Latest news with #RoryGallagher
Irish Examiner
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Review: Joe Bonamassa puts Rory Gallagher back centre stage at Live at the Marquee
Awesome and yet eerie at the same time, Joe Bonamassa's adoring homage to Rory Gallagher's epic Irish Tour '74 double live album is a spine-chilling experience that takes music to a higher spiritual plane. Everyone who was in Cork's legendary Marquee for night one on Tuesday had the same thought: How can I get tickets to nights two and three? This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Take us with you this summer. Annual €130€65 Best value Monthly €12€6 / month
Irish Times
11 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
GAA manager Rory Gallagher seeks damages from Jarlath Burns and the association over alleged defamation
GAA coach and former Derry football manager Rory Gallagher is seeking damages for alleged defamation and wants injunctions against the organisation and its president, Jarlath Burns. A plenary summons filed in the High Court contains a series of claims linked to a controversy earlier this year about his taking on a new role with the Naas senior football team. After it emerged in January that he was being considered for the role, Mr Burns emailed the Kildare club outlining his concerns and the Naas GAA executive opted not to go ahead with the proposed appointment. Mr Gallagher, a former Fermanagh and Cavan footballer, stepped down as Derry manager in May 2023 after his ex-wife, Nicola, made allegations of domestic abuse. A PSNI investigation brought no charges. READ MORE An Ulster Council 'temporary debarment' pending review was overturned by the GAA's independent Dispute Resolution Authority in February 2024. 'I categorically deny the allegations levelled against me. I have engaged with every procedure available to me,' Mr Gallagher said in a statement in January. 'The [Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland] have issued two separate decisions finding that I have no case to answer. 'I have the full custody of my three children, and most importantly I engaged with the GAA's own procedures which set aside my disbarment.' Mr Burns, in his correspondence with Naas, acknowledged he had no authority to dictate club decisions and offered his opinion that the appointment of Mr Gallagher could have far-reaching consequences. Now Mr Gallagher is seeking damages against GAA director Tomás Ó Riain, as the nominated representative of the GAA, and Mr Burns in his personal capacity and in his role as president of the association. He is seeking damages for alleged defamation arising from an email sent on January 5th and an injunction preventing the defendants from publishing any 'similar malicious falsehoods'. Mr Gallagher wants a declaration that the defendants acted in breach of contract and due process when they, in effect, disciplined him on January 5th, thereby failing to be bound by a determination of the Dispute Resolution Authority in February 2024, and associated damages. He is further seeking a declaration, and damages, that the defendants wrongfully induced or procured Naas to breach its lawful contractual obligations arising from a contract 'made orally' between him and the Kildare club on or about late December 2024. Mr Gallagher also wants an order restraining the defendants from inducing or procuring breaches of any contracts that may exist between him and other GAA clubs. In his case, where he is being represented by Phoenix Law solicitors, Belfast, Mr Gallagher is also seeking several other declarations and orders by the court. A spokesman for the GAA said it had no comment. On RTE's the Late Late Show in January, Mr Burns expressed the hope that Mr Gallagher would not take legal action. 'There is always a way back for people,' he said. 'The GAA is not interested in cancel culture. There is always a way back for people and we have told Rory that as well. Rory is aware of the way back for him. I wish him and all of his family well and I hope we can reach a resolution on this.'
