Rory Gallagher
 
 

  The Irish Guitar Wonder
        by Richard Skelly

Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland on March 2, 1948. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to County Cork, along the south coast. He first became interested in American blues and folk music when he got his first guitar at age nine.

Since the debut Taste was released on Atco in the U.S in 1969, Gallagher has undertaken nearly 30 U.S. tours. Although he is a prolific lyricist and an energetic guitarist, singer and performer, for some reason. popularity on a wider scale has eluded Gallagher in the U.S.

Between 1969 and 1971, with producer Tony Colton at the helm, Gallagher recorded three albums with Taste that were released on Polydor in the U.K. and Atco in the U.S.

It was not until 1971, after Taste split up, that Gallagher began recording under his own name. He began performing with Wilgar Campbell on drums and Gerry McAvoy on bass. McAvoy remains Gallagher's bass player to this day.

In 1970, he recorded Rory Gallagher for Polydor Records in the U.K., however, the album was not released until 1971, when it was picked up in the U. S. by Atlantic Records. Later in 1971, he recorded Deuce, which was also released by Atlantic in the U.S. Having established himself as a solid seller for Polydor in the U.K. and Europe with a number of large festival performances there, Gallagher followed up Deuce with Live in Europe ( 1972), Blueprint and Tattoo (both in 1973). Those albums were also released by Polydor in the States in those years.

Irish Tour 1974 captured the energetic nature of Gallagher's live performances perfectly, and the album was a critical and commercial success in the UK, Europe and the States.

Other critically-acclaimed albums include Calling Card ( Chrysalis, 1976), Photo Finish (Chrysalis, 1978 and Jinx  (Chrysalis, 1982). In the early and mid-1970s, Gallagher recorded with Muddy Waters on the famed London Sessions (Chess, 1972). and with Albert King on Live (RCA/Utopia). Most recently he released Defender (1989) and Fresh Evidence (1990) for Capo/I.RS.

Gallagher made a brief tour of the U.S. in March, and he did a week's worth of soldout shows in Australia and Japan. In a sense, the U.S. tour represented a blessing for American fans, who'd been wondering when he'd be back since 1985. The wait was worth it as they enjoyed the luxury of being able to see and hear him and his extraordinary backing band in smaller venues, up close and personal, in an exciting series of roof-raising club concerts.

Rory Gallagher: I was born in Ballyshannon, Donegal (near the north coast of Ireland). But I was brought up in Cork City, which is on the south coast, and that's where I went to school and so on, so that's what I regard as my hometown.

I started playing guitar and listened a lot to Lonnie Donegan, who used to do songs by Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, so I got very interested in American folk songs, songs like “Rock Island Line” by Leadbelly, that sort of thing, but of course at the same time, you had Eddie Cochran on the scene, and Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, so I later became interested in the rockers. But initially, I was interested in the acoustic kinds of songs. That's really how I started, anything on the radio that came from America is what I was interested in. At that age I didn't even have a record player or a record collection or anything.

Goldmine: Did your parents expose you to blues and jazz at all, or was this all on your own?”

Rory Gallagher: It was all on my own, really. They ‘re both musical, but they were interested in Irish music and opera and things like that. But they didn't discourage me, though they were quite happy that I was interested.

Goldmine: Some early influences included Chuck Berry and later on, Muddy Waters, but early on you were interested in a lot of different styles of American music.

Rory Gallagher: Yeah, that's still there. A lot of guitar players from my scene tend to just play from the roots of Buddy Guy, B.B.King, Freddie King, Albert King. And they're all great players, but I try to dig deeper into some of the great country blues players, like John Lee Hooker. But I'm not strictly interested in single note players, I like some of the rhythm players like Johnny Young and some of the slide players like J.B. Hutto. I try and keep a broad view on the blues, really.

Goldmine: Lonnie Donnegan was part of the Chris Barber Band, an English trad-jazz band. Tell us about him.

Rory Gallagher: He started off as a banjo player with Chris Barber's traditional jazz band. For some reason in the late 1940's and early '50's, traditional jazz became very popular among the art school students. Lonnie was also a guitarist and during the breaks of the jam sessions, Lonnie would get together with the drummer and bass player or drummer and a washboard player, and they'd do a couple of skiffle songs, as they called them, skiffle meaning jug band music or folk blues, whatever.

