Jeffrey Pike interview with Rory Gallagher
Guitar magazine  May 1973

Rory Gallagher:
My interest in the guitar started at the age of six or seven. After a couple of ukuleles, I eventually got a guitar when I was about nine. I suppose I was listening to early Elvis, Lonnie Donegan, that sort of thing, and Gene Autry and Roy Rogers! A friend of a relation of mine had an acoustic guitar. It just seemed the obvious instrument to me - the appearance of it and the mobility of it and everything else. I had a few skiffle tutors and I learned the chords by looking at photographs. There was no one around to teach me, so I just taught myself. I played in school concerts and talent shows. About the age of twelve, I got a ­ what was it? - Rosetti Solid 7; and I graduated through school groups to a showband, then into Taste.

Jeffrey Pike:
Where did the blues come into it?

Rory Gallagher:
Chuck Berry, I suppose, would be the main link between rock and roll and blues - well, Lonnie Donegan used to do a few Leadbelly things, "Bring a little Water Sylvie", and things that verged on the country blues. So between that and reading about it, and hearing, you know Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed, the very obvious people, and then of course the Rolling Stones .. .I eventually got down to it. I always knew it was there underneath rock and roll, which was just a very up-beat blues thing.

Jeffrey Pike:
You still play acoustic guitar a lot?

Rory Gallagher:
I always try to play some acoustic numbers on my records, on radio, whenever I get the chance. It's usually two or three acoustic numbers on stage, and the same on record. I have to split up a set between lead guitar, slide and acoustic. In an American club, doing two sets, I can play maybe five acoustic numbers, and that's enough to keep
me satisfied. But I always play acoustic at home, as well as electric.

Jeffrey Pike:
Stefan Grossman maintained that finger picking acoustic guitar is a great American tradition

Rory Gallagher:
I don't think you can be as nationalistic as that. It was a thing that developed in the States and the people that  originally turned you on were probably American. But I don't think you have to be American to play it. In fact, you  probably bring a bit of European influence into it. Besides, the guitar came from Europe originally. But I think I know what he means: the American way of life, and the railroads and the towns. He was saying you couldn't sing about New Orleans unless you'd been there. So what?

Jeffrey Pike:
How much do you practise?

Rory Gallagher:
I don't really practise. I try to play things I haven't done before. And writing songs helps you practise. You see, playing more or less by ear, as I do, there are no real sequences I can practise. But I get up in the morning, have something to eat, and - to quote Grossman again - there's always a guitar around the room, I just pick it up and I might do a Rambling Jack Elliot-type thing for twenty minutes to relax, for no other reason. Then of course  somewhere along the way you'll hit something and say, oh, I'll do that again. And you might lead on to something, you might end up with a song.

Jeffrey Pike:
So you always compose with a guitar?

Rory Gallagher:
Yes, fifty per cent of my songs arise directly out of my guitar playing, the other fifty per cent come as sort of lyrical inspiration, in a taxi or somewhere. Then later the guitar will come out. But I'm sure that song-writing does help your playing, it stretches the imagination. If you've got a set of words you want to put music to, the words might have a strange metre, and you might have to do a strange lick you mightn't have been called on to do before. I think that most song-writers have that schizophrenia between real guitar practise and writing songs, because the borderline is very vague anyway. There's always that temptation, you know, to pick a nice lick and work on it.

Jeffrey Pike:
Which musicians have influenced your playing?

Rory Gallagher:
There are always musicians on my record player who have an effect on me spiritually, say, as opposed to a technical thing. Oh, let see, I've such a wide collection.  I try to avoid having just one idol. That way you end up with say, a B.B.King complex, as most blues players have. They say, Oh, not bad, but nothing compared to B.B. I like to listen to Buddy Guy, John Hammond's a nice guitar player. Al Wilson used to be nice with Canned Heat. I like to listen to Bert Jansch and Martin Carthy - there are so many good players. I listen to them all.

At one time I was very influenced, guitar wise, by the jazz alto players, you know. Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy. I always thought that, particularly Ornette Coleman's ballad playing was ..... blues- whatever the word is. From the heart, you know. Taste at that time was very jazz-influenced. My liking for jazz just tapered off to a nice interest, whereas with the other musicians it remained. Subsequently, I'd be playing a blues thing and they'd still be experimenting with jazz rhythms, which created a bit of a tight spot.

