“F
or me, it’s just the talking between takes.
Those are special little moments, as his
nephew and also loving his music...
hearing him... it’s a weird thing.” Daniel
Gallagher has spent much of his adult life working
with Rory Gallagher’s huge archive of gear and
recordings. When we ask him to pick out a highlight
of the meticulous process of creating the brand-new
collection of rare and unheard material entitled Blues,
it’s clear that it was a personal journey as much as a
musical one. “I don’t think anyone but the hardcore
would want them on the album,” he chuckles, “but
you get all these jokes, false starts... the drummer
drops a stick and it starts a big argument... they’re
really special.”
We’re sat in the rather lovely surroundings of
New Kings Road Vintage Guitar Emporium – the
legendary London guitar shop a stone’s throw from
the house where Rory lived before his tragic death
in 1995 and where Daniel grew up. Understandably,
the location alone brings back plenty of memories
of his uncle.
“Obviously, we weren’t out boozing together!”
Daniel jokes. “But he’d come over a lot for Sunday
lunch, because he lived up the road from us.I remember 1987 was the first time I saw him play
live, at the Hammersmith Odeon. My dad took me
and my older brother. He didn’t tell us where we
were going and next thing we knew, we were at the
side of the stage, and my uncle saw us and just started
duck-walking across to us!
“It was crazy, because even though he would tell
me he was a musician... I thought he said he was a
magician – because he’d always do magic tricks for
me! So I’d never really thought too much about it as
a five-year-old! But I was just totally blown away by
what he was doing... and then to look out and see
this audience going crazy. I didn’t realise he and my
dad were that cool!”CALLING CARD
The process of putting together the full three-disc
deluxe package has been a long one, facilitated by a
deal signed with Universal Records and Chess that
finally enabled Daniel to do something with the huge
archive of recordings that Rory left behind when he
passed away.
“They moved all of the tape archive over to New
York to their storage and digitising team – there were
over a thousand different masters and multi-tracks,”ABOVE Rory playing his 1966
Telecaster on Gambling Blues
at the Isle Of Wight Festival
in August 1970
OPPOSITE The 1966
Telecaster was temporarily
ŸĈƼōĭžĩĈāĭōUŸĭžĩġŸĈĈō
after being run over by
an airport luggage cart
©
(^) Jo
hn
(^) M
ini
ha
n (^) c
/o
(^) Th
e (^) R
ory
(^) Ga
lla
gh
er
Est
ate
RORY GALLAGHER
36