It just became quite a feature in the jazz clubs. Then, on one of Chris Barber's albums, Lonnie recorded a couple of songs, “Rock Island Line” ,“John Henry,” and I can't remember the other titles, but they actually became pretty big hits. So he went on his own then, and he had other kinds of hits, with songs like “My Old Man's A Dust Man” and “Does The Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor. ‘‘  They were less important, but Lonnie was very important.

A lot of guitar players from John Lennon right across to Martin Carthy, Davey Graham, Eric Clapton, Bert Jansch, they all heard that you could start on an acoustic which wasn't  too expensive, and get together with a bass.

At this stage it seems like a silly way to start, but there was quite a long stretch of skiffle and trad-jazz going there for a while.

Goldmine: You later recorded with Lonnie Donegan in the mid-1970’s?

Rory Gallagher: I can't remember the year, to be honest with you (1977). The idea was that I was going to get the sessions together and sort of produce it, but I didn't produce it in the end. I ended up playing on it, which was interesting enough. It became a bit of a super-session, and it had a lot of pop stars on it, who are all good people, but it just took it away from the skiffle idea and the acoustic thing. But he's recording another album soon, again, and I believe I might play on that one. Van Morrison’s already lined up to play on it as well, ‘cause he's a Lonnie Donegan fan.

Goldmine: What label would he record for?

Rory Gallagher: He might be on Castle, which is the company we release through in
England.

Goldmine: Tell us about your early band, the Impact, and what exactly is a “show” band?

Rory Gallagher: It's a dance band, really; it became a bit of a craze in England. They called them show bands ‘cause they used to do a bit of gimmickry on stage and do stagy numbers. At 14 or 15,  I couldn't get a band together, so I joined one, so I would be able to plug into a Vox amplifier and travel around the country. They'd allow me to do a few Chuck Berry numbers and “Green Onions” and things like that, but then I’d also have to do Jim Reeves songs and dance songs and Dixieland and whatever.

But, I put up with it, eventually left and slowly but surely got a trio together, where we went to Hamburg and got some gigs. That band wasn't called Taste yet, it was just a three-piece, but when I got back to Ireland, I got the first line-up of Taste going in 1966.

Goldmine: What do you remember about those early gigs in Germany? This was your first chance to play the music that you loved. How did it go over there?

Rory Gallagher: Well, at that stage, in the beat clubs, as they were called, we weren't playing strictly blues, we were playing rock 'n' roll, rhythm 'n' blues, straight blues, whatever. Don't forget, you had to play six 45-minute sets a night!

We were only three people, so we didn't have that much material together, among three of us. So we had to pretend that we had an organ player that got appendicitis on the ferry going over, ‘cause they wouldn't regard a three-piece group as a band at all. So anyway, we held on there, and then started building up a name back in Ireland, and got quite popular there and began writing our own songs.

Eventually, we moved to Belfast, and we worked a lot there, and finally got a break in England, a couple of gigs at the Marquee club. We also got on a couple of the big blues and rock festivals, about 1969, around the time my first album with Taste came out.

Goldmine: When did you release your first album under your own name? And what became of Taste?

Rory Gallagher: Taste split up in 1971. The  band split for all kinds of reasons: the drummer wanted to play jazz, the manager had difficulties with us, or I had difficulties with him, so it was six months of legal hassles with all kinds of strings attached to be able  to get out and work again.  Anyway, I went off with my own band in 1971, and recorded the first album under my own name and started touring through Europe. Luckily, I still had some of the old Taste fans and some new fans, and it developed.

Goldmine: Who was Tony Colton, who produced your first four albums?

Rory Gallagher: Actually, he produced the  first two studio albums, the other two were live albums that were released by the manager with whom I had contractual problems.  So Tony Colton has nothing to do with the live albums, but he was a good producer for those two studio albums. He went on to be the lead singer for a band called Head,  Hands and Feet, who featured Albert Lee on guitar, a country-rock band. And he was a composer and wrote a couple of songs,  including one B-side for Cream, ah, “The Coffee Song,” I think it was called. He was also involved in the Jerry Lee Lewis album I played on.