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Ireland In 50 Albums, No 8: Tattoo, by Rory Gallagher
Rory Gallagher was in a sweet spot in his career in 1973, the year he recorded his album Tattoo. It seemed everything was building towards it, the good and the bad. His band Taste had disbanded at the start of the decade, which freed him to set up the Rory Gallagher Band. He was recording with his heroes, one year with Muddy Waters (1972), the next with Jerry Lee Lewis (1973). Melody Maker magazine voted him Guitarist of the Year in 1972, ahead of peers like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jerry Garcia. 'Rory was embarrassed by the Melody Maker poll,' says Dónal Gallagher, his brother and manager at the time. 'The magazine was a bible for music fans. He didn't expect it. It was quite something. He had come out of Taste, which had imploded. It wasn't going to destroy his career, but he received a lot of bad press, which he refused to comment on – the other musicians blaming him.' Rory Gallagher working with Jerry Lee Lewis in 1973. His bad experiences at the end of Taste had taken a toll on Rory. 'Mentally, they almost destroyed Rory, but he decided to get up and go, and get back out there playing, to forget about the past and move on,' says Dónal. Gallagher got back on the horse with a vengeance. He had extraordinary stamina. In 1973, he played 160 gigs, including tours in the United States in the spring and autumn as well as hitting venues across Europe. His final gig of the year was on New Year's Eve at Dublin's Carlton Cinema. He also released Blueprint early in 1973, his third solo studio album, while finding time later that summer to bang out Tattoo. 'It was hard to catch your breath back then, the pace he was going at,' says Dónal Gallagher. 'It was a prolific time for him writing, done mostly in Cork. We'd stay at the family house on the Douglas Road. He was in his element. He was working on adrenaline. There was one or two nights, Rory and the band would come back from a gig at one or two o'clock in the morning and set up to record for a couple of hours, or Rory would go in and mix through the night. 'He didn't sleep. At that age, turning 25, you have the energy. Rory was a dynamo. He burnt himself out in the end, but he lived three or four lifetimes.' Tattoo, by Rory Gallagher. In July 1973, Gallagher carved out a couple of weeks to put some shape on what became Tattoo. His band was tightly knit at this point. Belfast bass guitarist Gerry McAvoy had joined him in 1971, and went on to spend 20 years riding shotgun. Classically-trained Lou Martin was on keyboards. Drummer Wilgar Campbell, who had a fear of flying, had left by mutual consent and was replaced by Welsh man Rod de'Ath. They were based in London, but it made sense to convene in Cork to rehearse the new album. 'We set up a recording studio at the Shandon Boat Club,' recalls Dónal. 'It was comfortable for Rory because he was at home. The guys loved staying at the Metropole Hotel. They always had great craic around the city. It was a very 'up' period. I'd describe it as his Cork album. It's a strong album from the Rory canon point of view because you've 'Tattoo'd Lady', one of the classics opening it.' 'Tattoo'd Lady' describes the life he was leading at the time: living under a canvas roof, roaming from town to town, like the circus or fairground way of life, and it captures his childhood memories. As a kid, Gallagher loved going to the Mardyke in Cork city to visit the fairground. It always caught them off guard when suddenly it would have disappeared, gone for another year. No trace left behind. The curiosities of the fairground are carved into the song, the shooting gallery, the penny slot machines, the bearded baby, the 'Tattoo'd Lady' herself. 'A track like 'Sleep on a Clothes Line' is also about the band's lifestyle on the road, living like a trucker,' says Dónal. 'For a month or more they never stopped. They kept driving through the night – that was the feeling. I remember my grandmother's bar on Cork's MacCurtain Street. A lot of customers who came in were dockers. They were so exhausted at the end of the day an expression they'd use was, 'God, I could sleep on a clothes line.' ''A Million Miles Away' is a far more sombre song. Rory used to stay in his bedroom for days on end. You'd almost have to bring meals up to him. He'd only come down occasionally. I told him, 'You need to get out of the house, get some sea air.' 'As kids, our grandmother used to take us down to Ballycotton. I remember driving a few us down for the day, my mother and himself. He disappeared out the cliffs. I started to worry because we couldn't locate him. I was heading back to call the coast guard when I saw him waving to me from the far cliff. 'I told him, 'You took the heart out of us. We thought you'd fallen off the cliffs.' He said, 'I just got inspiration for a new song. If I didn't sit down and write it there and then, I was going to lose it.' That I believe to be 'A Million Miles Away', looking out at the ocean, a million miles away, but at the same time he's in the bar with the band after a gig when his thoughts might be a million miles away. While it sounds a very sad song it's about getting peace of mind.' In early August 1973, Gallagher and his band travelled to London to record the album in Polydor Studios. The fourth track on the album, 'They Don't Make Them Like You Anymore', brought out the jazz influences that permeated Gallagher; jazz was also a guiding light for de'Ath, the band's drummer. The German Carlos Olms was the house engineer working on the album. 