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George Thorogood knows slide guitar. Whether it's a timeless original like Bad To The Bone or one of the dozens of classic cover tunes he's tackled, when he lays metal to metal, the crowd-pleasing blues-rocker makes his Gibson ES-125 scream and growl.

"You gotta love a guitar," says Thorogood, "but sometimes it helps to get mad at it, too. Extract vengeance. That's particularly true when you're playing slide.

"Some people think that because you have this shiny piece of metal on your finger that you're going to be playing all graceful," he says. "Not me. I been known to use a piece of copper pipe and rough it up with sandpaper - make it scratchy so it can dig into those strings. You gotta make 'em fight back."

By Thorgood's estimate, his love affair with slide guitar began in 1970, when he first heard Robert Johnson. "A life-changing event," he says. And it just so happens that the mythical king of the Delta blues tops George Thorogood's list of favorite slide players:

1. Robert Johnson

"He's the best," says Thorogood. "He was the Jimi Hendrix of his time. Preaching Blues, Terraplane Blues - I love 'em all, but those two really messed me up. Turned my soul around three times over, man.

"Robert Johnson was the strongest thing I'd heard since The Beatles. When that sound hit me, that pure…he was the genuine article, you know? It stopped me in my tracks. Made me shiver. Made me look at everything in a new way. That's what great art does.

"I can't describe what's so special about his technique, because to speak of it is to spoil the deed. How do you explain the sunset? A beautiful woman walking down the beach? A child laughing? For some things, there are no words. That's how I feel about Robert Johnson."

Next: More Thorogood favs

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