All language subtitles for RORY GALLAGHER - Ghost Blues (Documentary) (2010)

I once saw him
change a string

without stopping the song.

Which I still think is just like...

You know, just for that alone,

there should be
a monument to him.

Rory always struck me
as a priest with long hair.

You know, that sort of
quiet sort of Cork thing.

And, you know, he could've been
in a seminary,

except his chalice
was his guitar,

and his prayers
were the blues.

Everyone loved Rory

because he just signified
something so important

for the kids of my era,

which was
the Irish guitar player

who was up there
on the international stage,

up there with all the greats.

And so there was
a great sense of pride

in his achievements.

And he didn't want
to do singles.

Rory Gallagher did not want
to be defined

by a passing trendy sound

that would have possibly
branded his career

in one way or another.

I play the music I love.
I play what I feel.

In ten years' time, who knows
what's going to happen?

But I know I'm not going to
play with an orchestra,

I'm not going to play
with a huge brass section.

I'm not going to become
Bryan Ferry

or the Police
or anyone else.

I'm going to be
Rory Gallagher.

You were born March 2nd, 1949.

I was born in Ballyshannon,
Donegal,

but I was brought up
in Cork City,

and that's where I went
to school and so on.

So, I regard that as my hometown.

My father and mother met in Cork.

My father was in the military.

He was a lieutenant in the Irish Army.

And after the war,
when they were demobbed,

he was assigned to the building

of the Erne Scheme for the ESB.

So, thus Rory was born there.

Ironic Rory was born in
the Rock Hospital, Ballyshannon,

christened in the Rock Church.

And my father's involvement
in the making

of one of the first dams
in Ireland

to create electricity for us all
in future years.

We finally ended up at Cork
at the age of eight.

Rory had already established
he wanted to be a musician.

When did you first start playing?

I was a child,
about seven or eight.

Guitars were scarce,

and money was scarce
in those days,

but I got a ukulele,
believe it or not,

with a picture of Elvis Presley on it
out of Woolworths.

And plunked along on that
until I was about nine.

Then I got a real wooden
acoustic guitar.

I just worked away on acoustic
for three or four years

before I got into electric.

I just learned from records

and looking at guitar tutors.

But I couldn't read music,
so I'd only work

from chord diagrams
and that sort of thing.

Ireland had been
economically stagnant.

There was a huge level
of unemployment here.

There was a very high level
of emigration.

And it was a very insular place,

where people were closed off

to influences from abroad
in almost any sense.

The American Navy had
their naval base at Derry,

the port of Derry.

So, they had their own
AFN stations,

which you could pick up on radio.

And, of course, it was
all the very early origins

of what's now better known
as rock music.

It was basically the merger of
the jazz, blues, and elements of that.

Well, it's just hearing
people on the radio,

Lonnie Donegan
in particular.

He was sort of doing
Woody Guthrie material

and Lead Belly and so on.

And plus all the rock 'n' rollers
of the time.

Everyone heard Presley
and Gene Vincent

and Fats Domino
and Chuck Berry.

From a very early age, I was just interested
in music and the guitar,

and particularly American music.

I can't remember a time when
I wasn't switched on by music

or certain sounds.

I just developed it
through the radio.

Back in 1963,

Rory was looking for a Fender guitar.

Had his mind made up.
Nothing else would do, only a Fender.

His dream ambition was to have
a guitar like Buddy Holly.

And lo and behold, one day
the spaceship landed for Rory.

Jim Conlon was the original
owner of the guitar.

Jim played with
the Royal Showband.

He had played it for
possibly about a year,

a year and a half,
before he traded it in.

This Stratocaster was in the store
as a second-hand instrument.

It was £100.

In today's money, you couldn't
even compare prices.

You might as well have said at
the time a million pounds or 100,000.

It was just beyond
comprehension, £100.

My mother was saying, "We'll be
in debt for the rest of our lives."

And Rory said, "Actually,
with a guitar like this,

"I can play both parts -
rhythm and lead.

"We won't need a rhythm player.

"So I can earn more money
and pay it off."

So, the Stratocaster became
his partner for life, if you like.

Well, the point is, I tried to get
a beat group together.

The only groups around,
I think,

were Van Morrison and Them
in Belfast.

And a few other groups.
And a few in Dublin,

like the Creatures
and a few bands like that.

But in Cork, still you couldn't
find a bass guitarist.

The odd drummer would be around.

Most musicians decided if they
got a job with a dance band,

at least you got paid
for doing that.

Whereas a beat group,
you had to pay to play, nearly.

There weren't any group musicians around
at that time.

He had tried to enlist
the rest of us

and convert us
into possible musicians.

My case was a failure anyway.

So...

this was his only opportunity
to perform.

There really was no way out
at that time.

You were in a showband.

I was in the Fontana Showband.

It's like my military service.

I had to do a couple of
years with them.

No, it was all right.

At the age of 15,
you're more than happy

to travel around
and plug into a Vox AC30,

which you couldn't otherwise afford.

They were a fairly loose showband
in that respect.

Obviously you'd have to wear
a suit now and then.

Plus, I was only there
for two years with the band.

Rory and Van were the lucky ones.

The showbands destroyed Irish musicians.

One generation,
two generations of them.

They really were a disgrace.

And I really mean a musical disgrace.

They really were not engaged
in anything that was...

especially creative or risk-taking.

He didn't particularly like
the comedy routine sketches

that the rest of the guys would...

It was always
"Make the people laugh

"and send them home sweating",
as the phrase was coined.

You've got to assume

that amongst
the many showbands,

there were some fabulous musicians
with something to say.

He knew the records
he was listening to in Cork,

and he knew the step, the rung,
the ladder, was to go showband.

Nothing wrong with that.
It was the right thing to do.

You ply your trade, you go up and down
the M1 of Ireland in your van.

It's all good for you.

Rory was able to finish his education

at the age of 1 7.

And literally the day
he completed his exams,

he was on a plane to Spain.

I first left Ireland in a showband

to do the Irish circuit
in England

at the age of 15, I think.

And then came back here

and worked in a showband,
and made various trips with...

This showband was called
the Impact Showband.

And went to Spain.

We just tried to get work
wherever we could.

We couldn't get
that much work here,

because we were doing
sort of...

We were the Jim Reeves
showband at the time.

