‘n’ roll, George Thorogood isn’t what you’d call an orthodox guy. For one thing, the blues-oriented singer-guitarist is such an avid baseball fan that he refuses to tour during the baseball season.

But don’t get the idea that he’s lazy: He and his band, the Destroyers, once scheduled a concert tour requiring them to perform in all 50 states--in 50 days.

Definitely not your standard approach.

“Yeah, well, when we started out, we just blundered into the music business, and we’ve always just gone about things in our own particular way,” Thorogood, 33, explained by phone from San Francisco, in the midst of a tour that includes shows Friday at Riverside’s Raincross Square, Saturday at the Hollywood Palladium and Sunday at UC Irvine.

“A lot of the things we’ve done in an unconventional way weren’t on purpose, we just didn’t know any other way,” he continued. “And as the years went by, people would say, ‘Well, that’s certainly a maverick approach.’ And I’d say, ‘You mean like James Garner?’ ”

Very funny, George--except he’s not kidding. It turns out that Thorogood would think of the actor every time he heard the word maverick , because Garner’s TV Western was his favorite show as a kid. “I thought it was just a guy’s name,” explained Thorogood, who responded to the program’s theme song nearly as much as to Garner’s heroics. “I love that song, and I’ve always enjoyed singing it, even in my adult years,” he said.

After hearing Thorogood sing the ballad enough times, Destroyers saxophonist Hank Carter and bassist Billy Blough figured out the chords, and the band began playing it informally at rehearsals and sound checks. Then last summer, while recording the follow-up to 1982’s “Bad to the Bone” LP, they broke into the song on a whim with the tape machine running. In true Thorogood fashion, that take emerged not just as a cut on the new album--it’s the title track.

The rest of “Maverick” is a showcase for Thorogood’s piercing slide-guitar bursts and foghorn vocals, applied to a characteristic grab bag of chestnuts, from Johnny Otis’ “Willie and the Hand Jive” to Carl Perkins’ “Dixie Fried.” Since his first album in 1977, Thorogood has emphasized other artists’ material over his own, but “Maverick” has four original tunes.

Thorogood explained that the ratio will continue to change on future albums: “Back in ‘73, I made a list of songs from all these old albums. They were good songs, but I didn’t like the original recordings, and I thought someone should do them and produce them better. Now that I’ve just about exhausted all the tunes on that list, I’ll be doing mostly original songs on my records.”

He emphasized that this crusade to redo dusty gems hasn’t been confined to his own career. Over the years, he’s suggested various songs to such artists as Elvin Bishop, the J. Geils Band, Bonnie Raitt and Peter Wolf. “The song I’ve been trying to get Peter Wolf to do for five years is ‘Show Me’ by Joe Tex,” he said. “If he did a live album with that song on it, and made a video of it, there’d be no stopping the guy. He’d be--I hate to say this--but he’d be the Jewish Michael Jackson.”

For someone so strongly committed to promoting songs, Thorogood doesn’t exactly overestimate the impact of his own records, apparently recognizing that his albums have never captured the high-stepping spirit of his concerts.

“My records are just for people to listen to when we’re not around to play live,” he said. “The live show is my bread and butter. I’m a performer , and that’s what I do best.”