A Taste of Rory
Jerry Gilbert concludes his
interview with Rory Gallagher
TASTE
had already established themselves as Ireland’s top band, and the
logical step from there was across the Irish Sea to England. But
it was necessary for them to make several trips back and forth before
they attracted sufficient interest to keep them in England full time.
“When
we came over, first of all we didn't get much work so it was very much
a case of hanging around,” Rory Gallagher recalled. “So we went
back to Belfast and eventually returned to England: Polydor saw us at
one of our gigs and offered a contract and that was it.
“I
was already writing material for the band then ‑ in fact I had been
writing for the showband when I was fifteen. We were doing a
mixture of Chuck Berry ‘hangover’ songs that we all knew just to fill
up and some of my songs, so by the time we started recording in ‘68
most of the songs in the act were mine or if they weren't mine they
were, say, Willie Dixon compositions ‑ blues stuff.”
Taste
were fortunate in that they quickly came to the attention of the
Marquee Organization, and they were offered an immediate residency at
the club in the days when such an achievement was tantamount to an
automatic springboard to stardom. “We got the residency after doing a
few gigs there and we built up a following. It gave us the chance
of competition and solid work every Tuesday night ‑ it was a real
morale booster,” Rory went on.
Soon
the fanfare of trumpets sounded to welcome Taste ‑ they appeared at the
NJF Festival and were heavily tipped for stardom as an exciting new
heavyweight band.
"It
was weird because the old Taste used to get pushed into general bags,
such as being heavy, which we never were as such, and also as being
twelve‑bar‑blues‑ish which we never were totally, but I don’t
think we ever fitted any categories. Taste was a band
playing blues and rhythm and blues and working on our own compositions
to try and develop our own style, that was basically it."
Stigma
“The
thing is, the trio was a terrible stigma. People instantly
thought we were trying to do the obvious Hendrix or Cream thing, which
we weren’t ‑ they weren’t our favourites at all. If anything we
preferred the American white blues players at the time and it just
happened that we were there; so subsequently they forgot we had small
amps and weren’t doing heavy material, but it just looked as though we
were influenced by Cream even though we were a trio before Cream
formed.”
Yet
despite the promise, Taste didn't really break big until the beginning
of 1970 when their second album “On The Boards” appeared to spring from
nowhere. However Rory attributed the band’s success more to their
steady cumulative work than this one album, yet the fact that Taste
hadn’t really scored heavily prior to that album is possibly due to
Rory’s aversion towards commercialism. In fact, Taste never
released a single nor has Rory subsequently become involved in the
singles market.
“When
you have this dogmatic notion about pop‑singles it does create lulls in
publicity and so called popularity. But I think the very first
Taste that was together for two years was much more basic than the
popular Taste (with John Wilson and Ritchie McCracken) because the
second was much more technical, the musicians were much more
proficient, but the first half of the life of the second Taste was raw,
gutty music which I still inherit but … we could have been really big
if we’d all made concessions, but was the point?"
Attitude
“You
see, I’ve always had the feeling in the back of my mind that no matter
what goes wrong I can always go down to the local club and just play
the music I like. I can do without the Albert Hall, but if I
can’t walk out on a Saturday night and have a pint and plug in and have
a good jam … this is the kind of attitude I think the musicians of the
thirties had - the Glenn Miller period.”
Rory
picked up the story of Taste and retraced it through the release
of “On The Boards” and on towards the inevitable split.
“I
think ‘On The Boards’ did break the band, but even without that I think
we would have made it because we were doing an amazing amount of gigs
and we were doing well at festivals, but it probably broke us as
far as the critics were concerned. It was a good album actually
and I still like it. The first one was very bluesy and
derivative, but the second one was quite original using saxophone and
so on. There was a fair bit of jazz influence on ‘On The Boards’
but there was quite a variety … there was a bit of country and a bit of
mainstream stuff.”
Did
Rory feel that the band reached its peak during this period?
“Probably, I think that was the inspiration and highlight of the thing
and after that we just disintegrated because of different
approaches to the music. We got a lovely jazz feel out of ‘It
Happened Before It’ll Happen Again’ . . . . John got that feel on it
and I enjoyed that as a song, but then I’d want to do ‘Gambling Blues’
or something like that and naturally you couldn’t bring the jazz
influence into that kind of number; maybe some of the other boys
thought you could and that maybe it was a new concept, but I didn't
think so.
“It
didn't happen every night, but towards the end it just became a very
paranoid type of musical attitude; besides everyone had a fair bunch of
talent and maybe if we were older and more mature we could have used
everyone’s talent to the best advantage, but it just didn't work
out that way and the inevitable happened.”
