REWRITING RORY

Back to Rory’s Roots in Turbulent Times

If Rory Gallagher’s brother invites you to his house, you don’t have to think twice about it. In honour of the fiftieth anniversary of one of Gallagher’s most beloved albums Tattoo (1973) – and yes, also because of the new release All Around Man: Live in London –  I’m having coffee with Dónal Gallagher in a sleepy Irish fishing village that meant a lot to both Rory and the creation of his legendary fourth solo album.

The stones and pebbles of Ballycotton Bay crunch under my shoes. The Celtic Sea stretches out to the right in the distance. To the left, rocky cliffs seem to extend over me, speckled with bright green patches of moss, between which grow pink clumps of beach herbs. At that moment, Dónal Gallagher calls. He doesn’t have much time today, he says. An old friend is visiting. But because my partner and I are passing through his hometown on our trip to Ireland today, Dónal is willing to find an opportunity to meet us. And of course, to talk about his brother and the music he left behind.

Childhood Memories

Rory Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon, just across the border from Northern Ireland, but grew up with Dónal in southern Cork. The coastal town of Ballycotton used to be the brothers’ holiday destination. Just forty kilometres south-east of Cork, they came there as children to get a breath of fresh air. The small fishing village sits on a rocky ledge of cliffs, overlooking the rugged Celtic Sea. When Dónal wanted to leave London after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the choice was quickly made. He moved to Ballycotton, a place he has fond memories of.

We walk on a road that, like so many in Ireland, winds steeply uphill. On top of a cliff, there are a few houses isolated from the rest of the village. As I get closer, I see a strand of snow-white hair through the smooth surface of a conservatory. We wave at each other and Dónal walks towards us. “I feel like I’ve known you for ages,” he says as we shake hands. His large, dark blue eyes radiate the same modest friendliness as those of his older brother. We spoke for the first time two years ago. In 2021, I wrote an article for Lust for Life 13 about Rory’s break-up with Taste, which led to the creation of his first solo record. I interviewed Dónal about this, among other things. It became a fascinating and warm conversation, after which he invited me to knock if I was ever in the area. Words he apparently meant wholeheartedly. Dónal asks us to follow him to his office in the back of the house. Everything about that room shows that his brother is still an important part of his life. Homages to Rory adorn the walls. From a poster of the posthumously released Wheels Within Wheels by Dónal, which covers almost an entire wall, to a painting of a guitar-playing Rory above the door.

Depression

One of the most beloved songs on Tattoo was written in this space. Just metres from where Donal now lives. “When Rory had a rare break from touring, I took him to Ballycotton,” he begins. “I remembered the fun times we used to have there as kids and thought the fresh air would do him good. I actually thought that Rory was depressed. Leading up to Tattoo, he had released four albums in two years. He never stopped touring and never took a vacation. Looking back now, I think he was exhausted too. At that age, sometimes you don’t realise how long you haven’t slept.”

During that short break, Dónal and Rory took a walk on the stunning cliffs of Ballycotton. Just like they used to do. Until Dónal lost sight of him. “I was like, where’s Rory?” he remembers, “I was immediately terrified because I know how treacherous the sea and the currents are here. If you fall, no one will see or hear you anymore. Just yesterday another tragedy happened here: a woman tried to pull her son out of the waves, but died herself. In addition, I knew that Rory was feeling bad. Maybe he’d done something stupid… I started running back to the village to look for help, when I suddenly saw him waving in the distance and shouting, ‘I’m okay.’ I was so mad at him. He said he got an inspiration for a song and had to stop and write it before he lost the song forever. That was ‘A Million Miles Away’.”

The Smells of the Fair

‘A Million Miles Away’ is one of Rory’s most popular songs, but Dónal prefers the opener of the album. “I have a soft spot for ‘Tattoo’d Lady’,” he admits, “Because it’s about childhood memories that we share together.” As a child, Rory enjoyed going to the fair in Cork with his brother. “When I hear the song, I immediately smell the scents of the fair. I see the colours and the special figures we encountered. We received a little money from our parents and for the first time we were allowed to decide for ourselves what we did with it. Those were beautiful days.” For Rory, ‘Tattoo’d’ Lady had a second underlying meaning. “One day you couldn’t escape the lights and bright colours of the fair; the next day, everything had disappeared. The fairground people packed everything up at night and left. The life they lead has many parallels with that of a touring musician. I think Rory recognised himself in that.”

