Guitar hero

Rory Gallagher was shy and soft-spoken and dressed like an agricultural hippy. But he also had the magic, says Neil McCormick, and the magic began with his Strat.

If you were growing up in Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s, Rory Gallagher was legendary, a tearaway child of a nation deeply mired in its past. There was Van Morrison on a quest to release his soul up North, and Rory blazing fearless solos down South, and that was pretty much it for Irish rock culture in those heady decades when rock was taking over the world.

The country was impoverished, its population diminished by economic emigration year after year, its culture wrapped tight in a repressive matrix of church and state that clung to the old ways. There was no national pop radio station. Showbands toured ballrooms playing country and ceilidh music. International artists rarely ventured beyond occasional forays to Dublin. The nascent Troubles brewed a poisonous stink up North, keeping the world at bay. Yet this boyishly handsome man with a ruddy complexion and long dark hair was blazing a trail. Rory looked as Irish as they come. He was shy and soft-spoken with a gentle Cork accent and dressed like an agricultural hippy. But when he played and sang, he had a fierce beauty. Rory had the magic.

He was not just a local hero. Rory was way too talented for that. He was one of the all-time great blues rock guitarists, with an aggressive yet lyrical touch that made the instrument burn under his fingers. He wrote songs that expressed his wonder and mystery at the world, and he sang them with growling power. He toured with his trio Taste throughout the UK and Europe from 1966 on, and wherever he played, he found converts. Eric Clapton enlisted Taste to support Cream for their farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1968, and later credited Rory for “getting me back into the blues”. John Lennon was an admirer, singing Rory’s praises after seeing Taste in 1970. Long before he formed Queen, Brian May attended many Gallagher shows, shyly approaching after a gig at the Marquee in London to enquire how Rory set up his amp and effects (which Gallagher patiently showed him). “One of the reasons I do what I do is because of Rory,” according to May. “His playing was incredible.”

“Rory was one of the all-time great blues rock guitarists, with an aggressive yet lyrical touch that made the instrument burn under his fingers”

Taste played an incendiary set at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970, the same year Jimi Hendrix headlined - and for many Rory stole the show, called back for five encores. A possibly apocryphal story involves a journalist asking Hendrix backstage what it feels like to be the greatest guitarist in the world, and Hendrix replying “I don’t know. Go ask Rory Gallagher.” We do know the two guitarists often attended each other’s shows. His English peers Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page have voiced their admiration. “He was a fine guitarist and singer, and a really lovely man,” in the words of Page. “He never sought fame at the expense of musical integrity,” according to Beck, who considered him “a kindred spirit,” noting that both guitarists “could have been Rolling Stones, but good sense prevailed.”  

The Stones did indeed try to recruit Rory in 1975, which seems one of the more unlikely unions in rock history. When Mick Taylor left during the recording of Black and Blue, Mick Jagger summoned Rory to Rotterdam for rehearsals. After three late nights of jamming in which Keith Richards failed to make an appearance due to his increasingly damaging drug addictions, Gallagher quietly slipped away to resume his own solo touring. Subsequently, the Stones auditioned Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton and Steve Marriot before giving the job to Ronnie Wood, but Gallagher was top of their wish list. There are those that marvel at what might have resulted from the dynamic of Keith’s rhythmic weave and Rory’s incendiary soloing, but the gentle Irishman never expressed any regrets.

The truth is that Gallagher would have been a terrible fit for the Stones, far too much his own man to be reduced to sideman. He turned down the opportunity to replace Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple during the same period. Gallagher had his own path to explore. He went solo from Taste in 1970, recording 11 studio albums before his untimely death in 1995, aged just 47. He wrote songs that expressed real emotional feeling and demonstrated impressive musical depth, pushing him far beyond the barnstorming blues of such live favourites as the wild Tattoo’d Lady, bruising Bad Penny and storming Blister on the Moon. For a sense of Rory’s dimensions try gorgeous folky rocker Daughter of the Everglades, longing epic A Million Miles Away, tender ballad I Fall Apart, dramatic heavy rocker Philby or the dreamy sprawl of Shadow Play.