'It was very much the experiment of Carlos to have the studio in the basement of the Polydor office block building,' says Dónal. 'In this huge empty basement, he rigged up an echo chamber. It was the early days of echo. You could get a lot of hollowness, which you hear very much on A Million Miles Away.' Tattoo was released in November 1973. It received a favourable review from Rolling Stone magazine, believing it to be Gallagher's 'brightest and most joyful work, but still contains that streak of meanness which makes his live sets so powerful'. Donal Gallagher, brother and manager of the late Rory Gallagher. Picture: Ger Bonus What happened next Rory Gallagher sold more than 30 million records. In 1975, he jammed with the Rolling Stones as the band auditioned for a guitarist to replace Mick Jones, but Gallagher was happier to continue with his solo career. Through the worst years of the Troubles, he steadfastly gigged every year in Northern Ireland while his contemporaries bypassed the region. In 1990, he released Fresh Evidence, his final studio album. His health was failing, as alcohol, prescription drugs and 30 years on the road – often gigging 300 times a year – had taken its toll. He died June 14, 1995, aged 47. Read More Rory Gallagher and the town he loved so well
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
B-Side the Leeside: Rory Gallagher and the eventful Irish Tour of 1974
Joe Dermody casts a view back on Rory Gallagher's outrageously brilliant 'Irish Tour '74' double album recorded in Belfast, Dublin and Cork. With the death toll from The Troubles soaring in the 1970s, the notion of a star-bound guitarist from Cork bringing the blues to the youth of Belfast was at best unlikely, borderline reckless. Rory Gallagher's outrageously brilliant 'Irish Tour '74' double album was recorded in Belfast, Dublin and Cork in the weeks just after Christmas 1973 and into January 1974. It was the only window really when the then 25-year-old blues guitarist could probably rely upon there being a break from the killings. More than 250 people had been killed in 1973 alone. Donal Gallagher, Rory's brother, still clearly recalls the buzz among music circles and his own trepidation walking along in the light rain, with his thumb out on Lower Road, Cork, starting out on his long hitching journey from Cork to Belfast. It was also a personal fork in the road, and felt like the moment that his own definite career path was chosen. Music it was. 'We were staying in the Europa hotel in Belfast,' recalls Donal, stage manager and general tour manager. 'But those days you were never sure the hotel would still be there when you'd get back after the show.' The hotel, which has changed names several times over the decades, is widely known as 'the most bombed hotel in Europe'. Having opened in 1971, the hotel endured 33 bomb attacks during The Troubles. Defying Logistical Obstacles Logistics were a big challenge for Donal. As well as concerns for the safety of the fans, the vehicles carrying the film and sound equipment were subjected to extra security checks, nobody would take the risk of insuring the mobile studio for a trip into a war zone. So many logistical challenges, along with the political upheaval at the time, it's remarkable that the album ever came to be recorded at all. Promoter Jim Aiken advised Rory to play his northern show just south of the border, and bring his fans down by bus. Donal recalls Rory refusing point blank. He was a rock fan himself. In those days, most people didn't really have money. The internet didn't exist, of course. Most people just didn't buy tickets in advance in those days; instead, they scraped the money together at the last minute and turned up at the door, pockets full of coins, haggling for tickets, pushing to get in. Add the cost and complication of a bus trip south, Rory didn't want that for his fans. Rory Gallagher performing in 1974. (Picture: Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns) A southern guitar icon taking his tour north of the border, Rory's Belfast show more than raised eyebrows. Everyone understood the dangers. News of the show reached England. The Ulster Hall show was filmed by Tony Palmer, founder BBC Four's Kaleidoscope radio programme. Palmer also nearly fell foul of the security forces when filming scenes in downtown Belfast. The Irish Tour '74 album also contains great tracks from the Dublin and Cork shows. In fact, the Cork shows were incredible, by all accounts. But Rory's insistence on playing Belfast just after Christmas was the one that still has a strong resonance even now. All about commitment. Music before politics. Rory really was taking a big risk. Of course, while born into a Catholic household, Rory Gallagher wasn't really political. He didn't talk about it, and people just instinctively knew he was all about the music. In fact, he had a huge fan base among Protestant communities in Belfast. 'In an Irish tour, I always try to include Belfast and the North of Ireland,' Rory says in the Tony Palmer film. 