Rory Gallagher

Remembering Ireland’s original rock superstar

Rory Gallagher was one of the world’s greatest guitarists, and one of Ireland’s most gifted musical figures. He bounded across the stage with the swagger of a rock star, but off stage, Gallagher was a shy, unassuming man. Though he was born in Ballyshannon, he became a Cork person at a young age. His career began in an Irish showband, The Fontana; he formed Taste in 1966, before embarking on a highly successful solo career. His legacy burns brightly in rock history. For Rory, there were no wild parties, no marriages and divorces. His short life shifted between the bright lights of his success and the darkness of personal struggle. He died at 47. In this extract from the forthcoming book by Julian Vignoles, ‘Rory Gallagher — the Man Behind the Guitar’, we get an insight into what came first for Gallagher: performance, being on a stage. Fans nostalgically recall his great years and the magical quality of his concerts. It also deals with his ‘audition’ for the Rolling Stones in 1975, his commitment to his Northern Ireland audience, and his refusal to be drawn into commenting on the Troubles, with a critical remark about U2

‘I think music has something to do with playing and people and sweating and dressing rooms and breaking strings. That’s music to me.’ — Rory Gallagher

Touring, being on the road, getting on to a stage as often as possible was an imperative for Rory Gallagher, almost to the point of obsession. By the 1970s, he was not catching sleep lying on equipment in the back of a van, as in the Fontana Showband days, but the road went on and on for him. The Rory Gallagher Band’s touring schedule was particularly intense in the early 1970s. The peak was 1973, when the band played 160 gigs, beginning that year in Dusseldorf and finishing in the Carlton Cinema in Dublin. The gruelling schedule started with dates in Germany and the Benelux countries, before they headed for the US, with dates in the east, south, mid-west and west. Gallagher took a couple of weeks off the road, but it was spent preparing for the Tattoo album. The band rehearsed in his old haunt, Cork Rowing Club, in July, before returning to London to record the album in early August. There were two UK gigs that month, before another long US tour that took them into October. German dates followed, before a 22-gig UK tour, then another hop over to the Netherlands, Paris and Zurich, before finishing with an Irish tour that lasted into 1974.

Melody Maker described the climax of the gig at the Roundhouse in Dagenham, London, in April: “Bullfrog

Blues comes tearing out of the PA and the place goes even pottier. I notice that when the solos come in, that’s the moment for cathedral-like hush, followed by wild approval. What these guys like is pure physical effort. Bass solos must be mile-a-minute and drummers have to expend enough energy to push a Ford Transit halfway up Ben Nevis.”

For some, the memory of Gallagher gigs has a transcendent quality. Eamonn Wall, a Co Wexford native, now Smurfit-Stone Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of English at the University of Missouri-St Louis, evokes both his Gallagher memories

and train romance — Irish style — in Blues for Rory: From the Slaney Co Wexford Mississippi Delta rode the rails in flannel shirts, warm CIE beer in hands, in the smoking carriage by big muddy cities Gorey/Chicago, Arklow/St Louis, moving on mile by mile marker by great rivers getting closer still to hearing the legendary bluesman from Cork City play on his battered Strat the blues, and sing I could’ve had religion but my little girl wouldn’t let me pray, that kind of girl hard to come by in the Slaney Co Wexford Mississippi Delta though neither did we pray too much being all prayed out since Confirmation.