Zum Tode von Rory Gallagher
Nachruf (14.6.95)
by Zippo Zimmerman
He was the first one to be
titled an 'antistar', and in spite of his popularity, he didn’t
want to have anything to do with the whole business end or the
marketing
strategies of the music industry. The only thing which was important
to him was to make music.
“Even when I'm 40 or
50, I still want to be on stage and satisfy the audience”, Rory
Gallagher said many years ago. He kept his word until his death. The
Irish guitarist and singer died on Wednesday, aged 46, in a London
Hospital after suffering from complications following a liver
transplant.
At the early age
of 6, Rory got a guitar. Aged 15, he played in small night clubs
across Europe with the 'Fontana Showband'.
In 1966, he formed /founded
his first band, the trio ' The Taste'. From then on, he completely
dedicated himself to playing Blues-Rock. After two moderately
successful
years and a few changes of band members, the band finally had its
break-through in 1968. Rory Gallagher became some sort of new pop
star representing the everyday life amidst flower power and drug
euphoria.
His endless solos during
the concerts lowered his fellow band members to playing only minor
roles. Therefore, he started playing under his own name from the 70’s
onward which didn’t damage his popularity in any way – on the
contrary: like Eric Clapton, Rory
Gallagher was regarded as a 'guitar hero' polishing up
traditional Blues with virtuosity and imaginativeness.
He
left an impressive
legacy of his stage presence with the album 'Irish Tour 74'.
However, it was never a secret that musical innovation was not his
cup of tea. "I only try to repeat what’s good", Rory remarked
with refreshing conservatism.
In the 80’s, things
became more quiet and Rory was mostly relying on his true fans. In
1993, at the St. Wendel Open Air Festival, the fans were able to
experience
Rory’s Blues Rock Fireworks for the last time (in Germany).
Rory Gallagher rejected
following trends, just like the ‘Grunge-Generation’ does, but he
did this decades before
Nirvana or Pearl Jam did so. But by that time it became clear that once
a musician has a
certain amount of popularity, having ‘no image’ it can easily turn
into being an image, because what would the
fans have thought seeing Gallagher with a bright and shiny new guitar
on stage instead of his old worn and torn one.
However, what
remains are the memories of a pop musician single-mindedly placing
his music in the centre of attention without submitting to any kind
of ‘market dictate’.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Used with permission from
Zippo Zimmerman's homepage http://www.savoy-truffle.de/zippo/ Thanks to Ilona Wuebben &
Joachim Matz for their help in translating this
piece Ilona for the translation and
Joachim for securing her help reformatted by roryfan
