R
ory’s battered and bruised early 60s
Stratocaster has become one of the most
iconic instruments in rock ’n’ roll history. It
would be remiss under those circumstances
to not ask Rory’s nephew to tell the story of the
guitar and how it feels to strap it on...
“It’s almost like a piece of driftwood and Rory
was the ocean on it – it’s so worn to him! Obviously,
there’s the paint going and the divots where his pick
and hands were wearing into it, but for me, it’s the
back... it’s just the smoothest bit of wood, really
beautiful to touch, and that’s just from rubbing
against him.
“The blue from his jeans is actually dyed into the
wood! And the neck... it’s just the sweetest thing- it’s so perfectly worn, your hand just slides up it –
it’s quite light, and it’s so playable! When you pick
up another Strat it’s like, ‘Oh okay, this is nice and
everything...’, but this just fits into you. I’m maybe a
touch taller and bigger than he is, but for someone of
his size and height, you can see how it would just fit
absolutely perfectly. And he never took it off after he
got it in 1963.”
Rumour has it that Rory’s Strat was the first
ordered in to Ireland, but the story of how he came
across it is typically unique...
“The leader of another showband ordered it in, but
he wanted it in Fiesta Red,” Daniel explains. “So here
it is, the first Strat in Ireland... but when it turned
up it was Sunburst! He did a tour with it – there’s
actually some cool footage of the guy playing it, and
someone sent me a photo the other day of the guy
playing it in Carnegie Hall.
“So he had it for about six months, and then the
Fiesta Red turned up, so he put it into a shop called
Crowley’s in Cork, just down the road from my
great-grandmother’s pub that Rory lived above
with his mother and my dad, and he got it on
hire-purchase. He had a beat-up old Italian Rosetti
that was his first guitar and so he traded that in, got
the guitar, and was doing the showband stuff with it,
and yeah, he just saved up all his wages and paid it
off in instalments.”
Even for a guitar that was used as heavily as it was,
however, Rory’s Strat is famously, remarkably worn
and beaten up – and while received wisdom often
lays the blame at Rory’s propensity to sweat on stage,
the reality is actually more interesting...
“The start of the wear would have been around
1965 or ’66, when the guitar got stolen,” says Daniel.
“They actually did a little piece on Ireland’s version
of Crimewatch! It was very condescending, it was this
thing on RTÉ called ‘Irish Police Watch’ or something
like that [It was actually RTÉ Garda Patrol – Ed] and
it was like, ‘Oh and a young man with long hair has
had two of his guitars stolen...’ – I think it was the
Tele and the Strat – ‘If anyone sees them, they look
like this...’ and a picture went up on the screen. I
really want to find that footage from RTÉ’s archive!
“But they got dumped in a ditch about two weeks
later, because the guy couldn’t sell them – obviously!
They’d been on telly, and it was probably the only
Strat in Ireland, there probably weren’t that many
Teles, either – so they were going to be hard to shift!
“So because they were too hot, he dumped them
in this ditch, where someone found them and two
weeks later, Rory had them back. But I think it got
a bit of water damage from that, and probably a lot
of scratches from brambles and all that, plus Rory’s
constant playing of it just wore it away!”1961 FENDER
STRATOCASTER
The story of how Rory’s legendary
Strat got its uniquely worn finish...THIS SPREAD Gallagher’s
beloved 1961 Stratocaster,
photographed in front of his
extensive record collection.
Donal and Daniel Gallagher’s
archive still contains many
of Rory’s possessions,
including music memorabilia,
stickered suitcases and moreRORY GALLAGHERGUITAR MAGAZINE 41