REWRITING RORY

Rory Gallagher: A Modest Cult Hero

It’s been almost thirty years since Rory Gallagher passed away. Yet he is by no means forgotten, which is partly due to the warm words that greats like Slash from Guns n Roses, The Edge from U2, Johnny Marr from The Smiths, Brian May from Queen and many other stars regularly dedicate to the gentle guitarist from Ireland.

Persistent tradition has it that a Rolling Stone journalist once asked Jimi Hendrix what it was like to be the greatest guitarist in the world. “I don’t know,” the American musician responded. “Ask Rory Gallagher.” Whether this is a literal quote is difficult to verify more than half a century later [note: it isn’t! Hendrix never said it!]. It doesn’t matter, because since then many more musicians have spoken with admiration about the guitarist, who himself was the epitome of a modest hero. In itself it is quite special that Rory Gallagher’s name is still alive. He never had a hit, his albums were not million sellers. Even decades after his death on 14 June 1995, little is known about his private life, hobbies and other activities, insofar as he was able to do so during all his touring. He devoured piles of detective novels between gigs. That’s about it. Oh yeah, and he liked a drink [There’s so much more they could say about this incredible man, yet they choose this 🙄). It is the combination of his music and his personality that ensures that he still ends up high on the lists of best guitarists. Also, in this magazine by the way: in our guitar heroes special (LFL097) the Lust for Life readers voted Rory in a neat fourth place, just behind Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and David Gilmour. Rory owes this cult status to his guitar playing, in which his emotions were always central. Just as he gave himself completely during all performances, even when his body, damaged by alcohol abuse [again, so much more complex than this, but so typical of ‘lazy’ journalism to reduce Rory’s physical and mental health problems in this way], no longer wanted to perform. His musical legacy has hardly any weak spots. Especially his albums from the sixties with Taste and his solo albums from the seventies and eighties are very consistent, high quality.

The Musician’s Musician

Rory Gallagher was also a typical “musician’s musician”: a guitarist who is appreciated even more by other musicians than by the general public. Like Eric Clapton, who told a BBC reporter that Rory Gallagher had brought him back to the blues. Rory’s admirers also include musicians from whom you might not expect this, such as fellow countryman The Edge. “I got to know his music through some school friends,” the U2 guitarist said in the 2010 documentary Ghost Blues: The Story of Rory Gallagher. “We played his records and Thin Lizzy’s. Everyone I knew loved Rory. There was a kind of collective pride on those big, international stages. I saw him perform for the first time in the late 1970s. He was fantastic: it was even one of the best performances I have ever attended. I was already playing the guitar at the time. And Rory’s influence on us is still clearly evident in the first demos with U2.”

Johnny Marr, who would later become best known as the guitarist of The Smiths, also emerged as a devout Gallagher fan in the 1970s. “I went to as many gigs as possible. If I was stranded somewhere in the middle of the night, I would just sleep in a bus shelter. I wanted to be Rory in every way. What appealed to me so much? His pure, unadorned style. A guitar, an amplifier and nothing else at all. I set my first guitar on fire in the hope that it would look just like his battered Fender Stratocaster. Guns N Roses guitarist Slash grew up in England, so he was introduced to the guitar at an early age and music by Rory Gallagher. “When I started playing guitar, I gigged like crazy looking for records by other guitarists,” he said in 2015, “Rory immediately stood out as far as I was concerned. His work was very raw and pure. In a way it was sexy too. He improvised a lot, of course, especially during his performances. That’s why I like the live albums the most. They are albums that inspired me to follow that same path. Much later, in the early 1990s, I jammed with him at the Roxy in Los Angeles. A very special moment.”

Battered Stratocaster

The most outspoken fan among the superstars is Queen guitarist Brian May. He first saw his Irish colleague at the end of the sixties at the legendary British club The Marquee in London. “Rory was still performing with Taste, his first band. They had their regular evening, every Thursday. Whenever possible, I was there. Rory was no showman. There were no pretences and he didn’t hide behind anything. That’s why he had very direct contact with the audience. Naturally, I was especially obsessed with his playing: how did he get all those sounds out of that battered Stratocaster? I managed to talk myself into getting backstage a few times and he turned out to be very kind. He willingly explained to me that he created his sound with a Vox AC30 amp and a treble booster. A few days later, I scraped together fifty pounds, which was enough for a stock Vox amplifier. This was the sound I wanted, and I still have that sound. Rory put me on the right track.”

These are words that took on extra meaning when, a few years ago, I received permission from Rory’s brother and manager Dónal Gallagher to look through Rory’s record collection. I stumbled across a copy of Innuendo, Queen’s swan song. The cover featured a message to send to his old hero. “To Rory, with respect, what do ya think?!” It’s a gesture that illustrates what Rory Gallagher stirred in everyone who came into contact with his music.