Allegedly, when someone asked Jimi Hendrix how it felt to be the best guitar player in the world, he replied..."I don't know -- ask Rory Gallagher."
The name of the great RG has cropped up a couple of times recently. In one of Sweder's posts a couple of days ago, and then again on Radio 4's Front Row this evening, which had an affectionate piece on him. Worth listening to.
He was someone I'd all but forgotten about, though he'd been a big name in my teens and twenties. He never became a household name but was always well known in the guitar-playing community and among metal heads generally. Gallagher was always regarded as one of those "must see" gigs, but sadly I never made it before he died in 1995.
Great accoustic player too:
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
I came to RG late in life, sadly too late to see him perform live. His old rythmn section occasionally back Never the Bride (though not at my recent 50th bash). Planet Rock play his stuff (usually live recordings), which is where I heard the wonderful 'As The Crow Flies'.
Like Stevie Ray Vaughan he was gone too soon.
The Hendrix story may be apocryphal. He is reporteded to have said something similar about ZZ Top axe man Billy Gibbons on the Tonight Show. There again, Jimi was all over the shop a lot of the time.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
(17-02-2012, 09:14 PM)Sweder Wrote: The Hendrix story may be apocryphal. He is reporteded to have said something similar about ZZ Top axe man Billy Gibbons on the Tonight Show. There again, Jimi was all over the shop a lot of the time.
And in fairness, as good an axe-man as Gallagher was, he didn't have the innovative qualities that made Hendrix most people's number one.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Don't know why this made me think of Roy Harper ....another forgotten man of the folk-rock scene?
One of the few who could invent a decent lyric or two.
Hats off to him anyway...