We were doing sort of what
we thought was pretty far out,

doing sort of Chuck Berry
and a bit of Georgie Fame.

We still did a bit of
the showband stuff.

But...

that eventually finished for me

because I wasn't happy there.

What he then did after that
with the Taste thing

hadn't been done
by anybody else before.

Sure, there was the Skid Rows
and the Thin Lizzys,

but Rory realised a long time ago
what he wanted to do.

He headed off then
with Eric Kitteringham

and Norman Damery -
Taste Mark 1 - to Belfast.

In Belfast,

there was a very popular blues scene,
as compared to Dublin.

And I think Rory was attracted to that.

He did a couple of gigs there,
had a success,

got offered a residency
at the Maritime,

which had just changed
its name to Rado.

The Maritime blues had coincided
with the era

of the showbands and the ballrooms

and the formal dancing
in the dance clubs.

Then here was that little club
that emerged

that played beat groups,
they were called.

And in those beat groups,

Rory Gallagher
found his way to there,

through a fella called Eddie Kennedy.

He was an agent for
Robert Stigwood at that time,

so he was bringing in bands
like John Mayall's Bluesbreakers,

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac,
Cream.

So, all these bands would come over
and play in the North of Ireland.

After two weeks in Belfast,
Rory was a star.

First of all, because of the band,
they way they played.

But also the way he looked.

This is sort of, you know, '67.

Everybody was getting
into the mod thing.

And there's Rory walking around
with long hair and a leather jacket.

It was totally out of place.

In the meantime, word was getting
back down the grapevine to London

and a couple of dates
in the Marquee were secured,

till eventually it was better
to actually move

and establish a residency
in London.

The line-up changed in late '68

to John Wilson,
Richard McCracken and myself.

At this point, we'd made
a foothold, you know, in London

thanks to the Marquee Club
and a few other places like that.

And we got a record contract,

and we started working
on the first album.

At this point, we'd done nearly
every club up and down the country

and quite a few festivals
on the continent.

So we had a lot of material
ready to go,

and we cut the first album
in late '68.

It was released in early '69,
I think.

Will you allow me
a stupid question?

How do you describe
your own music?

It's hard to...

There's lots of roots.
It's blues-based, obviously.

But we don't...
Let's put it this way.

There's lots of roots there,

but we just play it as free as possible,
as we want.

We don't restrain ourselves
from playing certain phrases

for the sake of losing
a certain tag.

The late '60s
was a very fertile time

in terms of the way music was
progressing and developing.

The band started to expand
out into Europe.

Jimi Hendrix by now
had moved back to America

and formed a new band.

You then had Cream
deciding to split up.

And Taste had become
the sort of new hot three-piece,

and the phenomenon
of the three-piece happened.

And Rory was at the forefront of that.

Could I say that your influences
are more almost jazz-like

as opposed to rock-like,
with Cream?

Cream became the big hit,

and Jimi Hendrix, and so on.

But Taste started off more on the lines
of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates,

or The Big Three from Liverpool.
There are so many influences.

We didn't stretch out the numbers
to 20 minutes like the Cream did.

Their set - I think they did
four or five numbers.

InfIuences crept in
aII over the pIace.

A IittIe bit of jazz, a IittIe bit of foIk,
a IittIe bit of bIues.

It wasn't as heavy as Cream.

It was a little more arranged
than Hendrix's music.

Is it fair to say
that you specialise

in interpretations
of blues standards

like Sugar Mama
and things like that?

Not really.
I think that Cream,

their complete set initially
was all blues standards

brought up to date -
Rollin' and Tumblin' - things like that.

We did a couple
of old classics updated.

But all the rhythm and blues groups
were doing that.

So, let's say that the songs
that I wrote were different.

So, I think we hit a balance
between the rhythm and blues stuff,

and whatever I was writing,
which was a mixture of all kinds of things.

The fact there was three members
and there's a blues bass,

that's the connection with Cream
and all those.

I was more interested in
Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran.

I discovered Taste through
another friend of my brother's

who sold us a bunch of records.

And I came across this album,

and I didn't know it was Rory.

It was kind of
an interesting cover.

It was a live album of Taste.

I put it on, and I just thought
it was amazing.

It took me a while
to put it together

that was the same guy
that was Rory Gallagher.

I saw Taste
at Stella House Ballroom.

I used to go to dances there
on Saturday, I guess.

I was really impressed

because there were
no Irish bands,

save Van Morrison,

who was in any way making
any sort of name for themselves.

Essentially, it was the first time
I'd heard a blues band,

an electronic blues band

that actually was the blues.

That band were
about as good as it gets

in that form.

Utterly apart from his music,
which is quite a different thing,

but what he represented culturally
was just as important, in a way.

And he paved the way for all
of the other rock 'n' roll people

that came from Ireland afterwards.

He basically went and set
the footprint around the world

for everybody else
that came through.

I'm talking Van Morrison,
Thin Lizzy and, you know...

and eventually U2,
to take it on board,

to take on the mantle
of carrying the Irishness

and establishing the credential

as it developed
down through the years.

By '69, they were doing
a follow-up album to Taste,

which was on the boards,

and then got their first
American tour

supporting Blind Faith.

Blind Faith did their
one and only American tour.

It was Clapton, Ginger Baker,

Ric Grech and Steve Winwood.

So, we got an opening
to go and play on that show,

and that was the first trip
to the States,

and it was six weeks.

And the other group
on the bill

were called
Delaney & Bonnie & Friends.

The very first gig we did was Philadelphia
in the Spectrum there.

We stepped onto the stage, it started
revolving, and the promoter didn't tell us.

There we are,
playing in front of 20,000 people,

more people than we'd ever seen.

And the stage was moving?

Yeah. I thought,
this has got to be sort of...

a bad trip,
or whatever they call it.

But it was good experience.

The fractures in the band
had started on that tour.

Rory wasn't very happy
with his management.

He didn't feel enough effort
was being put

into getting their own gigs.

By then the first Taste album
had been released,

and that was bulleting up the charts.

It was level pegging
with the Blind Faith album,

which was one of
the hot albums of the time.

The second album,
On The Boards,

by the end of the tour had also been
released in Europe.

So, that got picked up as well.
That was also charting.

And Rory wanted to stay in America
and crack it.

But he found it hard to cope with
the manager and attitudes.