'After all, I lived there for a while and I learned a lot playing in the clubs there, so I've a sort of home feeling for the place.' Rory's Legend grows globally Rory wasn't entirely switched off from politics; he was just totally switched onto music. And the music world was already totally switched onto him at this time. By the time the 1974 Irish tour came about, Rory's name was by now a byword for virtuosity. Rory was a legend among 'true' music fans. He wrote great songs, but he eschewed fame. He only released albums, never singles. He played the blues like a swamp legend from the deep south, which in Irish terms is exactly what he was. Everyone knew that Rory walked the streets of Cork, regularly going to the cinema, always happy to stop and sign and autograph, but also moving fast, walking at speed like he was going somewhere. Which, of course, he very much was. Rory was a legend among his fellow musicians too, particularly since his band Taste had played support for Cream's 1968 farewell concert in Royal Albert Hall, and again at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, where Taste had shared the four-day bill with Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Doors, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell and others. At the Isle of Wight, Taste took the stage just before Tony Joe White, the Louisiana country blues guitarist who wrote 'Rainy Night in Georgia' and 'Polk Salad Annie' (famously performed by Elvis). Rory's 'Irish Tour '74' album was dominated by electric power blues, but it also includes a mellow and moving cover of White's country ballad 'As The Crow Flies'. While Rory died in 1995 of liver failure, aged 47, modern guitarists from Johnny Marr to Slash still credit him as an influence. Joe Bonamassa's debut album, A New Day Yesterday, contains a cover of Rory's 'Cradle Rock', one of several of Rory's self-penned songs which he captured brilliantly on 'Irish Tour '74'. Slash pays his respects 'Rory's genius on the guitar probably always overshadowed his own talent as a songwriter,' says Donal Gallagher, noting that his fellow musicians were very alert to Rory as both a writer and a musician. Slash was particularly awe-struck in Rory's presence, as Donal recalls: 'Slash was a big fan of Rory's. He came to a gig Rory played in Los Angeles in the 1990s. He came backstage before the show and Rory said 'Hi Slash, how are you doing?' 'Slash was really surprised. 'How do you know my name?' he said. Rory just said 'Well, I've got your albums, Slash, I know who you are'. Slash just wanted to say hello and probably get an autograph. Rory said 'Catch you later, if you're hanging around'. 'Towards the end of the show, Rory nodded over to me to give Slash a guitar and have him come up on stage for a jam. I went over and grabbed his arm and asked him to go up and play with Rory. Slash nearly lost his life. As cool a dude as he is, he was scared. ( Scared, but Slash did jam with Rory, as he later told the Old Grey Whistle Test). 'I met Slash again two years ago at a show in Dublin. The BBC were interviewing him about Rory's 1974 Ulster Hall show. The BBC said it would be a good idea to bring Rory's guitar along [the iconic battered 'sunburst' Fender Stratocaster he bought in the now closed Crowley's Music Shop in Cork] to Slash's Dublin show in the O2 or Three Arena or whatever it was called then. 'The BBC were expecting Slash to plug the guitar in and play it, but when he came into the room he just looked at the guitar sitting there. Realising that it was Rory's guitar, it completely spooked him. He was uncomfortable even holding it. 'They took a photograph of the two of us, and he's just holding the strap. He said to me 'This is so scary'. This is the kind of respect he had for Rory.' Joe Bonamassa, however, was less shy. Joe's then girlfriend, blues singer Sandi Thom, asked Donal to bring Rory's Strat to his shows in London's Hammersmith Odeon and Royal Albert Hall. 'Joe wanted me to come along to the shows. Of course, I realised it was really the guitar that he wanted to see, not me,' notes Donal. 'He just wanted a rub of the relic, I suppose. He was in his element.' At Bonamassa's show in the Royal Albert Hall, Donal was seated next to Nigel Kennedy. The violinist has also cited Rory as a rock icon and a good model for how a soloist should perform, always connected to the music, always ready to improvise. In Royal Albert Hall, Kennedy sat there 'gobsmacked' staring at the sunburst Strat in Donal's hands. Audience is energised When you listen to 'Irish Tour '74', you can hear how engaged and in awe the audience is. In 2014, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the album, a box set of unreleased material from the tour was compiled. The selections were curated by Daniel Gallagher, Donal's son. He had enough material to fill seven CDs from the gigs in Belfast, Cork and Dublin — complete with 43 individual tracks that have never been released before. The songs on 'Irish Tour '74' were captured on multitrack tapes using the mobile studio owned by ex-Small Faces member Ronnie Lane. For the box set, Daniel also had access to the original Nagra tapes that provided the audio for Tony Palmer's film. Daniel recalls how the crowds were different in each city: 'Dublin are the most boisterous and cocky, and Belfast has everyone screaming like they're so happy to be there. 'The tapes were still running when the band went off the stage and it's lovely hearing the crowd screaming for so long because they really didn't want it to end. In Cork, the sound is the best of the three concerts.' Donal Gallagher recalls that the two Cork City Hall shows were packed to capacity. Some privileged fans were actually piled into the area behind the band, normally reserved for the orchestra. Rory also turned and addressed them from time to time. Fairground attractions As for the songs that made it onto the album, Donal has a personal fondness for 'Tattoo'd Lady', a song Rory wrote about the travelling fairgrounds that once visited Cork. 