...and on guitar - The Book (2023)

Now that I've posted what could turn out to be the final entry in the '...and on guitar' series, here's something that I've been thinking about doing this for quite a while. When the number of posts in the series reached over 75 then I thought that now was the time to put them all together in one place, almost like a book. So what you have here are all the write-ups for the '...and on guitar' series, presented in alphabetical order, so that they can be dipped into as you are listening to the albums, or just read as a history of the lives of all these great guitarists. 

Soulseek hint      book aiwe

Rory Gallagher - ...and on guitar (1978)

William Rory Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal in 1948, and bought his first guitar at age 12, performing in his adolescence with both his acoustic and an electric guitar. However, it was a 1961 Fender Stratocaster, which he purchased three years later for £100, that became his primary instrument and was most associated with him during his career. He was initially attracted to skiffle after hearing Lonnie Donegan on the radio, and while still in school he played songs by Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran, before discovering his greatest influence in Muddy Waters. In 1963, he joined a showband named Fontana, a sextet playing the popular hit songs of the day, and toured Ireland and the UK with them, earning money for the payments that were due on his Stratocaster. Gallagher began to influence the band's repertoire, and by 1965 he had eventually moulded them into an R&B group, with a new name of The Impact. After leaving The Impact in 1966 Gallagher formed a blues-rock trio called The Taste, later shortened to Taste, which lasted until they broke up in 1970. Gallagher then embarked on a long and extremely successful solo career, releasing many well-received albums, and touring extensively. During this period he was invited to play with many of his childhood heroes, contributing guitar to albums by Lonnie Donnegan, Muddy Waters and Jerry Lee Lewis. He also played on fellow Irishman Joe O'Donnell's 1977 concept jazz-fusion album 'Gaodhal's Vision', and Mike Batt's 'Tarot Suite', another concept album from 1978. His first guest appearance was on Mike Vernon's debut blues album from 1971, where Vernon managed to get both Gallagher and Paul Kossoff to provide guitar solos for his record. Also in 1971 he guested on a couple of recordings by Chris Barber, which were later compiled onto a retrospective of the renowned jazz/bluesman, but it was the recordings with Waters and Donnegan (on his last album) of which Gallagher was reportedly most proud.   

Track listing

01 Come Back Baby (from 'Bring It Back Home' by Mike Vernon 1971)
02 Drat The Frattle Rat (from 'The Outstanding Album' by Chris Barber 1971)
03 Sleepy Lovie (from 'The Outstanding Album' by Chris Barber 1971)
04 Music To The Man (from 'The Session' by Jerry Lee Lewis 1973)
05 Juke Box (from 'The Session' by Jerry Lee Lewis 1973)
06 Hard Days (from 'London Revisited' by Muddy Waters & Howlin' Wolf 1974)
07 Poets And Storytellers (from 'Gaodhal's Vision' by Joe O'Donnell  1977)
08 Rock Island Line (from 'Putting On The Style' by Lonnie Donnegan  1978)
09 Drop Down Baby (from 'Putting On The Style' by Lonnie Donnegan  1978)
10 Tarota (from 'Tarot Suite' by Mike Batt 1978)

Taste - First Taste (1967)

The Taste was formed in Cork, Ireland, in August 1966 as a trio consisting of Rory Gallagher on guitars and vocals, Eric Kitteringham on bass, and Norman Damery on drums. In their early years they toured in Hamburg and Ireland before becoming regulars at The Maritime Hotel, an R&B club in Belfast. In 1968 Taste began performing in the UK where the original lineup split up, and with a new rhythm section of Richard McCracken on bass and John Wilson on drums joining Gallagher, they moved permanently to London where they signed with Polydor Records. In November 1968, the band opened for Cream at that band's farewell concerts, and later toured the US with Blind Faith. They released two studio albums, the eponymous 'Taste' in 1969 and 'On The Boards' in 1970, before splitting up and allowing Gallagher to go on to enormous solo success. Two posthumous live albums were released by Polydor, which showed what a first-rate live act they were, and in recent years tapes have surfaced of early studio recordings which they made before signing to the label. These are generally credited to the Gallagher/McCracken/Wilson line-up of the band, but they were actually recorded with Kitteringham and Damery, and so I've updated the artwork to reflect this (I'm not 100% sure who's in the picture so I've left that as it was), as well as adding in a rare live recording from this version of the band to fill out the album. Apart from two songs, none of this material made in onto their official studio records, but it's all good stuff, so is well worth hearing as a pointer to the great band that they were to become.

Track listing

01 Wee Wee Baby  
02 Take It Easy Baby 
03 How Many More Years
04 Pardon Me Mister
05 Blister On The Moon
06 You've Got To Pay  
07 Summertime
08 Born On The Wrong Side Of Time
09 Norman Invasion
10 I Got My Brand On You
11 Worried Man 

Rory Gallagher - A Taste Of Rory (1987)

Rory Gallagher was beloved by both fans and fellow musicians, not only as a gifted guitarist and songwriter, but also as a genuinely nice guy, and I'm sure we were all shocked and saddened at the news of his death in 1995, at the age of just 47. He'd been a prolific recording artist since disbanding his first group Taste just before their storming set at the Isle Of Wight festival, and had released eleven studio and three live albums before his death. These have been remastered and reissued over the years, and in most cases have had unreleased tracks added to them, so this album is a collection of those previously unheard songs. All of them are as good as anything that was officially released, and just listening to 'Persuasion' from the 'Deuce' album sessions in 1971 makes you wonder how on earth that could have been left off the album.  

Track listing

01 Persuasion

02 Gypsy Woman

03 It Takes Time

04 Stompin' Ground

05 Treat Her Right

06 Tuscon, Arizona

07 Just A Little Bit

08 Cluney Blues

09 My Baby, Sure

10 Rue The Day

11 Early Warning

12 Juke Box Annie

13 Hell Cat

14 The Watcher

15 Nothin' But The Devil

16 Lonely Mile

17 Seems To Me

18 No Peace For The Wicked