Goldmine: Since 1971, you've released 14 albums. Your level of prolificacy hasn't slowed at all over the years.

Rory Gallagher: At one stage we were recording and releasing an album every year, so it's some work and effort, but just before Defender, the last album before Fresh Evidence, I had this burst of energy. You know,  you do get these peaks where you feel invigorated. But, some albums we recorded in six weeks, some took six months, and some took all kinds of time. Some were scrapped,  at least two albums were recorded and scrapped.

Goldmine: Were those first two albums Rory Gallagher and Deuce— sort of a turning point for you, not only in terms of recording under your own name, but also because you were recording your own blues songs?

Rory Gallagher: ‘Well, yes. I produced the album we recorded in a reggae studio, eight-track, and in three weeks we had the whole album completed. In fact, when I get back to England (last April), I'm going to re-mix some of the tracks on that. But at the time we enjoyed it very much ‘cause it was a very non-state-of-the-art type of studio; we did everything live—live lead guitar. live lead vocals.

Goldmine: Natural sound.

Rory Gallagher: Yeah. With that, of course, you get some imperfections, but it was great to be on the move again, recording and on the road with my own group.

Goldmine: Tell us about the London Sessions with Muddy Waters in 1972. Here was a guy whose records you'd studied as a teen, and you had the chance not only to meet him, but to record with him.

Rory Gallagher: I'd seen Muddy Waters live twice before that, so obviously I was nervous meeting him, you know, but I found him like a big Buddha. You know, he knew what he wanted, but he was very polite.

We were recording three nights on the trot, and I was actually playing three gigs on the evenings of those sessions, so they'd hold up the sessions until midnight, till I arrived, back from Birmingham, or back from Bristol, or whatever. That was more than polite. I just seemed to get on well with a him and we laid down quite a few tracks. In fact there was an album that came out later, London Revisited with one side of Howlin’ Wolf and another side of Muddy Waters' tracks.

I learned a lot watching him tune his guitar, and watching the way he sang and performed. I mean, just to be working in close quarters with him, even if it was only three nights, was quite an experience. I'd love to be doing it again, now, with what I know.

We tried to keep it fairly traditional and I think it works fairly well most of way.

Goldmine: What do you remember about those sessions and how was he to work with in the studio?

Rory Gallagher: I think what made it somewhat easy was that a lot of the songs that we did were songs he had recorded before, like “I'm Ready’. Also “I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town”, which he hadn't recorded before, with Steve Winwood on organ on that. He recorded "Who's Gonna Be Your Sweet Man When I'm Gone.” “Young Fashioned Ways,” so the hardest thing was to get the drums and bass in sync with Muddy’s type of rhythm guitar. We had Sammy Lawhorn there on guitar, along with me, so it would be in a fairly confined fashion: it wasn't lead guitar all over the place. He played slide on two of the tracks, and he would play on some tracks with the guitar strapped on him,  and plant a little riff someplace.

Goldmine: In terms of how his production ideas were, was he following the advice of someone else, or did he have his own definite ideas?

Rory Gallagher: Well, it was loose. There were ideas coming from a fellow called Esmond Edwards, from Chess Records, and a fellow named Ian Green, who's from England and we did another new song, “Blind Man Blues.” I remember. A couple of times Muddy would stop the song if he didn't like the way it was going, but a few suggestions were made by Steve Winwood as well, and Georgie Fame, who was playing piano. But with a lot of these types of sessions, there's not all that much verbal communication, you know, a lot of it's just stop and start again can you pick that up or can you start in a different key.

Goldmine: What were your first impressions of the U.S. And when was this?

Rory Gallagher: In 1969 I was over here touring with Taste as a support band for Blind Faith.

Goldmine: What were some of the more memorable concerts from that first tour in 1969?

Rory Gallagher : Well, we didn't play Madison Square Garden with them, but it was scary. I’d never seen a crowd like that. A  lot of the fans were getting a bit out of control and there was a fair bit of bouncers and police beating people up and things, and it was very scary.

 Our first gig was in Philadelphia, at the Spectrum, on a revolving stage, so it was going around Beatles fashion on and between that and having jet-lag, I tell you it was serious. We went down well and later went on to Baltimore and Boston and played an open-air in Boston, and Janis Joplin showed up at the gig.

