Rory
Gallagher: He Lived, Loved, and Died with the Blues
by PATRICK KENNEDY
Worldwide
his albums sold millions and his concerts have gone into the pantheon
of rock history
Rory
Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon Co Donegal …March 2nd,
1948, and moved with his family to Cork when he was still a child. His
brother Donal can remember him tuning into American radio to search
out Blues music when he was aged just six. He recalls:
"My father was a musician and when Rory asked for a guitar my
parents sent off through a catalogue and received what was almost a
toy guitar, but Rory at the age of eight was able to pick out
chords
on it. Later when we moved to Cork he got a proper acoustic guitar
and then later an electric one.”
Rory’s
first attempts at a band were with school friends, playing in local
concert halls in Ireland. He joined
The Fontana Showband at only 15 years of age, which was unheard of at
the time. Showbands predominated the Irish music scene in the
1960's, and Rory simply loved to play. Rory
reformed the band into a beat group called The Impact. While in
London, heading for Hamburg that band split. With the remnants,
the drummer and the bass player,Rory formed a three-piece rock trio, Together, and
fulfilled the engagement .
In
those days, Hamburg had an interesting pop culture. The centre was the
Star Club where the Beatles built their experience as a live
band. The owner contracted English bands who played for a nickel and
turned the place upside down. Strange thing was that the owner was
only was interested in bands with at least 4 members. In the summer
1965, Rory's trio tried out in Hamburg. When they arrived in the port
city and the Star Club owner asked where the fourth member was, Rory
said “oh the piano player got sick, he
couldn't come”.
When he
returned to Cork, Rory stuck to the three-piece format and formed his
first power blues trio, Taste. In 1966, once
Taste had established
its Cork credentials, Rory relocated the band's base to Belfast
('67). This city was to act as a springboard for an assault on the
London club scene before Cream and one year before the Jimi
Hendrix Experience.
Ireland
has
a unique place in the Gallagher legend during the rhythm and blues
explosion of the mid 1960's. Rory and his band, Taste, lived in Ireland
and refined their sound before going on to take Europe by storm.
Taste went through a number of line-ups before settling down to the
line-up of Gallagher on guitar and vocals,
After a
recording try out for Polydor records, Rory was obliged to bring in a
new rhythm section, with John Wilson (drums, ex-Them) and Richard
McCracken (bass). This line up of Taste recorded two studio albums
"Taste" and "On the Boards" (both made the
Billboard charts).
Two
further
live releases were issued after the band split "Live at the Isle
of Wight" and "Montreux". Taste did their
first U.S. tour opening for 'supergroup' Blind Faith. At their
zenith, and a the time of their split, Taste were the biggest band in
Europe, with John
Lennon being on record as a fan of Rory and Taste. Taste
played their final gig at the Isle of Wight, where they received rave
reviews. When they split up soon afterward, Melody Maker
(world's biggest Music magazine) reported it on the front page.
Rory spent
the rest of his career touring under his own name, usually in a
three-piece format, but with piano and mouth harp augmenting the
line-up along the way. His steadfast bass man through nearly the rest
of his career was Belfast born, Gerry McAvoy . Rory Gallagher never
forgot his roots, especially Belfast, and returned throughout the
1970's, when few other artists of his calibre dared to go there
because of the troubles in the north of Ireland.
Rory
developed a huge following of rockers, like myself, who can boast that
we saw the great guitarist in the seventies, eighties, again in the
nineties. Rory Gallagher seemed like he was always at his prime. When
you saw him in those days, you were instantly taken by his mastery
of the guitar, stage show and his ability to get an audience hopping.
His guitar technique was amazing . He was a shy man, but seemed to
come alive when he went on stage. It was like he was transformed.
Rory
produced over a dozen studio albums, but the live ones seemed to
portray the man at his best. Any doubters should listen to Bull Frog
Blues on his early live release, Live In Europe, or Too Much Alcohol
and the self-penned, A Million Miles
Away, on the Irish Tour 74' album.
Stage Struck, his last live
album, recorded in 1979 is a live
masterpiece.
Many
Gallagher fans, like myself, flocked wearing his trademark cheque
shirts to his concerts to hear rock classics like Shadowplay, Philby
and Shin Kicker, but it was obvious that the man's artistry and
passion were with the blues -a passion that he instigated in others.