The other two musicians
were siding more with the manager

than they were with Rory.

By then, basically, I think
the writing was on the wall.

The unforgivable
had happened.

The manager had given
the record company

the right to release a single.

Rory was being very anti-singles.

Artistically, to Rory,
this was without his consent,

and this shouldn't be done.

He was quite upset
with that scenario.

In time, the band were enormous,

but they were still travelling in
a single-wheelbase Transit van.

The back seat was the old seat

of a Volkswagen bus that had been
driven into the ground,

and that was put across
a couple of speaker cabinets.

The band were making very good money,
yet they were earning a pittance.

It was Rory's inherited PA system
from the showband as well.

Nothing had been updated.

Then Rory looked
to the management

to improve the conditions, etc.

And Rory liked to have control.

It was his band.
He was the bandleader.

He'd formed...
He'd named the band,

he'd brought it up
from the South of Ireland,

and he felt this was being
hijacked by somebody else.

It hit a peak
at the Isle of Wight Festival,

which the band played there on a Friday.

The night before, the equipment
had been stolen out of the van

in Earl's Court.

So, the band had to borrow
bits and pieces of equipment.

I saw Rory at the Isle of Wight Festival.

I was there selling drugs.

And...

I was really tired because
it was just endless,

all day, all night music.

Really, I think the gigs
ran over so much.

Leonard Cohen,
who was headlining,

came on at 2:30 in the morning.

And...

I saw Rory at about 2:00
in the afternoon.

They tore the place up.

I mean, really. People stopped
collecting firewood for the night

and scratched themselves getting up.
Everyone just went in.

And they sounded brilliant.

They just got
their sound together.

Actually, that was
the first time I felt proud

that an Irish band
had done something.

Meantime,
Polydor had booked out

a huge European tour,

which they were sponsoring.

And they had Taste headlining
with two other Polydor acts.

Rory said,
"No, I'm not going to do it."

Not only that,
didn't have any money.

There was no savings to fall back on,
but Rory didn't care.

And I recall our mother sent
some cash registered

over to the flat we had
in London, which was stolen.

And that was
a really destitute situation.

Why did the band break up?

We just got tired
of playing with each other,

and driving around,
doing a million gigs.

Why does any band break up, really?

There's usually friction with management
as well to stir up things.

But we didn't have any great
fistfight or anything.

You just... One week
everything is going fine.

The next week, everyone
wants to do something else.

It's a shame that it didn't
last a bit longer

because, you know, like so many times
in Rory's career,

you could've said
that was the moment where,

if he'd really gone for it,

he could've broken America
in a much bigger way.

But I think Taste
were really amazing,

really ahead of their time,

and probably didn't get
the recognition that they deserve.

The break-up of Taste

was undoubtedly traumatic.

Because when you have
the kind of momentum that Taste had,

and when you're beginning
to experience

the world of rock 'n' roll,

with the real big acts
of the time -

people like Eric Clapton
and Blind Faith,

and Led Zeppelin
coming through,

people at that kind of level -

to suddenly have
the sense of unity

that goes with being
in a band like that,

to have that taken away

would have been very difficult
for Rory.

Did these two albums -
Rory Gallagher and Deuce -

were they a turning point
for you?

Yeah. Well, I also wrote 90%
of what Taste had done as well.

But I had the freedom.
I produced the album.

We recorded it in a studio, 8-track.

And we recorded it.

We did three weeks,
or something like that,

and we had the whole album
completed.

But at the time, we enjoyed doing it
because it was a very...

very non-state-of-the-art type of studio,

and we did everything live -
live lead guitar, live vocals.

Very natural sound.

So, with that, of course,
you get some imperfections.

He went into the studio

and did his
Rory Gallagher album

in early '71.

Went on tour,
and while he was on tour,

had a second album made
which came out in the autumn of '7 1 .

So, it was a quite
prolific period for Rory.

When I first started
doing rock journalism,

it was 1972, 1973.

And it was quite a privilege,

because all this great music
was coming out.

I got a job on this local
underground paper

where my sister worked,
which was like a hippie commune.

I'm talking about, like,
pot is thick in the air.

And my family had been
really staunchly anti-drugs.

And I was that way too,

but I loved music,
and I loved records,

and vinyl and album jackets.

One of the album jackets that I saw

sitting against a sofa
in this commune...

Because they'd get free records
and it was just,

"Man, hey, put them over there."

So there'd be all these great records
that you were dying to listen to.

But I saw this record,

which is Rory's first solo album.

And I just thought
it looked so cool.

It was just kind of like a thoughtful, intense,

but, but...

deeply musical expression.

The sound that Rory Gallagher
made in the '70s

is a sound
that I absolutely love.

It's one of the things
I like so much about Rory.

The album Deuce, there was one track
called Crest Of A Wave.

And it actually is
as muddy as bejabers.

It's a brilliant song,
almost ruined by bad production.

In this sense,
ruined is a good thing.

Around '73 or thereabouts,

Rory Gallagher was voted
number one guitarist

in Melody Maker, as the best
guitarist of the year,

with all the rest of those
luminaries behind you.

So, what did that mean to you?

I was delighted to see
I was voted high in the polls.

But then you look at the polls,

and see one of your own favourites
not even in there.

So, you can't get carried
away with them.

But you're a pop artist if you capitalise
on everything that happens.

But I think if you overcapitalise
on things,

or you become too political,

you'd be better off joining
the Conservative Party.

Let's put it this way, the playing of music
is a busy enough thing,

it leaves very little time to be playing
a chess game with the public,

or playing a chess game
with the press.

It must've been quite a highlight
in your career

to play with Jerry Lee Lewis

and Albert King as well.

Is that intimidating when you play
with somebody like Albert King?

In his case, yeah.

Jerry Lee Lewis was every bit as crazy
in the studio as he is onstage.

- He's a genuine...
- Nutcase.

Lifting the Steinway off the ground,
and just terrifying,

but not in a way that...

Albert King wasn't
particularly pleasant,

but that was a live record,

so the tension on a guy
going on stage is difficult.

But Muddy Waters
was the dream for me

because he had a great
kind of kindness about him.

You just watched him
tuning up,

hitting certain chords,
unusual positions on the neck.

It was like an education for me.

But he never really
kind of stood at you.

He just let you breathe around him.