But obviously, first time in America, like Europe is usually very American now, but then it was quite different. Things like all-night television and all-night food, and availability of certain instruments and records, it was quite good. But, as usual, it was so hectic, you couldn't really absorb anything.

Goldmine: Between 1985 and now, what labels have you been recording with in England?”

Rory Gallagher: I did one album for Demon Records, Defender. It also had the Capo label identity which we've continued to have, so that we have a certain uniformity around the world with all the releases. It seems we're on so many labels.

Capo is Fresh Evidence and Defender, mainly something I set up to record my own stuff. It's my own company, it's obviously not a big corporate conglomerate or anything, but if I wanted to record somebody, and Castle or I.R.S. were interested in putting it out, it could help an up-and-coming band or some existing artist who needs a break. It’s just a little identity, you know.

Goldmine: If we look at your discography, one musician crops up again and again, your longtime bass player. Gerry McAvoy. What makes Gerry so special, in terms of your sound, or in terms of his sound.”

Rory Gallagher: Gerry’s a very rhythmic player. and he's quick to pick up a riff or an idea. He doesn't play bass like Jack Bruce, or Motown or Bill Wyman and particularly for a three-piece band,  he can sort of spread himself around a lot. You need a lot of maneuvering, even though he's tightened up his style a lot in the last couple of years. And he has quite good knowledge of various riffs. If I say, ‘Do you remember the riff on such and such record?’, he can remember the riff, and it saves a lot of chatting; you can get a bit of ESP going.

The same thing with the drummer, and they're both Belfast people, strangely enough, as they were for Taste. And as it happened, they both worked together as teenagers, and after Ted McKenna [former drummer] left, it came together fairly quickly.

Goldmine: What is your approach to blues songwriting? What inspires you in Ireland or in England? You've never really gotten terribly political, have you?

Rory Gallagher: Not blatantly. Some of my social feelings will creep out in songs that I
write, but I think writing blatantly about  Ireland is very difficult, because it's a very complex issue and you're either very good at it, or you're not. I mean, I'll discuss politics with somebody all night. I might write a song that's blatantly about Ireland, but at the moment, I'll wait until I have something positive to say. But basically, you write as an international human being.

I generally sit down and try and write a Rory Gallagher song, which generally happens to be quite bluesy, most of them I try to find different issues, and different themes and different topics that haven't been covered before. And then on some songs, for instance on “Ghost Blues,” on the new album, that could have been written 30 years ago; it's very traditional, almost like a Rev. Robert Wilkens type of songs like a redemption blues.

And then, songs like “Heaven's Gate" have a kind of spooky feeling, sort of like "Hellhound On My Trail,” where a man's been through a certain amount of torment .“Kid Gloves,” based on the John Garfield movie, Body and Soul, has more of rock type feel.

But in general, I try and find anything but the moon in June and the standard type of blues songs, the clichés. I find it a challenge. I've done songs in all the different styles, you know, train blues, and drinking blues and economic blues.

But I try to find a slightly different angle on all these things. The music can be very traditional, but you can sort of creep into the future with the lyrics.

Goldmine: All of your old albums are in the process of being reissued here in the States with the lyric sheets included.

Rory Gallagher: Yeah, all lyric sheets. Some will even have the odd extra track or some will have been enhanced, EQ-wise or some will be re-mixed. Most of them have already been re-released in Europe, with the exception of Deuce and Photo-Finish, those are the two I'm going to work on when I get back.

Goldmine: So when can we expect these in the States?

Rory Gallagher: I'd say all of them will be out within the next two years.

Goldmine: What was it like working with the Rolling Stones in Amsterdam in 1974? Obviously, they knew of you from around London. And also, do you feel the Stones lost their soul when they lost ( Stone's founder) Brian Jones?

Rory Gallagher: Well, they lost someone special when they lost Brian, there's no doubt about that, because on one hand, he was a real blues purist, and the first slide guitar player I ever saw. But then, he would take an average-to-good Jagger-Richards song and add marimbas or sitar or dulcimer or something, and he'd transform their songs into something else. Unfortunately, it seemed he lost interest in playing guitar with Keith Richards, as things got worse for him. But then, Mick Taylor was a great replacement and certainly a very strong lead guitar player. But, when Brian went, some of the mystical things crept out of it and they went into a new zone, obviously.

