Just the smile (Rory Gallagher) (LP 2577 - 2589)

Rory Gallagher  Cleveland Calling (Vinyl, Chess Records, 2020) ****

Rory Gallagher  Cleveland Calling Pt 2 (Vinyl, Chess Records, 2021) ***  

Rory Gallagher  Irish Tour '74 (40th Anniversary Edition) (Vinyl, Chess Records, 2014) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Live in San Diego '74 (Vinyl, Chess Records, 2022) *****  

Rory Gallagher  Check Shirt Wizard - Live in '77 (Vinyl, UMC Records, 2020) *****  

Rory Gallagher  Photo Finish (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1978) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Top Priority (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1979) *****  

Rory Gallagher  Stage Struck (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1980) *****  

Rory Gallagher  Jinx (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1982) ***  

Rory Gallagher  Fresh Evidence (Vinyl, Capo Records, 1990) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Blues (CD, Chess Records, 2019) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Wheels Within Wheels (CD, UMC Records, 2018) ****  

Rory Gallagher  Kickback City (CD, Sony Music, 2013) ***  

Genre: Rock 

Places I remember: Real Groovy; JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Cradle Rock (Irish Tour '74); Shadow Play (Stage Struck)

Gear costume: Too Much Alcohol (Irish Tour '74)

Active compensatory factors: This post is a catch up of some Rory Gallagher albums that I've not yet written about on this blog.  

First a restating of my basic rule of thumb for Rory - Live Rory trumps Studio Rory. I base this on three things. 

1) Irish Tour '74 is the best live album of all time.

2) His Auckland Town Hall concert in 1980 was the best gig I've ever attended.

3) Shadow Play as done live at Montreux (it never ends) is the most exciting live video of all time 

Cleveland Calling is a great addition to the Rory Live legacy. Like Live! In Europe it's also from 1972. Rory is performing an acoustic set for a Cleveland radio station (Carolyn Thomas is the sympathetic interviewer).

The sound hits the spot and Rory is up close and personal. I grinned from the start of Pistol Slapper Blues to last song Blow Wind Blow. 

Gypsy Woman (a Muddy Waters song) is inspired, and so is Rory's harmonica playing. He's a one-man band - guitar, vocals, and harmonica!

Cleveland Calling Pt 2 is the electric half and has a similar set list to Live! In Europe. 

Our story resumes with Irish Tour '74 (40th Anniversary Edition). I have waxed lyrical about this album a few times before in this blog (here and here).

The 40th Anniversary edition is an expanded triple album and comes without the after-hours jam session.

Let me say right now - I prefer the original double album. That one kicks off with Cradle Rock and never let's up. This one has Cradle Rock after Messin' With The Kid, which just feels slightly wrong.

Rory obviously didn't want to include songs that had appeared before - hence removing Messin' With The Kid, In Your Town, Laundromat, Hands Off, Going To Your Hometown and reducing the acoustic set in the middle to just As The Crow Flies on the original. All good decisions!

Nothing wrong with including all of these additions on the 40th edition, it's just that I'm used to this album sounding a certain way, with a certain flow. So I'll stick with the three sides live + jamming double album version. Less is more.

Rory was hot in '74, as Live in San Diego shows. A double album, it covers the same basic set as Irish Tour '74 but he stretches out on Cradle Rock and In Your Town to great effect.

In '77 Rory still had the '74 band and they were absolutely smokin' as Check Shirt Wizard shows. Some new songs had emerged from his studio albums between those years so some Rory classics like Moonchild, Calling Card, Souped-Up Ford, Country Mile mix it with some of the stars of Irish Tour '74.

It probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway - Rory's on form on guitar and that means he's hard to beat (just Hendrix ahead of him in my book).

Back to the studio albums and Photo Finish emerged after the aborted San Francisco sessions of 1977 (which has already appeared on Goo Goo  here). 

  

There are some great moments on the album - notably Shin Kicker, The Last Of The Independents, Brute Force and Ignorance, and best of all - Shadow Play. Overall though it's a mixed bag with some other songs that don't live up to Rory's high standards.

Better was to come in the following year - a real peak with Top Priority. His hair was still the same length, but the punk sensibility from 1976 and 1977 really pervades this album's short sharp songs. 

Ted McKenna had taken over the drum stool for Photo Finish, but he came into his own with his muscular approach on Top Priority and 1980's live Stage Struck. Gerry McAvoy, is, of course still brilliant on bass.

Stage Struck is a faithful record of Rory live in 1980. Listening to it always takes me back to that Auckland Town Hall gig - a seminal moment in my musical life. Thank you Rory.

Take another look at Shadow Play (a highlight of Stage Struck) from Montreux. He came alive on stage!

Next studio album, Jinx, came 3 years after Top Priority. A huge gap in Rory's world. And it would be followed 5 years later by Defender (which I covered here).

Jinx is the first album with new drummer - Brendon O'Neill. The sound is back to Photo Finish era with the punkish years behind him. Which is to say, a bit inconsistent and not as inspired.

This leaves the final studio album and some posthumous releases on CD to end this post.

Fresh Evidence came three years after Defender and Rory doesn't look in rude health on the cover - he was to die 5 years later, sadly, at the age of 47. That said, Fresh Evidence is a very good album. He lavished extra time on its recording - maybe sensing this would be his last studio album. There are also other hints with heaven, mortality and health being sub themes in the songs.

The sound is augmented by some horns, accordion and piano (by Lou Martin). Standout tracks: Kid Gloves; The Loop; Heaven's Gate.

Bottom line: Rory sounds like Rory and plays like Rory. That's high praise!

The three compilations listed above are memorable and worthy of inclusion here (I haven't added the more straightforward The Essential Rory Gallagher, a 2CD compilation from Capo Records which emerged in 2008). 

Blues, Wheels Within Wheels, and Kickback City collect various odds and ends from his career. They are compiled with various themes in mind - Blues is obvious, Wheels is more folk influenced songs and Kickback City is noir/crime centred.

Blues collects some lost radio sessions from 1971 to 1994.

Wheels Within Wheels compiles some lost recordings and outtake with a folkier acoustic style.

Kickback City is a good idea - hardboiled crime fiction was what Rory loved to read and it often cropped up in his lyrics, so this one collects a CD of those items, plus a live CD and a CD of Ian Rankin's novella The Lie Factory.

Where do they all belong? So, that's it for Rory Gallagher - he devoted his life purely to music. He never married, and fathered no children, but he created joy for thousands of music lovers. For that we should take our hat off to him and keep his memory alive.

Blueprint is an obvious gap (doh!) and I'm sure there will be more live albums to come. I'd particularly love to see material from the 1979 to 82 period.