Tell us a little bit about working
with the Rolling Stones

in Amsterdam in 197 4.

They telephoned
would I come over,

and I went over and played
with them for a couple of nights

with their mobile unit,
and ran through some songs.

Then I went off to Japan
and Australia.

But because Mick Taylor had gone,

they had Jeff Beck over as well
at some point.

And they had a couple of others.

Wayne Perkins
and Harvey Mandel.

But I couldn't stick around.
I had tours to do.

But it was interesting
working with them.

There was all that thing when Brian Jones
died, he died in July '69,

and Mick Taylor came in then
for about five years.

Around that time, there was talk that
Rory Gallagher would maybe join.

The Stones had been making noises
about Rory even prior to that,

because they had formed
the Rolling Stones label.

We were going to go there
to record.

The night before we left,
Mick Taylor said he wasn't coming

and he was going to leave.

He gave us no notice whatsoever.

So, Rory stayed
two or three days there

and played some nice stuff.

We had a good time with him.

But Mick and Keith felt that he wasn't
the kind of character that would fit.

If he'd been in the Stones,
he wouldn't have been singing.

And that was
one of his strong points.

And he would've just been
playing solos, some solos.

And to be subservient
to two big egos...

I don't think that would've really worked.

Rory wasn't a sideman.
He was a frontman.

Ronnie Wood was a sideman.

It would've got pretty complicated.

I'm not really sure what
the Stones were thinking,

except they wanted
a good guitar player.

But I also think they were
going to try and mould him

into some character
that would fit in the Stones

and do their bidding every single day
for however many years.

He could never have put up with
the bollocks of Mick and Keith.

Never in a thousand years
would he have put up with it.

Of course he would've been
more than competent.

But he was a lead player,
he was a frontman,

he was a singer,
he was a writer.

Up against Mick and Keith...

he'd have shot himself.

They went through several
other guitar players,

from Jeff Beck to Harvey Mandel
to Ry Cooder.

Steve Marriott.

They all were auditioned,

but certainly Rory was
the first one to be asked in,

or invited in.

He's just such a clear, concise,
soulful player,

that the music kind of goes
to a deeper place in his hands.

Just listening to his stuff
this morning,

the stuff that I really loved
when I first discovered him...

it matters.
It's music that matters.

If I'd made a good song,

and it got onto the turntables
of various shows

and it got into the charts,

it wouldn't hurt me too much.

But what happens is that
you get lectured by people,

or you know damn well
that it's not...

No matter what you do.
And then you go off,

like a lot of artists
that I used to admire,

and they make a real frilly song
just to get in the charts,

and they've put pain into
18 years of credible work.

That's what...

- It takes away from it.
- It does.

And I'd rather never have
a hit single.

You'd certainly never go out of your way
to "record a single".

No, not really.

With hindsight, Rory probably
knew what he was doing.

Certainly he could've
picked off some hit singles.

Certainly it would've
broken through in America

to get the airplay,
but he wasn't interested.

I don't regard myself
as a top-20 musician at all.

Even though I could write
a top-20 song,

but I wouldn't.

I don't think that's important.

He obviously was his own man,

and the marketing people don't like
people who are their own man.

They like people to be malleable,
to be pliable,

to be able to be moulded.

But he didn't do that.
He did his own thing.

It's not wise in career terms.

It's wise in terms of your soul,
if that's your view of music.

He didn't want to be involved
in the business,

in the industry.

Rory was grafting away,
doing the festivals,

filling auditoriums, clubs.

And yet the records
wouldn't be in the store.

So, he'd begun
to resent record companies.

They came down from New York
with an edited version -

Edged in Blue.

They said, "We'll get this to
number one in America for you."

And Rory went berserk.

"How dare they edit the music?"

He was an album guy, you know,

and a great live performer.

You went to see him live,
or the audience did,

and you bought his records.

He wasn't heading
for the single charts.

We were.
We had to have hit records where we were.

I mean, down to his sneakers,
to his jeans, to his shirt...

You know, what do you want
this guy to say?

In an Irish tour, I always try
and include Belfast

and the North of Ireland.

After all, I lived there
for a while,

and I learned a lot
playing the clubs there.

So I have a certain
home feeling for the place.

The '70s in Ireland were
a particularly difficult period

because the Civil Rights movement

had begun to be active
in the North in the '60s.

Things had spiralled downward
with the conflict

that resulted from that.

The Provisional IRA
had become established,

and the troubles had exploded.

There was violence
on an ongoing daily basis

in the North.

It's always a great audience.

It's a pity almost no one else
goes to play there.

He was the ultimate hero there.

And he did cross
that sectarian divide

that was such a phenomenon
in Northern Ireland.

And in the context
of the most intense conflict,

people from both sides
of the divide

came to see Rory at those great gigs
at the Ulster Hall and so on.

It's a reflection
of the real connection

that he made with people
at a grassroots level,

where the ordinary people
felt connected

to something magic
and something brilliant.

I remember the first night,
the first concert.

It would've been Christmas,
'7 1 , '72.

We did this show,
and there was bombs going off.

About six bombs went off
around the city centre

the night of the concert.

And the people didn't care.
It was fantastic, great atmosphere.

I first was introduced to Rory

through the usual route,

which is mates,
friends in school,

who would talk about
their favourite band.

This would've been
North County Dublin

in the mid-'70s.

So, the bands that everyone
were excited about then

were Thin Lizzy
and Rory Gallagher.

At that point,
I wasn't really even playing myself.

I had a guitar, but I'm not sure
I'd learned how to tune it at that point.

I think the next time
I really took an interest beyond that

was when he played
his first show in Macroom.

By the mid-'70s,

Rory's growing power,
pulling power,

had increased
to three Cork City Halls,

or a couple of Savoys
in Cork.

There had been rumours

of somebody trying to do
an open-air rock festival.

That was everybody's ambition,
to be the first to do it.

There was no such thing as
the massive business there is now,

but Rory is one of
the founding fathers

of the Irish rock business.

I got approached by a committee
down in Macroom

to say would Rory
come down and play

at their Mountain Dew Festival?

So, I said, "If you guys
want to go for this,

"we'll give it a shot."

That was 1977.

Myself and my brother
and our friend next door

decided we'd go down to
the Macroom show.

I think I was 15 at the time.