I just went to Rotterdam for three nights, they had shown interest in signing me to their label, but I was already signed up with Atlantic here and Polydor and so on.

They telephoned, would I come over so I went over and played with them for couple of nights with their mobile unit, just ran through some songs. But because Mick Taylor had gone, they also had Beck over at one point, and a couple of others - Wayne Perkins and Harvey Mandel
—but I couldn't stick around, cause I had tours to do.  But it was interesting working with them, particularly because it's a slow process; they work maybe just drums and rhythm guitar, maybe for two hours on the same riff and adding a little bit of lead and the bass comes in. They don't rush themselves, they don't go in with ever written down, from what I saw, anyway.

Goldmine: By that point, financial considerations were not an issue for them in recording.

Rory Gallagher: The mobile unit was their own property. The place they were recording was a big orchestra rehearsal room, next to where the symphony orchestra was, and it was peculiar. I think they got that for a very good deal, I'm sure.

Goldmine: What was the mid-to-late 1960’s London club scene like, and where could bands play’?

Rory Gallagher: Well, the Marquee was one of the main places and on a night you could see the Yardbirds supported by some other important group. I mean I saw the Spencer Davis Group there. I saw the Who there. The other clubs you could play included the Ricky-Tick, the 100 Club on Oxford Street, down in Richmond, the Tennis club the Yardbirds would play, tons of places, and lots of college gigs as well, and lots of pubs.

Goldmine: And all of these people were very much into American blues.

Rory Gallagher: Most of them, really. Also, a lot of bands were into soul music, and of course there was a thriving folk scene: at that point there was a peak of talent in people like Davey Graham, John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, Bert Jansch and so on.

So, there was a lot of cross-playing: you had bands like the Incredible String Band, and bands that didn't fit into the blues category bands like the Nice that were doing organ type of classical rock or whatever you'd call it, and bands like Family and King Crimson later on. Quite a lot of experimentation going on, but the majority of the bands had quite a blues thing going on.

Goldmine: Was there enough work to go around then?

Rory Gallagher: Well, depending on how lucky you were and how popular you were. There's always a shortage of work, musicians will tell you, but at least there was a circuit and if you were lucky to get on the circuit, you could play the same clubs up the country to Scotland and occasional trips to Belgium and so on. If you were lucky, you could do quite reasonably well.

Goldmine: In your performances, you sort of tread a tightrope between satisfying the academics, the purists, the traditional types, the Brian Joneses, if you will, while at the same time trying to satisfy the people who just want to come in and have a good time, which, I guess there are a lot of here in America.

Rory Gallagher: Well, I'm delighted if some members of the audience have some knowledge of the blues, but if, at the same time, the audience gets a little bit rowdy and rocky, I'm not going to say, “Hey, everyone back in their seats, the Professor speaks!”

Anyone with any brains can see I know where this music comes from and I can adapt it, and I also write my own songs.

But if there was one fault with the British blues boom in the 1960s, it is that it was very straight-faced and very pontificatory, or whatever the word is. It used to annoy me that 'Thou shalt not play the blues unless you know who played second acoustic guitar behind first Sonny Boy Williamson on the B-side of.’ That kind of thing gets music nowhere. It's like collecting stamps. I mean I buy books on the blues and I check out the B-sides, and I know who plays on what records, and that's fine, but I mean, then you've got to open that up to the rest of the people. Because, that kind of snobbery, defeats the purpose, it kills the music.

Goldmine: So, if the crowd is getting rowdy you just continue the flow, as it were.

Rory Gallagher: Well, we never end a show on a low note. In any one set, we do a couple of slow blues, a couple of rockers, a couple of songs that are in between somewhere and we try to end the night on a good high feeling. But it's very bad to get analytical about what you do, because every gig is different. We don't even use a set list; we change the set every night.

Goldmine: Recording-wise, and performance-wise which of your albums are most happy with?