Thus
Rory disappeared away from the almost hysterical reaction that greeted
the break up of Taste. He hid away in Ireland, not as a defense
measure, but simply to assimilate his ideas and prepare his next
campaign, “I knew Wilgar (Campbell) from the early Belfast days when I
lived there for a while, and Gerry (McAvoy) because I’d seen him on a
few of the Taste tours when he played in the support band, Deep
Joy. Wilgar was in London and I asked him if he’d come and have a
blow and I rang up Gerry and he was doing nothing so I brought him over.
Flare
“We
made the first album, then went on tour and went back on the
road. I was only off the road for about six months really.”
Rory
resurfaced to find that he’d lost none of his old flare - and none of
his fans either. This time he was out in front, no mistake, not
as part of a three piece band, but as a calm, assured musician fronting
his own band under his own name. “My whole approach changed
inasmuch as I was handling my own affairs which cleared up a lot of
problems - it meant that if something went wrong I had only myself to
blame. I had these six months to re‑think and also the last
couple of months of Taste to reconsider and get out of my system and
try new approaches and to use all the things I learnt with Taste and
like with Taste.”
In
fact, Rory clearly wanted to close the book on Taste once and for all
and open a completely new chapter in his career when he returned with
the new three piece. “I decided when I finished with Taste that I
wasn’t going to come back and make it on Taste’s hits ‑ I didn't do any
Taste numbers at all and haven’t done since, even though I love the
songs and they’re my compositions. But I wanted a fresh start ‑
and I couldn’t wait to get back.
“The
audience was prepared to listen - there were a few people shouting for
Taste numbers and I’d have been surprised if they didn't shout.
But soon people started calling out for ‘Laundromat’ rather than
‘What’s Going On’, so there wasn’t really anything hard about coming
back - you know if you really work hard at something and believe that
it’s solid, it’s very hard for people not to like it.”
The
conversation inevitably swung round to Rory’s best loved music ‑ that
of the blues guitarists. “I haven’t got any one idol, which I
think is a healthy thing because it means I don’t get that of BB King
complex. But I think the electric player I like best is Buddy Guy
… and Muddy, I like his style and Jimmy Rodgers. I like all the
Kings, but of that style I think I like Buddy because he takes more
chances, and Junior Wells; but then JB Hutto I like and so it goes
on. Other than that I tend to listen to more of the acoustic
players, Blind Boy Fuller, Willie Johnson, Broonzy and Scrapper
Blackwell.”
It’s
Rory Gallagher’s battered old Stratocaster which he’s had since
the age of 15, and the equally inextricable Telecaster that have seen
him through classic post‑Taste cuts like ‘Laundromat’, ‘In Your Town’,
‘Going To My Home Town’ and ‘Messin’ With The Kid’. They’re the guitars
that have taken him through four albums all of which have grown
logically and progressively to reveal more facets of the man’s musical
make up. ‘Deuce’, the second album, was a perfect sample to whet
the appetite for the live album which was released towards the end
of last year; and for my money it’s the most dynamic live album I’ve
heard from any British band containing aside from the tracks mentioned
above, his superb tribute to Blind Boy Fuller on the acoustic ‘Pistol
Slapper Blues’.
On
the new album ‘Blueprint’ he takes the acoustic side a step further
with his own self-written syncopated piece called ‘Unmilitary Two
Step’ which is a fond nod in the direction of the late Gary Davies and
is perfectly executed. But it also highlights Rory as a lyricist
and draws attention to a side of him which usually evokes
attention. ‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’ is a classic ballad of
a man back home who happens to be, as the title says, the seventh son
of a seventh son and is blessed with amazing healing powers.
‘Daughter Of The Everglades’ is another song which holds the attention
of the lyrical theme alone.
‘Blueprint’
was recorded immediately after Rory had returned from a mammoth tour of
the States which eventually lasted for three months, it’s the first to
feature new drummer Rod de’Ath and for the first time, a
pianist. Rory finally broke away from the trio format to
introduce Lou Martin, who formerly played alongside Rod de’Ath in
Killing Floor, which further emphasizes that his mind is far from
closed.
The changes he has undergone as a result of the long American campaign,
coupled with the arrival of Lou Martin has created a much wider
capacity in which he has already started to maneuver.
Rory
Gallagher’s best music is still to come ‑ his musical capacity is
enormous and in whatever stage of the 1970s and whatever context he
happens to find himself at the time, I feel that one day Rory will find
his “Sgt. Pepper”, his Utopia or whatever you choose to call that
elusive goal that so many rock musicians strive for yet so few attain.
From
the February 17, 1973 issue of SOUNDS
Thanks
to Brenda O'Brien for sharing this article
background is a B&W photo from the article I mutated
reformatted
by roryfan
276
added
12/12/04