Then the problem I had
was persuading Rory,

who was not convinced

and really had a bit of a fear
of going outside cities,

because rock bands
never really worked

beyond the city confines.

It was a complete shock
to us all

in the sense of Dolan came in
one day and said,

"Macroom Mountain Dew Festival
have been on,

"and they want us to play there."

And it's like...

They wanted to have
the first rock festival in Ireland,

and they were pioneers
of their time.

We obviously had the contacts

for the PA system
and the lighting system,

so ingenuity was put into effect.

And I think it was
three flatbed trucks

raised and scaffolded underneath,

with scaffolding overhead
with drapes.

We got a kind of package ticket,

which was a coach trip down, the show,

and then a coach trip back.

It was the first time I ever went to
what you might call a big gig.

I'd been to a few small shows,
but that was the first ever big gig.

Dolan grasped metal full on.

And kind of...

We ended up basically doing
everything that you could do,

from a technical point of view,
you know,

in the entire production
aspect of things,

where, you know, you were kind of told,
"There's a field.

"The rest is yours."

You figure it out from there.

In the old town hall
of Macroom,

they had a backdrop

from a theatre production
of The Castle.

We put that up behind.

A couple of
very good friends in the UK

whose company we used.

And when I told them what we were
endeavouring to do, they came over.

Not only did they bring the PA system,

they brought a load
of extra kit.

So, it was hugely successful.

It was like the moment
when an emerging group of people

get a sense that there's
something more happening here

and that this might be
a key into a bigger world,

and that we here in Ireland,

and the musicians coming through
in Ireland at the time,

might become part of this
enormous energy

that rock 'n' roll represents
in world terms.

In a way, the advent of
Hot Press fell into place

at the same time as Macroom.

It was the real big breakthrough
that Ireland was waiting for.

Hot Press was so vital to
the encouragement of Irish music.

It's arguable that you don't get U2
if you don't have Hot Press.

And it was Rory...saw the need for that
and put up the money for it.

Hot Press was launched
in 1977.

It was...

It coincided with the Macroom Festival
in Cork,

which was really Ireland's
first major outdoor rock festival,

and Rory was the man.

Rory was astonished.

It was one of those great concerts.

And it was during, I think,
probably the heyday of his band as well.

All his... All the best musicians
were playing that day with him.

Rory was always opening
for a lot of the bands

that I was touring with.

He would always be around,
playing these American sets,

where he didn't play quite
as long as he did in Europe.

So, he'd play these blistering sets,

and then be hanging out
backstage a little bit.

You'd always see him.

And he was built for touring,
I remember.

Not a lot of, "Hey, man,
I'm here for the lifestyle."

It was really, like,
"I'm here for the music."

And the circus swirled around
and passed Rory Gallagher,

and he was generally
the hard-rock blues man,

with his suitcase,

there for the music
and these bursts of shows,

and then he's on to the next.

He'd play with Faces or Jethro Tull
or people like that.

Since '7 1 , we've been back
quite a few times,

over 20 times.

So, we've played
at all kinds of venues there,

from clubs to stadiums
to colleges.

And we've done
pretty well there, really.

We're just still working at it, you know.

I remember
he played Central Park.

He was opening for Aerosmith.

I'd say about a third of the crowd
was Rory's.

But by the time
he got done playing,

more than half the crowd
was Rory's.

And when Aerosmith came on,

everyone was chanting,
"Rory! Rory!"

Aerosmith comes on,
I think they'll die down.

The first three songs of Aerosmith,
they're still chanting, "Rory! Rory"

People were throwing bottles
at Aerosmith.

I've never seen a band get
so blown off the stage in my life

as they did that day.

They'd probably have done a great show,
but they didn't have a chance.

I did an album in San Francisco
many years ago.

The whole thing went in the bin
the day it was being cut.

And that was the precursor
of an album called Photo-Finish.

This was going to be
the big one

that was going to get
the royal treatment.

So the day that we'd
mastered the record, the vinyl,

I went into Rory's room
and said,

"I'm presenting it to the
record company, to Chrysalis."

They'd brought in 50 executives
from all over the States,

and Rory literally
took the album and said,

"You know what they can do
with this album?"

And he literally dropped it
into the bin in his hotel room.

I said, "Rory, you can't do this.

"Let me play it.
You can remix it or whatever."

"Don't do this."

He said, "I don't want
this album to happen."

He put it in the bin.

It was kind of a foolhardy thing to do,
to throw away months of work.

But by the same token,

it made me rethink whether
it was good enough,

whether we were
in the right direction.

So, in a weird way,
it was actually a good thing to do.

It's something you couldn't
afford to do every other year.

I was just dissatisfied
with that particular album.

I remember that day,

having to face
the record company executives

and think of some bluff excuse.

But, to my eternal sadness,
I'll put it that way,

I left Rory's hotel room and said,

"I feel like I could break your legs."

I came back to the hotel to find
a little note from the hotel

saying, "Dear Mr Gallagher,
don't worry.

"Your brother is okay.

"He's been taken to
Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles."

The receptionist said,
"Well, we don't quite know.

"He was in an accident
out in the street,

"and he had to be rushed
to hospital."

I came back from
a Bob Dylan movie,

Renaldo and Clara,

paid the taxi man
and closed the door

with my thumb
still in the door.

Oh, well. Stone-cold sober
and everything.

It was an omen from
the ghost of Django Reinhardt

to appreciate what you've got.

Rory, I don't think,
musically, was happy

with the outfit at that time.

He wasn't happy
with the production,

wasn't happy with the mixes,
with anything.

So, he split up that band

and wanted to go
for a clean sweep.

He brought in Ted McKenna
on drums.

The record, when I joined,
when I looked at the cover,

it was quite a glamorous cover,
Photo-Finish.

It made me think later

about the whole way
the record industry works,

and that any record company
would like to have groomed him

and smoothed him up,

to reach a bigger market.

And that is where he probably
didn't want to go.

I still have really fond memories
of this one time

where I was just feeling dejected

for having failed
on this other story.

And here comes Rory Gallagher

and his new publicist
from his new record company.

And they're, like,
"We're going on this promo tour,

"and Rory is meeting radio people
and pressing plant people."

They really had him
on a cattle call.

And he would get lectures
from all kinds of people

about how he should have
a hit single, or...

"What more can we do with you

"to make you a super-superstar?"

