The Best Guitarist You’ve Never Heard Of…
Rory Gallagher, courtesy of Heinrich Klaffs, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
I have been obscurely aware of Rory Gallagher for decades. I had heard that he was recruited to join the Rolling Stones after Mick Taylor left, and other things, such as praise of his singing voice. I also knew that he had been dead for decades and largely forgotten by the mainstream music industry.
Then in late July 2024, I saw an article about an upcoming auction to sell Rory’s battered 1961 sunburst Fender Stratocaster for something close to one million dollars. It was then that I finally took the time to really listen to some of his music and learn a little more about him.
Starting by listening only to his music - and avoiding the commentary about him that is readily available from many prominent music authorities — I found that Rory Gallagher’s music is amazing. Any fan of blues rock music would immediately appreciate its high quality. I really liked was melodic quality to his soloing, a little bit like the musician he almost replaced in the Stones - Mick Taylor — but a little harder-edged.
Listen to “Bad Penny” and tell me there is a better melodic blues player. Listen to Rory’s slide playing on “Bullfrog Blues” and tell me the guy isn’t a master and backed by an expert group of supporting musicians. Listen to the live performance of Shadow Play from the 1979 Montreux Festival (listen to the whole thing) and you have to be amazed by the energy and commitment from the whole band — each one worked so hard to give the audience what they came for. These guys toured together ALOT, and delivering an extremely tight live performance was second nature.
I thought some of Rory music really sounded like it was ahead of his time. I immediately loved “Signals” from 1982, which I thought sounds like “punk rock done by a proper musician.” That song used heavy power cords and palm-muted arpeggios that sounded a bit like the heavy metal and punk that was just coming out at that time, but Rory did it with clean tones and never hid behind heavy distortion. Another song that immediately caught me was “Tatto’d Lady” from 1973. The keyboard-heavy rhythm flow that is the song’s foundation (especially in the live versions) is fantastic.
After listening to a bunch of Rory’s music, I began listening to what other prominent music figures of his generation had to say about him. All I could find was effusive praise of Rory Gallagher as a musician, but more importantly as a person. Nobody has anything bad to say about him, and all dwelt on what a kindhearted and humble guy he was, in addition to being a huge influence on many and a remarkable talent.
Although it is such a huge pity that Rory Gallagher has passed on, he left behind such a large volume of phenomenal music. Sometimes I have heard of renaissance painters or sculptors who were recognized but not properly appreciated for the true value until even generations after they were gone. I feel like Rory Gallagher is one of these artists - sort of “forgotten about” — for now — but waiting to be re-discovered and appreciated and enjoyed for his true worth.
In this world of music generated by “Artificial Intelligence” and pitch-corrected by “auto-tune,” it is nice to know that people who appreciate real human music can discover somebody “new” like Rory Gallagher, an amazing musician, songwriter and singer; the kind of talent that comes along only a few times in any generation.