Gallagher wasn’t just an incredibly dextrous electric soloist, he was an absolute master of the acoustic guitar, and infused his blues with elements of Irish traditional music, the fingerplay of jigs and reels weaving subtly through his searing and melodious solos.

I sometimes wonder where all this came from - how a solitary loner from a small island on the Eastern edge of the Atlantic Ocean made such a profound connection with the American blues. His parents were musical, his mother a singer, his father an Ulster champion accordion player. Rory was a child prodigy, with a passion for the skiffle of Lonnie Donegan that led him to Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and eventually to his great hero Muddy Waters. “He would surf the family radio to get the music he needed to hear, like a bee trying to find the right pollen,” recalls his younger brother, Donal Gallagher, who would go on to manage Rory for most of his career.

Born in Donegal, Rory grew up first in Derry in Northern Ireland (where he tuned into American Forces Radio) before moving south to Cork aged eight (where he could sometimes pick up Radio Luxembourg). Musical to his core, Rory played ukulele, harmonica, saxophone, bass, mandolin and banjo. He was earning a living with showbands by his mid-teens. But something about the blues resonated deeply, endowing Rory with a sense of freedom that elevated his playing.

He found his truest vehicle of expression in 1963, aged 15, in Crowley’s Music Store in Cork, when he purchased a second hand 1961 Fender Stratocaster guitar for £100 on credit. It is said to have been the first Strat to arrive in Ireland, originally owned by Jim Conlon of the Royal Showband before landing in the hands of the man who would become Ireland’s greatest virtuoso. That is the very guitar offered at Bonhams in London this October, an icon of rock history.

Gallagher played that guitar with Muddy Waters, Jerry Lee Lewis, Peter Frampton, Albert Lee, Gary Moore and Slash of Guns’ N’ Roses, one of Rory’s keenest admirers. It was the guitar he was playing at Punchestown Racecourse in 1982 at a charity concert for Irish music magazine Hot Press, with U2 and Phil Lynott supporting. I was standing with U2 guitarist the Edge at the side of the stage, so close to Rory we could have reached out and touched him. “Seeing what Rory could do on stage was an absolute mindblower, an eye opener,” according to Edge. “He was an inspiration.”

“Rory had a lot of guitars, but this was his main instrument, the mistress of the harem, as it were. This is the guitar he loved”

Johnny Marr of the Smiths has played this guitar. Contemporary blues master Joe Bonamassa has played it. But most of all, Rory Gallagher has played it.

Its original Sunburst finish faded, exposing the underlying wood. “I remember Rory being very upset one night, on the verge of tears, backstage at the Marquee club,” recalls Donal. “He was cleaning his guitar and realised the paint was starting to remove. I know there's theories that Rory took a hammer and chisel to the thing, and it was wrecked from touring, but actually it was to do with the paint chemicals and a mixture of his own alkaline sweat that seemed to act like paint stripper. You could say his DNA is in the instrument.”

Rory never had the paintwork restored, coming to believe "the less paint or varnish on a guitar the better. The wood breathes more,” although he added “it’s all psychological. I just like the sound of it.” He did make modifications. “Rory dispensed with the tremolo arm,” explains Donal. “It's still with the guitar but he kept it in its original plastic bag and modified the guitar so he could get the same effect with his little finger on one of the control pots.” The tuning pegs, pickguard and nut were replaced over time, the tone pots rewired, the three-way selector switch replaced with a five-way, all adapted by Gallagher himself for his playing. “Rory had a lot of guitars, but this was his main instrument, the mistress of the harem, as it were. This is the guitar he loved,” says Donal.

“He could make his guitar do anything,” in the words of Brian May. “It seemed to be magic. I remember looking at his battered Stratocaster thinking ‘how does that come out of there?’”

Rory Gallagher’s Stratocaster is the real thing. It is where the magic begins.  

Rock historian and author, Neil McCormick is also music critic for The Daily Telegraph.

The Rory Gallagher Collection
17 October | London, New Bond Street

For enquiries, contact Claire Tole-Moir
on claire.tolemoir@bonhams.com or +44 0 20 7393 3984.

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