The common
theme that ran through Gallagher's music was the blues: he could have
gone all Claptonesque and sold bucket fulls of a glossy soft bluesy
pastiche, but he was too deeply rooted in the whole Blues ethos to do
that.
When the
Rolling Stones were looking to replace Mick
Taylor they called Rory and he spent some four nights with them in a
recording studio in Rotterdam, Holland. But that was not what
Rory wanted and Ronnie Wood joined instead. Rory
was also head-hunted by Deep Purple (to replace Richie Blackmore) and
Canned Heat (after the passing of Al Wilson).
Donal
Gallagher says that there was pressure on Rory from his record
company to concentrate on the
heavy metal sounds, but that Rory could
not leave the Blues behind.
Rory
was
not into gimmicks, as for boosters, fuzzes, wah-wahs. and boxes, the
only time Gallagher ever used any was in his first pickup dance bands
and the early days of Taste when he used a fuzztone. Rory said he
stayed away from external devices because he sees them as crutches
and not as creative embellishments. ‘‘I’m a little bit
old-fashioned about boxes and effects. I mean I'm not narrow-minded.
I've heard a lot of great songs from them, but I like the old wah-wah
effect with the tone control a little more. I've just seen so many
guys playing boring guitar breaks with them, I've seen guys play a
nice interesting solo, and they get bored, and they go over to it and
say ‘Oh to hell with it,’ and bam _waaaaah waaaaach. It's
too much of a getaway- I like naked guitar."
Rory
achieved the respect of legend,s and at the precocious age of 24, Rory
recorded and played with Albert King, Muddy Waters and later with
Jerry Lee Lewis.
He was a
master of the guitar, a great acoustic guitar player with renditions
of Tony Joe White's "As the Crow Flies', and Leadbelly’s
'Out on the Western Plain'. His ability as a slide player was amazing
he developed many open tunings. "He
thought that Irish people like the blues so much because of how
traditional music, Cajun, the Blues and how they were all
interlinked.
He
was one of the nicest guys you could meet, but if you walked in to a
room with six people in it, Rory Gallagher was the last person you
would ever expect to be a rock legend. If you went back stage, Rory
would be pacing by himself and nervous, yet by the time he got on
stage it was a completely different ball game and there was an
amazing real stage presence there.
The
Gallagher legacy will live long and be handed down to many new
generations
He
is
Ireland's Pride. I remember Rory Gallagher as a quiet, unassuming
man. He was very soft spoken, but a genuine and sincere person.
He was always gracious to his fans, which included Robin Trower,
Slash, The Edge, Vivian Cambell and the late John Lennon, who loved to
watch Rory at the Marquee Club in London. Roger Glover of Deep Purple
who both admired and respected him, produced an album for Rory
said "His battered Strat said all he had to say to the world."
Rory
didn't
have the world wide recognition he deserved or he could have had. He
never sold out. Few recording or touring artists have earned the
accolade of being among the top 10 guitarist in the world, and in the
transient world of rock music, few have secured the loyalty of
life-long fans.
Rorys
guitar was listed as one of the 10 Stratocasters to Die For. Recently
Rory’s Strat was put on display at a Fender exhibition and
there were guitars belonging to Jimi Hendrix, Hank Marvin, Eric
Clapton and Jeff Beck, but Rory's stood out, it is so distinctivethat
it
needed no explanation as to who it belonged to. It's certainly is
one of the most recognizable instruments of all time. It is very
exciting that Fender have reproduced Rory’s Strat in every detail.
It certainly is on the wish list of many Rory fans around the world.
Rory was a
loyal to the blues and to people also, he had the same bass player
Gerry McAvoy for 20 years, the same Roadie, Tom Driscoll, for more than
35 years. He had the same manager, his brother Donal Gallagher, all
his life.
I
don't think he got the recognition that he deserved while he was
alive, but the generation of musicians and fans coming through now
seem to respect his music and I think he is now getting a lot more
recognition for his integrity. He lived and died the Blues."
Pick your
self up a copy of a Rory Gallagher DVD sit back and enjoy. He was
“Simply the best!”
Patrick
Kennedy May 2004
Posted to
RoryON!! with
permission from and thanks to Patrick Kennedy
reformatted by roryfan
255