The rehearsals for Tattoo were held in the same city where Rory was once inspired for the album’s opener. “I rented a rowing club in Cork for the band,” says Donal, “A clubhouse along the River Lee. There were several of those, where Rory had also performed with Taste. The rowing clubs were great venues for shows. And certainly, also for rehearsing during the day. Instead of being locked up in a dark studio, the band could look out over the water. In addition, they were allowed to make as much noise as they wanted. Not that the rooms were soundproof, but they were far enough away from other people so as not to disturb anyone. This allowed Rory to quietly test new material and return to my mother’s house in the evening.”

Musical Colour Palette

According to Dónal, the songs on Tattoo were the most often and thoroughly rehearsed, while on the record they still sound spontaneous. The recordings were not in Cork, but at Polydor Studios in London. “They had a fantastic German sound engineer at the time named Carlos Olms,” says Dónal, “He was an innovative engineer for the time and worked in the basement of the building doing all kinds of experiments with microphones and echoes. Carlos was the engineer for Tattoo and later also from some other Rory albums.

Various types of keyboards and even an accordion were used on Tattoo. These can be heard on ‘A Million Miles Away’, ‘Tattoo’d Lady’, ‘Sleep on a Clothes Line’ and ‘Cradle Rock’, among others. “Tattoo was an album where Rory expanded his palette,” says Dónal, “He had more colours to paint with musically, for example with the addition of keyboards.” If you like Rory Gallagher, then of course you like guitars. And there are absolutely fantastic riffs in the songs, but what strikes me is that Lou Martin’s keyboard playing compliments the guitar parts fantastically. They don’t sound like separate instruments, but as a whole.

Django Reinhardt’s Toy Guitar

There are few instruments in Dónal’s office. Rory’s guitars are safely stored in London. But if you look closely, you will see a black guitar bag hidden in the corner. “Can you play, Dónal?” my boyfriend asks, gesturing to the bag. “Oh, I like to mess around every now and then,” Dónal replies, “I started learning to play the guitar, but when your brother is as good as mine, it’s easy to get discouraged.” He grabs the bag and unzips it. A small, burgundy and cream-colored guitar appears from the opening. “This is a Bakelite Maccaferri guitar from the 1950s. A very special instrument. The sound is beautiful, but if you hold it, you would almost think it’s a toy.”

Dónal says he acquired the guitar during the production of Rory’s posthumous 2003 album Wheels Within Wheels. That record’s engineer, Tony Arnold, had the guitar with him. Dónal: “It was light, small and simple. That’s why the guitar didn’t intimidate me so much. Tony then asked if I wanted to buy it from him. I made a deal with him and finally I had my own guitar to play some songs on, to learn to play. I have to admit: it’s not going great,” says Dónal with a laugh. “Later I realised that Rory had always wanted a guitar like that. It was modelled after Django Reinhardt’s. Rory loved him. Django had a very subtle, but far-reaching influence on his own guitar playing.” Rory was fascinated by Reinhardt’s technique, especially because he could play so fantastically with just two fingers on his left hand. A fateful fire left the Belgian jazz musician’s other fingers paralysed. “Rory always told me that story,” says Dónal. “That’s why Django played a small guitar that made it easier for him to move his fingers over the fretboard. A guitar like this one.”

Deep Blue and Glittering

In retrospect, Dónal thinks that the period in which Tattoo was made was actually a very happy time for Rory. “After Taste broke up and he went solo in 1971, he never really stopped touring, traveling, leading his band and producing. He was just exhausted, but in the end, he did what he loved most.” At the time of recording, the band was expanding its touring activities in America, which is clearly reflected in ‘Livin’ Like a Trucker’, ‘Sleep on a Clothes Lines’ is even about the fatigue he experienced as a result. “In that song, he described the feeling that brought him back to Ballycotton,” Dónal said.

Many stories and cups of coffee later, he asks if we have already walked over the cliffs. “You really shouldn’t miss that,” he says when we admit that we haven’t got around to that yet. “Go while it’s still light outside. I’ll wait here for you.” We put on our coats and within minutes we are on the narrow, winding path along the sea, which Dónal and his brother walked together years ago. Although Rory drew a lot of inspiration from touring life and American landscapes, ‘A Million Miles Away’ stems from a special Irish vista. As the soft sunlight makes the waves glisten beneath us and we hear nothing but the wind in our ears, it’s easy to imagine what was going through Rory’s mind when he once stood in this spot.

I’m standing on the landing         
There’s no one there but me       
That’s where you’ll find me         
Looking out on the deep blue sea