RORY GALLAGHER
MOJO is invited into Irish guitar legend Rory Gallagher’s extraordinary archive. Danny Eccleston soaks up the vibes.
We take a peek in the secret London lock-up holding the Irish guitar great’s records, posters, T-shirts, amps, and, excitingly, his Fender Strat.
THE BLUE door creaks open to reveal dusty flightcases, knocked-about filing cabinets and a set of steps leading to two attic rooms overflowing with rock’n’roll paraphernalia, all rich with attachments to Cork city’s master guitarist and man of the people: Rory Gallagher. Our guides here are Daniel and Eoin, nephews of Rory who, with their father – Rory’s tour manager brother Donal – have maintained a store of Rory’s records, instruments, tapes, books and posters in this part of west London for decades. For Gallagher fans or fellow hoarders, or both, it’s a honey pot. Here’s a copy of one of Gallagher’s first recordings: a ‘showcase’ test pressing of Valley Of Tears, a version of the Buddy Holly song by Cork’s Fontana Showband starring a 15-year-old Rory. There’s a trio of Rory-celebrating street signs from Dublin, Cork and, less obviously, Ris-Orangis in Paris, home of the Le Plan venue where Gallagher played his last
French gig before his 1995 death from liver disease. Daniel Gallagher fishes in a box and pulls out an orphaned guitar pickup selector switch and an AAA pass from the second Crystal Palace Garden Party in July 1971. “It’s an odd sensation,” he says. “This place has its own unique smell, something like my uncle’s old apartment. Every time I come here it takes me back.”
The occasion for MOJO’s invitation is another archival venture. Rory Gallagher Blues, a 3-CD box of unreleased outtakes and live tracks out soon on Chess/Universal. Its revelatory contents (a haunting version of I Could Have Had Religion from a WNCR Cleveland Radio session from 1972 feels like autobiography mixed with prophecy) once resided here, though the masters are now stored in more secure environs, rather like Gallagher’s famously beat-up 1961 Fender Stratocaster, which has been booked out of a bank vault for the day, as it has been on the two occasions that contemporary blues guitar master Joe Bonamassa has played it on-stage in London. A picture of Rory in The Fontana Showband shows the guitar once sported a sunburst finish, before it was stolen in 1966 and later found in a ditch. MOJO looks at the guitar’s back – the wood is dyed indigo from the rubbing of Rory’s blue jeans.
Daniel and Eoin have fond memories of their uncle (“He gave the best birthday presents”). Although “shy and reserved” off-stage, he showed them their first chords when he babysat them. “He’d say, ‘Shall we watch telly or get out the guitars?’” says Eoin. “We’d always say, ‘Guitars!’”
One of the lock-up’s most intriguing items has a connection with the new blues box. It’s a hastily-typed 1975 invitation on Swiss notepaper from the manager of ornery, Flying V-toting bluesman Albert King, for Gallagher to record with “Alber” at the Casino in Montreux (inset left). The hook-up resulted in 1977’s Albert Live album and a fiery outtake titled You Upset Me, which finally surfaces this month. Who upset whom is a moot point, however, as Gallagher remembered King as an intimidating presence. “Uncle Rory asked him what key they were in,” says Daniel. “King just said ‘Be natural’ and glowered.”
The nephews were in their early teens when their uncle passed. “I remember the drive from Cork Cathedral to the burial,” says Daniel. “People came out of the shops and offices to watch the coffin go by. It was like the whole city paying tribute.”
The work of commemoration goes on. The nephews have their work cut out collating Rory’s effects for a forthcoming exhibition (“You’ll open a guitar case and find a neck scarf he wore one night decades ago,” says Daniel) and a comprehensive BBC sessions set is afoot.
“We did a selection before [in 1999] but there could be, like, 15 CDs,” says Daniel. “There’s so much amazing Rory music still to uncover.”
“His beatup Strat has been booked out of a bank vault for the day.”