RORY GALLAGHER
In the years that have passed since Rory Gallagher’s death, aged 47 on June 14 1995, his true stature has
become ever more clear. This soft spoken Irishman, characterised by his flowing locks and trademark
working man stage clothes, was far from ordinary. Gallagher was a self taught virtuoso who forged a
musical revolution in his native land, shunned the traps of fame and stardom yet became a universally
acclaimed international folk hero.
Rory’s rock solid devotion to his calling never wavered and the respect of his musical peers was universal.
Eric Clapton credited Gallagher with “getting me back into the blues”, The Rolling Stones tried to get him
to replace Mick Taylor.
Rory’s influence spread through the generations - from Slash to Johnny Marr, from U2’s The Edge to
Queen’s Brian May, and onto The Manics’ James Dean Bradfield - any aspiring player who encountered him
was bound to be energised or transformed.
Of all the guitar greats who emerged in the post war era Rory Gallagher was predestined to become a
Celtic Warrior King. He shared his name with Ireland’s last native monarch, was born (to rock) at Rock
Hospital in Ballyshannon, Donegal (March 2nd 1948) while his father was employed constructing a hydro
electric power plant on the nearby Erne iver.
In due course, whether using electric firepower or acoustic mastery, the unassuming Gallagher would be
transformed into a musical giant, yet he always maintained the most human feeling, eschewing extraneous
FX and gizmos in favour of his own raw, primitive, string-bending genius. Acknowledged as ‘the people’s
guitarist’ Rory would amass 20 million sales but the emotive connection he made with audiences across the
globe was greater than statistics could show. Gallagher’s fire in the fingertips feel was the thrilling result of
hard work and dexterity, tireless energy and dynamic drive.
In addition to his facility on guitar, mandolin, and, on occasion, sax, Rory’s songwriting gifts gave perfect
platform to his vocal flair and instrumental talent. Whether exuberantly unbounded (‘Walk On Hot Coals’)
or reflectively subdued (the hauntingly self aware ‘A Million Miles Away’), his compositions were directed
by an instinctive, natural feel for the blues that resided deep within his heart and soul.
As a pre-teen growing up in 1950s Cork, in a home with no record player, the single-minded determination
that would hallmark Rory’s career quickly became apparent. The discovery of Elvis and early rock n rollers
lead him to seek out blues masters on American Forces radio such as later collaborator, Muddy Waters.
“The more I heard the more I got addicted,” he later recalled. He was already a local, talent show-winning
star, brandishing a cheap guitar, when the first down payment was made on the celebrated 1961Sunburst
Fender Stratocaster that would - its paintwork stripped by his own highly alkaline sweat - become a lifelong
totemic tool of his trade.
In early 60s Ireland opportunities for a guitar God waiting to shine were constricted by the only available
outlet : identically suited showbands. Rory pushed against the envelope when he hit the road with The
Fontana and later The Impact challenging the accepted routines of the day.
His sensational displays of unfettered magic on the fretboard may have earned rebukes from local
promoters and Ballroom owners keen on regimentation but Rory assuredly made lifelong fans in audiences
hungry for a new sort of freedom. Playing in show bands was a stepping stone and Rory realised he was
“only passing through”. But, like Jimi Hendrix when he escaped the chitlin circuit, the skills established as a
restricted sideman would explode in the years ahead when Rory became the main attraction. After
enjoying the release of playing in Hamburg clubs, Rory seized the opportunity to get off the show band
leash back home, putting himself centre stage in the power trio, Taste.
Establishing a base in the thriving Blues scene that had built around Van Morrison’s Them at Belfast’s
Maritime, Taste became an instant sensation. A residency at London’s Marquee club in 1968, where John
Lennon joined an ever growing fervent following, lead to support slots with Cream and Blind Faith. Taste’s
formidable presence was captured on two great studio albums and two outstanding live albums including
their Live At Isle of Wight album, recorded at the 1970 festival. Then, with their world seemingly at their
feet Taste, torn apart by management disputes, imploded, playing their farewell show in Belfast on New
Years Eve 1970.
The loss of a band at their incandescent peak hit Rory deep (check the aching ‘At The Bottom’, on his 1975
‘Against The Grain’ album) but there was little time to dwell in regret (‘Used To Be’ on ‘Deuce’ 1972). A
natural bandleader, Gallagher regrouped embarking on the most productive decade of his solo career with
1971’s self titled solo debut. ‘Deuce’, ‘Blueprint’, ‘Tattoo’, ‘Against The Grain’, ‘Calling Card’, ‘Photo Finish’,
‘Top Priority’ - the albums followed in quick succession each offering original compositions (‘In Your
Town’, ‘Who’s That Coming’, ‘Walk On Hot Coals’, ‘Tattoo’d Lady’) that spoke directly to his audience,
attained instant classic status . These songs and many more would gather even greater vibrancy in live
performance. The albums ‘Live In Europe’, ‘Stagestruck’ and ‘Irish Tour ‘74’ albums show how.
As witnessed in the exceptional Tony Palmer documentary that accompanied the Irish Tour ‘74 release,
throughout ‘the troubles’ Rory’s Belfast shows galvanised a joyful communal riposte to the tension, fear and
divisions that tore the city apart. Where others shunned the Northern Irish capital, Gallagher made a
point of always returning, giving hope and inspiration, to those who would follow his lead. Rory would later
guest on albums by Belfast bands he directly inspired - Energy Orchard and Stiff Little Fingers.
Across the border he headlined and organized Ireland’s first outdoor rock festival at Macroom in tandem
with younger brother and manager Donal (Rory’s only sibling), an event that would pave the way for U2’s
stadium rock. Yet Rory’s quasi evangelical belief in the unifying healing power of music was tempered by a
suspicion of celebrity. “It seems a waste to me to work and work for years, really gettin’ your music
together; then to make it big, as some people do, and just turn into some sort of personality. You play less,
you perform less, you circulate less. It becomes something completely different,” he’d told Rolling Stone in
1972.