Jeffrey Pike:
Is that why Taste broke up?

Rory Gallagher:
Taste lasted, from the beginning for four years, with a new bass player and a new drummer in the middle, two years each. I think two years is a good working life for a band. Unless it's a very close, school-friend type of band, after two years - especially working at the rate we used to work - that's enough.

Jeffrey Pike:
Lets talk about guitars: you play a Fender, don't you?

Rory Gallagher:
Yes. I got my Strat very early, when I was about 15. I think that's a good idea. I've had two Telecasters as well.

Jeffrey Pike:
Why have you stuck so faithfully to Fender?

Rory Gallagher:
I think the Stratocaster has this connection with the acoustic guitar somehow, not that you imitate the sound, it's the action. I feel the Gibson is very .... insular - you have to get  in there. And the range between the pick ups is not as distinctive as on the Fender. With the Fender you hit a note and it hits the back wall, you know?

Whereas it doesn't have the volume on stage. The Gibson has that beautiful lush chord and it's got the very soft action, but I still prefer the Fender. Another thing: the controls are very near the bridge, so you can change things easily. Other guitar-makers could copy that idea. I don't know, I'm just used to it. It seems a more distinct electric guitar. You can get a clear tone and a buzzy tone, whereas with the Gibson, to get the clear tone you have to bring the volume right down. Sometimes if I'm doing a recording session, the Fender won't always do. I might want a sort of Gretsch tone, so I hire one. The Tele is ideal for slide, because the bottom pick-up is like a steel guitar pick-up, so you can get that country-style clarity, the kind of hard tone.

Jeffrey Pike:
What amps do you use?

Rory Gallagher:
I've always used an AC 30, for twelve, fifteen years. But right now I'm using a Fender Twin, a 1955 model I got in the States: it's the one Holly and Cochran used to have, it's really good. It means a slight change from the Vox. I might go back to the AC30. I still have it on stage. I used to use it with a Rangemaster treble booster, because the Vox is very bassy; and I used to get a wild tone, very raw. Whereas the Fender is a little on the clean side: it makes you work a little harder. It's nicer for the slide guitar too, it's clearer. The Vox together with the Strat were very popular in the Hank Marvin era. Then when the Beatles came in, people thought that you couldn't get anything but that old clear, pure tone. But of course you could. And the shape of the Strat went right out of fashion, Then it came back in with Hendrix using it, and now everyone's playing a Fender. I think Gretschs are going to creep back in too: they went right out as soon as George Harrison stopped using them.

Jeffrey Pike:
What's your favourite acoustic guitar?

Rory Gallagher:
I haven't had enough of them to really have a favourite. I suppose it's got to be the Martin. But then, I've heard a couple of real  old Gibsons. The one Woody Guthrie used to have, it must have been the J45, a pre-50s model - that was beautiful. A much more earthy tone than the Martin: the Martin's just a bit lush sometimes. You know, I wish they would change the brace system on the Martin again, so that you get that hump, which definitely does change the tone.

Jeffrey Pike:
Getting back to electric playing, you sometimes get squealing harmonics in your solos

Rory Gallagher:
Somebody brought it to my notice that I was doing it. I mean,  I knew I was doing it, but it was just another thing to me. When you're doing a really hard solo, if you give it a few harmonics, it makes it that bit harder, gives it more guts, you know? So then it developed so that I could actually do runs in harmonics. It's expressive, and it gives a nice freaky touch. I mean, Django used to do harmonics, but they were a very clear, pure thing, like in classical guitar. But what I do is a kind of abortion, like I can bend the note at the same time. And I can get either a one octave harmonic or a real two octave squeal, you know? It's a nice little trick to use now and again. It's more fun if you can get it like that than if I pressed a button on the floor.

Jeffrey Pike:
Do you ever use tone splitters or similar gadgets?

Rory Gallagher:
No, though I'm interested in those things. Hendrix used one on Purple Haze. Saxophone players use them. It's a reasonable thing for a guitar player to use. But it's more fun when you start getting octaves naturally. It's more of a challenge to walk up to an amp and plug in and - bang - you're there.

---

From the May 1973 issue of GUITAR magazine
The painting was done by Evi Ivan...thanks!!
reformatted by roryfan

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