And at the end of the day,

he'd be back in this
wherever hotel room,

and he'd have a brandy or something
or we'd be in the bar,

and he would just talk about,

"You know,
this really isn't who I am."

But somehow, being on this
little ragtag promotional tour with Rory,

I felt very close to what
he probably was about -

a guy that was willing
to pay a price

to continue doing what he loved,
if it wasn't too high.

Because, really,
all he wanted to do was play

and to be able to make records
for as long as he could.

It seems to me that the blues
is essentially very personal.

It comes from the guts of the person
who's put the original down.

You've no qualms
about doing other people's,

like Muddy Waters' material,
for instance.

Well, I do.
I write 95% of my own stuff.

But I do do Muddy Waters
numbers occasionally

or a Junior Wells number.

You have to have
the pomposity to do it.

I mean, it's...

If I couldn't convince
the audience

that I'm doing a good version -
my version -

of a Muddy Waters number,
I wouldn't do it.

It either works or it doesn't.

Either it convinces the audience
and the artist or it doesn't.

And if I can convince
the audience,

I can convince myself,

for want of simple words
to explain it.

And I'd be playing the blues
at home anyway.

So, it doesn't...

Some sociologists
and people like that

say it's not possible.

"This man wasn't bound up
in chains

"and thrown into the sea."

It doesn't work like that.

Whatever I play, I don't give a damn
what they call it, I'm doing what I do.

It just depends
on the soul of it.

And this is it. Even if you have to say,
"It's white soul.

"It's white European soul."
Who cares?

You know, he was part of that generation
of British musicians

that took mostly
American influences,

things that were blues-based,

and then made them their own.

You had the feeling with Americans
at that point in time,

they didn't really respect
their own history.

And suddenly, a lot of
British musicians saw the blues,

and they took it
into their hearts

because they felt
as if it connected

to the way they saw class.

People always say that we were
very much aware

of the class system in Britain.

That's why that music appealed
to so many British musicians,

because they felt it reflected
some of the situations

from the class they came from.

Even in our interviews,

he talked a lot about
where he was from,

how it infected what he did,

how it was always there.

There's very few
true blues people.

Rory stood out because he did it
all the way through his life.

That's what he did.

Who else is there?
I can't think of anyone

that stands out as a real, true,
honest follower of the blues

and a singer of the blues,
as Rory was.

Irish blues seems to come
very much from the players,

and less like US blues is often
players paying tribute to the form.

There was a kind of lyricism to his playing
which was quite his own.

I don't think any other player

really had his particular approach
and phrasing.

Whilst I don't think he would've thought
about it as being anything Irish,

I picked up quite a lot
of the Irish influence

in his particular version
of the blues.

I remember Rory saying years ago

that he was actually a folk musician

in an electric world.

I think that's very true
about Rory.

That's why it was so special,
because of his playing.

You listen to his playing
on some of the songs -

there's Irish in there.

He's playing blues,
but he's playing Irish blues.

Nobody else did it.
He developed that himself.

That's why he's so wonderful
and so unique.

He was the Dylan factor
in the blues.

He wasn't unnecessarily flash.

He just didn't go that extra yard.

But he could be flash.
He was flash enough.

He had some really great things
that he did that were his own things.

He'd ping this note and he'd like...

and he'd higher it,
rather than use a tremolo bar,

which was a little bit
fancy-schmancy.

He'd just do it with the guitar,
pull the string at the top.

That was his. I'd never seen anyone
do that before, or since, really.

I've robbed it a couple of times.

We say in Spanish "el monstruo".
He was a monster of the guitar.

He was a big deal.

Every musician knows

that Rory Gallagher
was an explosive guitarist

and a convincing guitarist,

and kind of innovative
in terms of being blues-based.

But a lot of things
he's playing are very modern.

The way he damps things
and the progressions he plays,

and the way he messed around
with his volume.

I think musicians
completely acknowledge him

as being one of the best of that genre

that Ireland, or anywhere,
has ever produced.

As a young guitar player,
I just found

I was drawn to the way
he played his phrasing.

I found it fascinating.
I found it also accessible,

as much as I would
sit in my bedroom for hours

trying to figure out what he was doing,
there was always a kind of...

It wasn't showy.
It had a beautiful elegance to it.

And there was never
too many notes.

There was just the right amount
to get the message across.

The cool thing
about Rory's guitar playing

is that it had this real
hardcore rock 'n' roll thing.

It was cranked up real loud.

But it also had a certain
delicate kind of thing to it.

I couldn't compare it
to anybody else.

It was really loud
and very haphazard style-wise.

It wasn't everything
had to be sort of perfect and whatnot.

Sort of loud virtuoso
rock 'n' roll guitar playing.

There wasn't a lot of rules,
and there wasn't...

There was tons of feedback
and tons of volume,

but it had a certain sensitivity to it,

no matter how brash the licks were.

He was a musician that listened
to the music, first and foremost.

You could tell
that everything that he did

was inspired in that childlike way
of just loving music.

It just blew my mind.
And ever since then...

I have a radio show.
I play him on it all the time.

People who don't know him
are missing out, hands down.

One of the best guitar players
and best songwriters

and best performers
that ever was, I think.

Some people
are technically brilliant,

but they never really have
their own voice on the guitar.

And I think Rory did.

His own touch, his own feel.

That's it. It's a rare thing.

As I started learning
how to play guitar myself,

I suppose some of the first songs
I would ever try and work out

would've been Rory's songs.

He was, certainly early on...

If you ever hear our first demo,

there's quite a bit of
influence there,

evident in my own style.

He was my first guitar hero.

The Against The Grain
album cover,

where it just has
the close-up of the Strat

and the rust parts
and the paint coming off -

that was so cool.
I hated shiny guitars.

Still, to this day, I have
an aversion to shiny guitars.

Because it was Belfast in the '70s,

I had to order it and wait forever.

It came the wrong colour
and the wrong model,

but you had to take it anyway,
you didn't want to wait another six months.

But the first thing I did to a Les Paul
was take sandpaper to it

because I was
so into Rory's guitar,

and it had to look used.
It had to have a patina to it.

The first electric guitar
I ever owned

was one I'd got with money
I'd saved from the paper round.

I wanted it to look
like Rory's guitar.

His guitar,
which everyone knows,

is beaten up and battered
over the years.

It always looked like it'd been
through a fire or something.

