Rory Gallagher, Living Legend of Blues Rock, Visits His East German Fans

“You get less healthy over the years” 

The cops came, just behind the Kottbusser Tor. Frankie, Alf and Uschi were screaming with joy. Uschi drank beers like a tough guy, Frankie cried “Well then!” and Alfi confessed what filled the heart of every jeans-and-check shirt lover in Randberlin at this late hour on subway line 2: Rory is the greatest!

“He always was,” said Frankie.

“And he always will be,” said Uschi. “Remember, Rockpalast?”

“Rockpalast, of course,” said Alfi. “Since then, everyone has been shouting: Rory is the best. What about Irish Tour? I bought that on the black market in Warsaw for two hundred.

Yes, we remember. We know all the records and love all the songs since West Radio blew a storm of guitars into the country twenty years ago. “Walk on hot coals” was the name of the work, a blues rock marathon raced through by a crazy Irishman: Rory Gallagher. Previously he had led “The Taste”, the Irish “Cream”. And was already considered an antistar and our buddy in Ireland, didn’t care about trends, fame, notoriety. Rory was always one of us. As a blues player, he displayed simplicity: sneakers, jeans, plaid shirts, beer. His guitars were old, his heroes older.

In 1972 he played with Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf himself at the famous London Sessions. Gallagher’s records consist of classic music with guitar, drums and bass, raw and mature. He’s not keen on what the world of music currently promises. He’s toured continuously, twenty-seven times alone through the United States. Those who love him love him very much. Gallagher, enraged by the rampant bootlegging, got the better of the thieves and in 1992 released “The G-Man-Bootleg-Series” (3 live CDs) onto the market far below black market prices.

But since then: radio silence. Rory was last seen in West Berlin in 1987. Rory knows they are longing for him and now plays in Leipzig and Erfurt, the GDR blues metropolis. He is certain to get a good reception there.

We meet him in Berlin and he has a cold. “It’s cold in here,” says Rory. “Are you cold too? It might just be my hotel room? You get less healthy over the years. From constantly flying, my ears soaking wet from a concert, standing outside to sign autographs, people smoking around me, my asthma. I’m not a green fanatic, but I wish I could breathe properly at least.” 

Your concert yesterday was such a powerhouse. How do you do that – be 45 and stay hungry? I ask.

“Just like that,” he jokes, “Stay hungry. I never eat before concerts. That just sharpens my nerves. Drugs? Never. I’ve never so much as smoked a cigarette in my life. You look around and see other people getting busted, in a bad shape like Paul Kossoff from the Free… that’s what I am afraid of. And all those bands that use drugs to get a mystical sound don’t appeal to me either.”

He says he’s tired. He’s off today. He stayed at the bar until 7 a.m after the concert. Everyone else went to bed long before him, so he sat with the young Irish support act from Energy Orchard. They passed a guitar around, they drank and sang. Simple songs, Rory says, it was nice. In America, the stars don’t even look at their openers. “That’s daft,” he says, “They must have an insecurity problem. I was fifteen when we played for the Byrds in London. David Crosby came up to me and asked, ‘Will you lend me your guitar?’ I’ve had support acts, they’re so big these days – take ZZ Top. That’s how it works. I like being popular, but I don’t cry like the guys who want to kill themselves if they don’t appear on MTV every night. My old heroes hardly ever had a record in the charts.”

The coffee came. Rory drank it. He said it felt really cold in the hotel. He talked a lot that afternoon though – in long musings, about British football, about Dylan, Cooder, Lindley, about Neil Young and Dennis Hopper, about greats like Doug Sahm, John Hammond and Link Wray, about Elvis Costello, Randy Newman and similar people who make songs out of the opposite of their true feelings.

Rory is like a labour activist! “I play better today than twenty years ago,” he said, “People probably don’t think that, but I know it. Blues is introspective. Rock ‘n Roll is a show; blues is a religion. I care less what people think now. I am not as cynical about young people. Well, they had a different upbringing to me. They’ve never known what a black and white TV was once worth, a tape recorder. But the young spirit always stays the same. I haven’t turned on the radio for years. The two-finger synthesizer bands… but now I’m finding good new stuff again, just often badly produced. These young computer engineers tell you: Okay, play your stuff and go home to the hotel and I’ll mix it. No is my answer. I’ll stay as long as needed to check everything down to the last note. I once said, ‘Please record the bass drum with the reverb of the old Howlin’ Wolf stuff’. The guy asked: ‘Who is Howlin’ Wolf?!’”

An old Rory fan has been sitting down in the foyer with a stack of records for seven hours, waiting for the master. Rory like the good human being he is comes to see him, just as two thousand old blues rock knights rode to see Rory last night – five hundred fewer than theoretically can be accommodated in “Huxley’s New World” on Hasenheide.

Instead of the Irish red curly haired young man he was, we saw a living leather-clad legend jump onto the stage. Rory played slide guitar and roared with “Shadow Play” and “Bullfrog Blues”. Blues revival? He never went away. Twice he came out again for an encore. “A Million Miles Away”, then it’s over. The knight departs. This old man can still play music!

Then the cops came, right behind the Kottbusser Tor as I said at the beginning. Ticket control! Uschi had one, Frankie didn’t, Alfi likewise. The police said: Then your identity cards, please! How was the concert? – Top notch, said Franki. Uschi slipped his ticket to Alfi and then to Franki who said: I found my ticket, Herr Wachtmeister. Herr Wachtmeister raised his eyebrows, eyed the three happy figures sharply, and suddenly wore his heart on his sleeve. “ would have liked to have gone to see Rory myself, he says. “Unfortunately I was on duty. Go on then, guys. Bye.”

“That’s interesting,” says Rory listening attentively to the story. “Well, I mean: That’s good.”