Rory Gallagher: Well, I quite like Tattoo, it had a nice feel to it. Against The Grain was quite nicely put together. Every album there are songs that I like and some that I would like to re-do and re-mix and all the usual. I quite like the new album, Fresh Evidence. I think that's quite strong: I like a lot of Defender. Albums like Blueprint had very good songs, but we could have spent more time mixing them. Deuce, the same thing, it was recorded very quickly.

Goldmine: You strive for a natural sound?

Rory Gallagher: Well, with Fresh Evidence we did some overdubs: there was a section and keyboards on some tracks the overall feel of it should be that the performance is the priority as opposed to the production, and for the production not to get in the way, like some productions can. You can actually hear the thing as a piece of silver glass. I like things to sound a little bit demo-ish, you know? A little bit rough.

Goldmine: Of all the labels you've recorded with—Polydor, Chrysalis,  Hallmark, Springboard—who would you say has treated you most professionally?

Rory Gallagher: Well, Springboard we took to court, ‘cause they had no right to put that album out: that was a long story. Hallmark is just kind of a budget label,  so I don’t know much about them.

But we had a good time with both Polydor and Chrysalis over the years. Not too much pressure, and they got the job done.

GoIdmine: When did I.R.S. first express interest in signing you?

Rory Gallagher: Maybe in 1989. They were interested initially, at the time we were working on Defender, but because they were interested in the back catalog as well, it took a long time for everyone to shake hands on a deal. But [I.R.S. founder] Miles Copeland had a personal interest, and he thought what I did was good, and he wanted it on the label, and he doesn’t beat around the bush that much. So, unfortunately, we didn’t get it together in time for Defender, but we did get it together for Fresh Evidence.  Fresh Evidence was released in England last May [1990], so it’s a bit back-dated, but by next year it’ll be all leveled out.

GoIdmine: I.R.S. has a roster of alternative rock bands and their stuff is bought by mostly a younger audience.

Rory Gallagher: Yeah. it’s a good challenge to have a new audience and not be judged on your past material. On this American tour, we’ve found a lot of people coming out who had just this [Fresh Evidence] album. To be honest with you, I didn’t quite know the entire image of I.R.S. from being in London. I mean, I knew the kind of acts they had to a certain extent, but from being here, I can see now what the image is. I hope I can fit on it, and it works out, but so far so good.

Goldmine: What are you recording next?

Rory Gallagher: There are three alternative projects: one could be a live album for this tour, the second one could be an acoustic album, which would be one side of blues and one side of folk, Celtic, experimental, or the third alternative is to follow up Fresh Evidence with a band type album. I don’t know which way I’ll move.

Goldmine: Have there been any particularly memorable, ground-breaking concerts for you? I guess we could back up to 1966 on this one. Was there a time where record company people came in and saw you. and were floored?

Rory Gallagher: One or two had already flown to Belfast and seen us playing. And then we played a couple of festivals in England. and we went over well, and then word got around. And then, we got a residency at the Marquee and we were playing every Tuesday night or something, that did us a lot of good. You can imagine, even four Tuesday nights on the trot, with full houses and a good reaction and record companies being very up at the time, it didn’t take too long. It took long enough getting the breaks. but once the ball started rolling, it was okay.

Goldmine: Like a lot of other performers, you regularly play to large festival crowds over in Europe, while over here, you’re sort of relegated to the clubs.

Rory Gallagher: Well, I wouldn’t call it relagated, that almost makes it sound second-level. Okay, we’re not playing Madison Square Garden, but we have done that with the Faces and people like that: we have played big venues on our own name. But I refuse to come back to the United States just to be opening for some space-rock act. To be playing 30 minutes with no monitors and things. So. it’s good to have that European strength, but I’ve never had the ambition to play those really big gigs anyway. I don’t worry about things like that, really. We’re quite proud of what we do and I think a lot of acts use the clubs and then they leave them. I still prefer to go to clubs to see bands myself.

Goldmine: Sure. because blues or rock or jazz music is being performed in its most natural setting.

Rory Gallagher: Sure, that’s right, you’re not looking through binoculars to see what someone’s doing from hundreds of feet away. I hope as things develop, we can do some bigger show’s if necessary.

This interview comes from the October 4, 1991 issue of Goldmine.
Thanks to Don and Laura for passing it along.
reformatted by roryfan
The background is a capture from Rockpalast '77 by donman, mutated by roryfan.
 

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