So, I thought, "Yeah, fire, OK."

He was a very rare
blood group type.

And he'd had a lot of
alkaline in his blood.

And that's why his Stratocaster
was so stripped of paint.

It wasn't because
he took a chisel to it.

This was pure hard work
and sweat.

And the sweat would literally...
It was like paint stripper.

It would lift the paintwork
off his guitar.

So, I was in woodwork class.

I would've been about 1 4 or something
in school one afternoon,

and, as usual,
taking very little interest in it.

So, while the teacher was
talking to a few lads

about making a bookshelf
or something,

I'd brought in
the body of the guitar,

taken the guitar to pieces,
and I brought it in.

I put it up against
this kiln thing.

The teacher's talking. I'm going,
"Yeah, yeah." I've got a blowtorch.

I started going...

I started just setting fire
to this guitar.

The teacher's off doing his thing,

and this guitar suddenly,
of course, is in flames,

which I hadn't anticipated.

So, sanded it off,
buffed down all the parts,

and make it look comfortable,
I suppose.

I run up to it, and...

I'm blowing it out,

and managed to blow out,

physically blow out myself,

unaided by any of
my so-called friends,

this sort of, you know, flaming guitar.

So, of course, it was just
a burnt guitar then.

It looked dreadful. I thought
I've got to finish the job. So off I went again.

This time I turned it up
to eight or something.

I'm rocking this blowtorch,
and the flame's going again.

I'm blowing it
and blowing it out.

It hadn't occurred to me
that this lacquer thing,

this red plastic coating
is so poisonous.

So, I went at it again.

I burnt this guitar
about four or five times.

The whole thing
was just going up in flames.

It set the standard for me.

I wanted my guitars to look
as used as Rory's Strat,

as comfortable, like they were
serious instruments,

and not something to pose with.

I think it looked quite good
in the end, actually.

But it was a pretty stupid thing to do.

But that's being a fan,
you know.

The fatigue began to show

by the time Rory started
to hit his late thirties.

He developed
a horrendous fear of flying.

But he knew that
if he didn't get on planes,

he couldn't tour.

He'd started, probably by the late '70s,
taking tranquillizers.

After the Defender album,
his health did fail,

and he agreed and went
into hospital for three weeks.

The doctors said to me
when he went in the hospital,

they found it quite alarming
what he'd been prescribed.

He was a bit naiÏive,
to say the least,

about his medication,

particularly when it came
to mixing alcohol.

It was a drinking man's band.

We drunk as hard as we played,

so we found ourselves
in the bar a lot of the time.

A serious amount of drinking
went on at times.

He'd also been put on steroids,

which were absolutely
the wrong thing for him.

And it would swell his body.

He had water retention.

And not least what it was doing
messing his head up.

And, of course, the very nature
of his music - the blues -

the whole potency of
the alcohol and the blues

and the woman trouble
and the loneliness,

the melancholy,

he was in his own way
living the bluesman's life.

Rory spent most of his life
on the road,

so it's difficult to keep a relationship going.

And for whatever reason,

I can understand that
there is a certain loneliness.

He just didn't really know how

to make a commitment
to somebody else.

And, through his younger years,

he was so devoted
to becoming a musician,

the idea of having a girlfriend
was going to sidetrack him.

Then, of course, by the time
he'd got into his twenties,

he was so caught up
in the whole transition of his career,

between Taste and going solo
and having to produce albums,

he knew that he couldn't.

And then the effect of his health
on his appearances as well.

I certainly think that...

that anybody who lives
a life like that...

It's a life I've lived
most of my life as well,

it's not the easiest thing
to conduct a relationship

in the first place.

I get more worn out
when I'm off the road

in nervous tension.

I'm better off when I'm touring.

I wallow in it. I become fit.

Whereas,
if I'm just doing rehearsals

or just doing bits
in the studio or something,

I become really...

I don't know, less together
than I am when I'm on tour.

I think it was a tour
in Switzerland.

It was his first tour in
I don't know how long, a long time.

He was really jumpy about it.

I phoned him up. And, sure enough,
he was as jumpy as hell.

"I'm not sure if I can do this."

"Of course you can.
You've done it before, you just lay the table.

"Decide what you're going to sing, and do it,

"and people will turn up,
will actually want to see you.

"They're not there
to shoot you down.

"They're there
because they love you.

"You're Rory Gallagher.
They know your albums.

"They know what you can do.

"And they'll be really excited that
you're coming to Switzerland.

"So, you have to tell yourself,
'what's the problem?"'

I got a message
saying he'd done the first gig,

and he'd had a fantastic time.

I rang him up and said,
"You had a fantastic time?"

He said, "Yeah, it was great."

I said, "Do you understand why?
Did the people want to see you?"

He said, "Yeah, they did."

And he was almost
slightly perplexed

that an audience
would still want to see him.

But audiences don't forget.
You know?

Especially they don't forget
someone like Rory, do they?

The tour manager
called me up

and said, "Your brother's
given me his prescription.

"But I can't let Rory down."

I said, "OK,
go off to the chemist's.

"I'll come with you."
And I went to this chemist's.

And I produced my passport.

And I said to the chemist,

"Look, this man is my brother.

"This is a prescription for him.

"I don't think he should have it.

"But I'd like to understand
whether I'm doing the wrong thing

"by withdrawing medication,

"whether it should be done.

"What do you do
in these cases?"

The guy took the prescription off,

and he came back to me
about 10, 15 minutes later

and said,
"This man takes a drink as well?"

And I said, "Yes, he does."

And he said,
"Well, I'll tell you, my friend,

"with this medication, this guy
doesn't have an alcohol problem

"as much as this is a drug problem,

"if he's been on this."

He said, "Certainly, if you put
all these tablets in one glass,

"put in some alcohol, stir it,
you've got the devil's brew."

I then booked another tour in Holland,

thinking,
rather than let him get lazy

and wait another
couple of months,

let's get straight back
out on the road.

We went out to Holland.
By then it was...

His health failed on the tour.

He had actually picked up a flu

because his
immune system was...

We had to cancel the tour
in the middle of it.

I got back to London.

He'd isolated himself
into an apartment

down on Chelsea Harbour.

He wouldn't let me
into his apartment.

I managed to get in to Rory,
who was by then saffron.

And I said,
"Rory, what are you doing?

