The Gallagher who was actually a musical genius
Long before Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis sent the nation into a Britpop frenzy, there was only one rock and roll Gallagher that mattered. His name was Rory, and nearly 30 years after his untimely death, there’s plenty who would consider the Irish guitar slinger the only Gallagher worthy of being acclaimed a genuine musical genius.
On October 17, Bonhams auction house in London will host a sale of Rory Gallagher’s guitar collection, along with amps and accessories from his career. Amongst the items is Rory’s original 1961 Fender Stratocaster, bought second hand from Crowley’s Music Store in Cork in 1963. Gallagher was just 15 but already a professional working musician, playing covers on the Irish showband circuit. He paid ￡100 on credit for the guitar, persuading his parents that it would ultimately save money because he could play rhythm and lead at the same time, so wouldn’t need a second guitarist in his band. Today, it’s value is estimated at up to a million pounds.
It is a beautiful, battered looking instrument that Gallagher played all his life, as he rose to become Ireland’s first rock star. It is the instrument he would have been playing when his original power trio Taste supported Cream for their final concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1968. Eric Clapton later credited Rory for “getting me back into the blues.” Before he formed Queen, Brian May was a huge Gallagher fan, attending many shows at the Marquee in London. “He could make his guitar do anything,” according to May. “It seemed to be magic. I remember looking at his battered Stratocaster thinking ‘how does that come out of there?’”
Gallagher was held in the highest esteem by his musical peers. Jimi Hendrix and Taste were on the same bill at the Isle of Wight festival in 1971, when Gallagher was called back for five encores. There is a story of a journalist asking Hendrix backstage what it’s like to be the greatest guitarist in the world, and Hendrix replying “I don’t know. Go ask Rory Gallagher.”
One of the all-time great blues rock guitarists, Gallagher’s riffs and solos would slip seamlessly between heavy aggression and melodious sensitivity. He was also a thoughtful songwriter, with a growling, expressive voice and an expansive style that embraced acoustic folk, tender balladry, epic rock and barnstorming blues. Gallagher played ukulele, harmonica, saxophone, bass, mandolin and banjo, sometimes weaving elements of Irish traditional music through his searing solos. He was voted guitarist of the year by Melody Maker magazine in 1972, sold over thirty million albums worldwide, and remained a hugely popular live attraction all his life.
Anyone fortunate enough to have witnessed the man in action knows he was guaranteed to deliver fierce, loud, energetic sets and never play anything the same way twice. Bassist Gerry McAvoy, who played with Gallagher for 20 years from 1971 to 1991, said: “Rory never constructed a set. On any tour, we’d have the first two songs (planned) – but after that, all hell broke loose. We’d be flying by the seat of our pants, but Rory wanted that spontaneity.”
A new 20-disc box set, Rory Gallagher: The BBC Collection, will be released on October 11, featuring over 189 tracks comprising all of his radio and TV concerts, sessions and studio performances from 1971 to 1986. Jake Burns of Irish punk band Stiff Little Fingers (who later worked as a BBC producer and interviewed Gallagher) was a dedicated fan who always tuned in for Gallagher’s live broadcasts over the years. “He would launch into these solos and they were completely improvised every night,” according to Burns. “And then he’d start singing along to the solo and you’re thinking, ‘How the f–k does he know what he’s going to play, to be able to sing at the same time?’ It was complete command of the guitar.”
When Mick Taylor left the Rolling Stones in 1975, Gallagher was top of their wish list to replace him. He rehearsed with the Stones for three nights in Amsterdam but slipped away without fuss to resume a solo tour. Gallagher had little interest in playing the music business game and courting the kind of super fame his talent warranted. He invariably dressed in scruffy lumberjack shirts and jeans, rarely released singles, and was shy, soft spoken and self-effacing in interviews. But he was ten times the player of eventual recruit Ronnie Woods, and it would have been fascinating to hear how Rory’s incendiary soloing might have dovetailed with Keith Richard’s rhythmic bluesy weave.
But Gallagher had his own music to make. He recorded 11 fine solo studio albums, and played with Muddy Waters, Jerry Lee Lewis, Peter Frampton, Albert Lee, Gary Moore and Slash of Guns N’ Roses, one of Rory’s keenest admirers. Johnny Marr of the Smiths is another fan, who once made a pilgrimage to Gallagher’s manager brother Donal’s house just to spend the day playing his hero’s famous Stratocaster. It is celebrated for its bare stripped wood appearance, its original Sunburst finish having long since faded, albeit Donal is insistent that this was not indicative of a lack of care.
“There’s a lot of theories that Rory took a hammer and chisel to the thing, and it was wrecked from touring,” notes Donal, who recalls his brother in tears backstage at the Marquee when he first realised the paintwork was peeling off. “Actually, it was to do with the paint chemicals and a mixture of his own alkaline sweat that seemed to act like a paint stripper. You could say his DNA is in the instrument.”
Gallagher was a shy man who became a heavy drinker and developed other health related problems over a life of constant touring. He died tragically young in June 1995, aged just 46, from MRSA contracted in hospital following a liver transplant, just as a new breed of rocking Gallaghers were ascending to stardom. He was not related to the Oasis brothers, whose family hail from Co Mayo, whilst Rory’s are from Cork. But there is a connection. On a trip to Ireland in 1996, Noel Gallagher borrowed one of his namesake’s acoustic guitars from Donal to play Cast No Shadow at an Oasis concert for 80,000 fans in Cork.
Noel and Liam Gallagher have achieved a level of commercial success far beyond that of their predecessor but there is an underlying ethos that they evidently share, a genuine faith in music’s power to communicate, allied to a certain stubbornness of spirit. “You just follow your own way and don’t let anyone try to push you down the road that they want you to go,” as Gallagher once put it. “It’s not about being the best, it’s about being true to yourself.”
Of course, it helps if you really are the best.
Rory Gallagher: The BBC Collection is released on October 11. The Rory Gallagher Collection will be auctioned on October 17, with previews in London from the October 11 (bonhams.com)