This caution left him to completely shun the singles market, even when his label boss insisted the gorgeous
yearning Edged In Blue (from 1976’s ‘Calling Card’) was a contender for US number one. The body of
work he has left behind is remarkable for its consistency, honesty and earthiness. Rory’s recordings are
remarkably of a piece bearing out his oft quoted assertion that “what I play is in my all the time, not just
something I turn on”.
A determination to make original music that stayed faithful to the root sounds that inspired him was
carried through to the end. Unsullied by jarring studio trickery or momentarily fashionable techniques,
cavernous drum sounds or click tracks, what he’s left behind is a recorded legacy defined by rugged purity
of form and feeling. The unaffected approach highlighted the many flavours – kick ass country, jazzy
sophistication, spit n sawdust folk, floorboard quaking roof raising rock - that fed Rory’s lovingly nurtured
blues. His dedication to maintaining what he called “a good vintage, ethnic” sound, favouring pre digital over
modern recording equipment, would undoubtedly have been one of the attributes that endeared Rory to
admirer Bob Dylan, a backstage visitor at a 1978 LA show after initially being turned away unrecognized.
Gallagher’s yearly gig quota often would top 300, sweat soaked nights in which he never gave anything less
than 110 per cent . And he was always ready to give a little more, come Christmas time he would often
embark on impromptu tours in rural Ireland which naturally attained legendary status. A cross tribal
musical hero who appealed to trad rockers, punks and heavy metal hordes, Rory was a true musical
journeyman going where the music took him. He guested on albums for many including key influences Jerry
Lee Lewis, Albert King, Albert Collins and the aforementioned Muddy Waters, an experience he
particularly relished.
By 1990 Rory had played 25 stateside tours and appeared at the UK’s Reading festival and Montreux Jazz
festival more times than any other act. Sadly, he swelled up as drink and various prescription medications
to deal with the rigours of life on the road had prematurely and noticeably aged him. “The blues is bad for
your health,” he shrugged, “its as simple as that, it goes with the territory.”
Breaking away from major label and setting up independently, Rory’s output had become less prolific as he
increasingly agonized over recordings. Even so later albums ‘Jinx’, ‘Defender’ and ‘Fresh Evidence’, the last
release before his death, showed him still moving forward, breaking new territory. The soaring ‘Loan Shark
Blues’ is a timelessly potent cry of financial desperation while ‘Heaven’s Gate’ and ‘Ghost Blues’, the title of
Ian Thuiller’s excellent career spanning 2010 Gallagher documentary, cut from the same self revealing cloth
as ‘A Million Miles Away’, contemplated life’s fragility. His dedication to the muse was absolute, perhaps at a
cost to his personal life: he had no marriage, no long-term relationship and no children. The man who
could unite thousands in performance lived a solitary unindulgent life away from stage, seeming to identify
with the solo operatives who peopled the noir detective fiction of such as Dashiell Hammett from which he
often took lyrical inspiration. So tied was he to life on the road that his final years were spent living in a
hotel overlooking Chelsea harbour. Rory literally played until he dropped, after collapsing onstage in
Rotterdam in January 1995, he was hospitalised in London with liver failure. Following a successful
transplant operation he seemed to be recovering, but he caught an infection and died in June 2005.
The music world sent their condolences, 15,000 lined the streets of Cork as he was laid to rest. But Rory’s
dedication to the rock’s skills base would also see him teach a budding player how to play a riff or get a
certain sound - Brian May was one such beneficiary - and he took pride in founding the still prominent
Registry of Guitar Tutors.
Since his death Rory’s reputation has grown. Perhaps its only with the passing of the time that the sheer
scope and immensity of his achievements can be assessed. A true original his resolutely ordinary working
man image, the unvarnished consistency of his art (and his paint stripped Strat!) appears all the more
extraordinary in the era of media saturation. In 2003 the posthumously released ‘Wheels Within Wheels’
album provided another career highlight, focusing on the acoustic side of Rory’s art featuring collaborations
with Martin Carthy, Bert Jansch, Lonnie Donegan, Flamenco great Juan Martin and The Dubliners. This year
sees the first ever release of the abandoned 1978 album recorded in America ‘Notes From San Francisco’.
Rory’s memory lives on across the globe, in the memory of those who experienced his shows and met him.
Legions are the fans who , like a young aspiring Manchester guitarist Johnny Marr in the early 70s, cherished
meeting Rory and came away walking on air. More than once in the heat of a show where stage invasions
were commonplace the Strat would be handed to an audience member for a quick strum. The feeling he
could create in a hall in Belfast or Montreux, in London or LA, you couldn’t ask anymore from a gig, really.
Gallagher is commemorated throughout Ireland, a bronze statue in Ballyshannon, a sculpture in Cork
where the local theatre is named after him, a mounted guitar in Dublin, a plaque in Belfast and his famously
battered paint stripped Sunburst strat has been marketed by Fender in a tribute model. There’s a Rue Rory
Gallagher in Paris, an annual festival in Ireland and tribute concerts held each year in his honour around the
world. Rory’s story, it seems, will not end. Readily accessible on awe inspiring live performances preserved
on a wealth of DVDs, a comprehensively curated official website and remastered recordings - a legacy
lovingly maintained by his family, brother Donal and nephew Daniel, his music remains ready to inspire and
thrill generations old and new.
Rory Gallagher died too young with much still to achieve and offer but the wealth and quality of the
material he produced in his lifetime insures his ever questing, hungry spirit lives on
This biography was provided by the artist or their representative.