'To me, Tattoo'd Lady is very much a song about Cork. It's all about the fairgrounds. As kids, Rory and I would go up to the Mardyke, where they used to have the travelling fairgrounds. Or we'd go to Crosshaven or down to Youghal. 'There were fairground references in the song, like you could 'push the penny if you've got any'. Of course, back then we very often didn't have a penny to push. That to me has all the echoes of that childhood in Cork. 'Then there's the mystery of how you'd go up there the next day and that whole carnival would be stripped down and gone. The song was paralleling Rory's own lifestyle where, as a travelling musician, you tend to set up your gear, then a night or two later you're gone. 'There's all the excitement of the fairground with its exotic characters coming to town. At the time, it was an unusual thing to see a Tattoo'd Lady.' Rory's cover of the Muddy Waters song 'I Wonder Who' also has a resonance for Donal. The Mississippi-born "father of modern Chicago blues" was, like Rory, both a talented musician and a fantastic songwriter. 'The song is Rory paying homage yet again to his teacher and master, if you like, Rory having done an album with him just a couple of years earlier for the London Muddy Waters Sessions ('72), when he was 71,' Donal recalls. 'Then there's 'Back On My Stompin' Ground', which was from the after-hours jam sessions in Cork. It's Rory really saying that's where it is. He wrote those songs in those couple of days about being back on his home turf, which is Cork. 'Then the album fades out with a short instrumental, a signature goodbye which he titled 'Maritime' [listed as 'Just A Little Bit' on the album credits], named after the blues club up in Belfast that Van had founded, which had by then become his residency.' It's hard to single out individual tracks on such a master work. A double album, it only has ten tracks. For many, the 11-minute 'Walk On Hot Coals' is the barnstorming standout moment. For others, it's the relative peace of 'A Million Miles Away'. What seems evident is that, confounding the many dangers and logistical obstacles that stood in the path of this epic album being made, the Gods really must have wanted Rory Gallagher to record 'Irish Tour '74'. And we mortals have the Gods to thank for that kindness. * The 25th anniversary of Rory Gallagher's death takes place on June 14
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Bluesman Joe Bonamassa buys Fender guitar in same Cork shop his hero Rory Gallagher bought his
Blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa has fulfilled a long-held ambition by buying a sunburst Fender Stratocaster guitar in the Cork music store where his hero Rory Gallagher bought his signature instrument more than 60 years ago. Bonamassa, from New York, is in Cork to play three sold-out concerts next week as part of the Live in the Marquee series. He will perform Gallagher's Irish Tour '74 set in full to mark the 30th anniversary of the Ballyshannon-born guitarist's death in 1995 at age 47. After arriving to prepare for the concerts, Bonamassa visited Crowley's Music Store on Friar Street and bought the Stratocaster from Sheena Crowley, whose father, Michael, sold Gallagher a similar guitar in 1963. 'I've always wanted to buy a sunburst Fender Stratocaster from Crowley's Music Centre in Cork,' Bonamassa said on Instagram. 'Today I did. Big thanks to Sheena and all the great folks I met today.' READ MORE Bonamassa, who has sold more than 10 million records, has been a Gallagher fan ever since his father, Len, introduced him in the 1980s to the Cork musician via the 1972 Live in Europe album. Rory Gallagher playing his signature sunburst Fender Stratocaster guitar. Photograph: Michael'We have some Rory Gallagher in the US, we didn't get a whole lot, there's a much more extensive catalogue available in Europe ... but the one that really stuck out to me and that I wore out and listened to death was Irish Tour '74, which I think is really him in essence,' Bonamassa said previously. Ms Crowley, who says she remembers Gallagher calling to talk to her late father when their shop was on Merchant's Quay and later MacCurtain Street, recalled the story behind Gallagher's signature guitar, which became one of the most famous in rock music. 'It had been ordered by Jim Conlon, who was playing with The Royal Showband,' she said. 'He had wanted a cherry red Stratocaster, but Fender sent a sunburst one, so he decided against taking it and so my father sold it as a second-hand guitar. Rory bought it and the rest is history.' She said she was delighted to have Bonamassa follow in Gallagher's footsteps. 'Joe just took it off the wall, literally, and he served himself. He came in with probably the best attitude of anyone I ever met. He was just so cool, no acting like a celebrity, just very natural. He just sat down in the corner and plugged the guitar into the amp and started jamming.' Joe Bonamassa performing in Texas. Photograph:Ms Crowley said Bonamassa soon afterwards told her 'I'll take that'. Gallagher 's signature Fender Stratocaster guitar was auctioned by Bonham's in London last year. Denis Desmond's Live Nation Gaiety Productions bought the guitar for a little over €1 million, saying it would donate it to the National Museum of Ireland.
