Info: Rory Gallagher easily surpassed the best of his contemporaries as a blues guitar player. It's incredible that a young guitarist, born in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, and claimed as the rightful son of Cork City, had such an impact on an alien genre of music to this island, yet drew to his side the likes of B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, Brian May, Bob Dylan and Slash to name but a few.
From the biography of Jean-Noël Coghe, Rory Gallagher; 'Rory began to master the guitar from the age of nine. First he learnt how to handle six strings....he would place his fingers on the neck of the guitar and run them up and down, honing his dexterity, plucking the steel wires, racing through chords, sharpening the tone.'
There is too much to learn and find out about Rory Gallagher as an artist / musician and person for me to cover it here, I can't. What I can do is share his Top 10 greatest songs, (IMO) which were mostly live. Bias aside, I've no doubt he was the greatest Irish musician of the last four decades, it's a cheap anecdote, but Hendrix described Gallagher as the greatest guitarist of all time in an interview with Parkinson. His impact on contemporaries was so strong that Bod Dylan visited Gallagher on his death bead, no words were exchanged between the two, and Dylan left a note and flowers before walking oout of the hospital room. That said, Dylan always maintained that 'I Could Have Had Religion' by Rory was 'the greatest song I never wrote'. Much as I love Dylan, I think Rory killed it better than he could have!
Here's my Top 10 Rory Gallagher tracks:
1) 'I Could Have Had Religion'
2) 'I Fall Apart'
3) 'Crest of a Wave' (Live at The Beat Club, Germany)
4) 'Going To My Hometown'
5) 'Out On The Western Plain'
6) 'Im Not Awake Yet'
7) 'Cradle Rock'
8) 'Wheels Within Wheels'
9) 'As The Crow Flies'
10) 'Hoodoo Man'