"Do you want to die?"
He said no.

I said,
"This is like committing suicide."

I said, "You've got to go into hospital."

He said, "Well, maybe next week
or the week after."

I said,
"Frankly, I think you've got 24 hours."

I got onto the Cromwell Hospital,
they had a bed waiting for him.

And, sadly,
when it came to waiting for a donor,

when he was to have
his transplant,

then the issue
of how rare his blood was,

and getting a match
was going to be extremely difficult.

Then I went in, and they said,

"Look, he's picked up a bug.

"We can't send him to another
hospital while he's got this bug,

"and we're treating him
with antibiotics."

Then it got more serious,

and they were re-culturing
the antibiotics,

and the bug was getting
more virulent.

They did everything
to comfort him.

They tried absolutely every
medical experiment they could,

and the staff were fantastic
to do that.

But, sadly,
on the 1 4th of June, '95,

he slipped away.

All I could do was look at his hands

and look at his guitar and say,
"You poor orphan.

"Who's going to ever play you
like he did?"

Do you know that thing
about black blues musicians

who have as much credibility
as they ever had

when they're 60 and 70 and more?

Do you think,
with the way you've done things,

it's helped with the fact
that in 20 years,

Rory Gallagher will still
be doing the same thing,

and there'll be complete
credibility because of that?

For my own hobby,

when I'm 60-odd,
or whatever it is,

I'll be playing blues at home
and still be enjoying it,

just like a traditional
musician would,

which is a different thing
from playing with a band

and doing gigs and all that.

It's just an interest for me,
like flamenco music or something.

But I think the blues,

what makes it more important
than some music

is that it gets right into your veins

as a lifestyle and as a mind,

as a little beacon in your life,
you know?

God Almighty, that's very profound.

He's left an incredible legacy,

from a human point of view

aside from his musical
point of view,

something that anyone
could be proud of, really.

Anyone who knew him...

doesn't have a bad word
to say about him.

And everyone's human.
You think, well, come on.

I remember he was playing
at the Roxy.

And I was probably...

22 or 23 years old,
something like that.

And Guns N' Roses
had just become a big band.

And I think I was just starting
to be recognised

as more of a guitar player

than just a fuzzy guy
with a top hat on.

Which is how it all started.

But I'm really into guitar

and the people who play them.

So, I was the
one-in-a-million guy in LA

that thought that
Rory Gallagher was bad-ass.

So, I remember going down there.

And I was surprised that
he even knew who I was.

So, they came down
and asked me if I wanted to jam.

I hadn't met him yet,
so I was a little nervous.

Definitely intimidated.

But, just like with everything else,
I'll go for it.

So, we got up there
and had a great jam.

And it was cool,
and we just were winging it.

And after it was over, we had
a couple of drinks and we talked,

and he was the most cheerful,
unimposing kind of guy.

And we just went back
to the Hyatt and hung out

and drank all night
and played acoustic guitars,

and didn't talk about
anything in particular

or let anything sort of ruin the mood.

And we just went all night

in that sort of aloof,
cheerful kind of thing.

Then, finally,
I probably had to leave.

My experiences with him

are the same as, I guess,
everybody's experiences.

They've got to be.
He's just a very humble...

sweet, low-key guy.

But you didn't really want
to trip on him too much

because you didn't want
to intrude.

He seemed like
a very private person.

The best time I met him
was when I waited outside...

the Apollo Theatre in Manchester
in the pouring rain,

seeing him this Friday night.

I queued up with a bunch of
other lads in checked shirts.

He just stayed behind

and said hello to every single
person who was there.

And I'd seen him
a few times before then,

but that was the first time
I got to meet him.

And he gave me a pick...

and just exchanged a few words.

I said how much
I loved the show.

He was very gracious
and really sweet.

In waiting to get to see him,

I missed the last bus home
and the last train home,

so I had to walk for miles
in the rain to get home.

But it was worth it.
I didn't even notice it was raining, really.

The one I remember is playing
the Paradiso in Holland

when he was ill.

It wasn't long before he died.

And I can remember
there was an entourage with him.

He had a lot of people around
worried about his health.

And I've mentioned it
to you before.

There was a busker
at the other side of the road,

and there was traffic going.

He purposely stopped
the entourage and the traffic,

went over, put the busker...

He was always a man
for the underdog.

He put money in the guy's case.

Wasn't he always a man
for the underdog?

I remember that very well,
that particular incident.

And I thought,
"That's just him all over."

He was always...
He was a wonderful human being.

If you really
look closely enough...

behind the riffs
and the good-time boogie,

there's an artist there.

That probably had a lot to do
with his character, obviously.

And...

I think he was a purist
in more ways than one.

He really was an artist.
But that's what I'm saying.

Just because he's playing
a riff in open-A

and has got long hair
and everyone's boogieing

doesn't make him any less an artist.

Where he was coming from,
and at that time,

and for people who were looking for it,

he was the shit.

No one could come anywhere near him
because he had it down.

It would be nice if that's what
continues on down the road.

No bollocks.
That's what he passed on.

You don't have to bend.

You don't have to do
what people tell you.

You absolutely don't have to.

You do what you want to do.
Stay true to it.

That's the essence.
Be a musician.

While Rory may not have had
a string of number-one albums,

didn't have hit singles,
didn't want hit singles,

it's quite amazing,
for the guy that he is,

where you probably have
more streets called after him.

You have Rory Gallagher Place
in Cork City,

Rory Gallagher
in Ris-Orangis outside Paris.

Then, of course, you have
Temple Bar in Dublin.

It was named
Rory Gallagher Corner.

I wasn't really supposed
to say anything,

but I couldn't let
this opportunity go by.

So I'll keep it brief.

I just wanted to say

that Rory was an incredible
influence on me as a guitar player,

particularly early on.

And then I got to know him a little bit,

and I would like to call him,

I did call him my friend,
which was an amazing thing.

And I think Rory's legacy

will obviously live on in his music.

But I think, even more than that,

in the hundreds of rock 'n' roll bands,

including my own band

that started as a result of his example

and what he achieved,

with Taste and then as a solo artist.

So, he laid the road

that the rest of us have
managed to find a way over,

and we owe him a great debt.

So, it's absolutely an honour
and a privilege

to be able to unveil
this great monument

and tribute to Rory,
the man and his work.

So, if I may...