ON THE ROAD AGAIN

This article was taken from Volume 12 Issue 25

A mighty long way down rock'n'roll? Maybe it's a cliche, but in Rory Gallagher's case, it's one that makes perfect sense. Rory has maintained an often manic touring schedule through the years and while the punishing path he's taken has yielded an amusing anecdote or three, it's also the same route that has reaped ultimately heart-rending trials and sometimes tragedies – for others.
But then, Rory Gallagher has always steered a sane course. "Behind it all one is a human being, after all," he says, adding in characteristically understated fashion, "however to be alive is quite a big plus sometimes given the way things go in this world."
Alive is what Rory Gallagher very much is, if his current workrate is a reliable yardstick. Even during this five-year absence from the studio - eventually broken by last year's "Defender" album - he rarely let up on the gigging front, trekking right across the globe to satisfy his worldwide following. And by the time you read this, he'll have just finished an extensive British tour which - from what I saw – should successfuily re-establish the fact that there ain't no messin' with this kid . . .
It's a steamy Friday evening in December and in spite of its very English name, the St.
Albans' Civic Hall has cast off any refined pretentions for the night, playing host to a capacity 2,000 audience, ranging from youngsters whose first contact with Rory probably came via "Defender" to that array of devoted fans who've long since traded in their denims 'n' leather for semi-detached suburbia. The atmosphere is electric, exploding into ecstatic recognition when the maestro charges on stage though he's evidently onto a winner from the start, Rory Gallagher still plays with a zest belying nearly a quarter-century on the boards, blasting into old favourites like "Shadowplay", the ragtime romp of "Pistol Stabbin' Blues", pumping up the volume
Hot Press - Page Forty-six for covers of "Mannish Boy" and Frankie Ford's "Sea Cruise", before segueing with seamless expertise into a raucous, stomping encore of "Bullfrog Blues".
Backstage, as the last stragglers head out into the night, Rory is talking about life on the endless highway. "Some gigs in the States we've done are great," he notes, "but they want the encore first. They're not prepared to wait for the subtle, quiet moments. At least you can do that in this country . . .
"But there again," he adds, "we don't have real hit records that we can fall back on every third number. We have songs that are well-known from albums, which I suppose are kind of mini-hits, that we're happy to play now and then ... songs like
"Shadowplay" and "Continental Op".
Touring now with long-time sidekick Gerry McAvoy on bass, ex-Swift drummer
Brendan O'Neill and ace harpist Mark Feltham (formerly of Nine Below Zero), - Rory is evidently enjoying himself immensely. One of those troupers who is clearly addicted to The Road in all its contradictory charms and perils, he reflects that this love of gigging stems from "some sort of X-factor."
Sounds like as if its in the blood – the very thing that makes you tick makes you suffer. "Let's put it this way, I'm not out there just to make money," he says. "I don't think I could live without playing really. I've had times off the road and it's a miserable situation. It keeps me happy, it keeps me alive and it keeps me unhappy at the same time (laughs) . . . it's a funny mixture. But any musician will tell you that
– At least those musicians who are committed to what they do."
They don’t come any more committed than Rory Gallagher.
Despite the fact that he "always played from the heart", there was a long period when Rory Gallagher was most definitely ignored by the British music press. Though he was treated to some favourable reviews for "Defender", he considers the way he was "totally ignored" in the years preceding it an insult not only to himself but also his, fans, who though still going in their throngs to his gigs, weren't seeing the corresponding column inches in the music papers.
"I deserve as much attention as anybody else, 'cos I put as much into it," he now says. "It's about time that they copped on. But I had taken it on the shoulder for a couple of years, they were really ostracising me. There's no two ways about it. I'm not a cry-baby but it's a bit hard to take sometimes when you've worked very, very hard. Particularly on the "Jinx" album, which was imperfect I must admit, but it had a lot of pluses that were overlooked at the time.
"But I do take it to heart a wee bit," he admits, '"cos I'm still competing. I'm not competing with people of my own generation, so to speak, I'm still trying to hold my own with what's happening now."
Much of which, it transpires, he finds anything but stimulating.
"There are certain people who can talk all year 'round and do nothing," he says.
"It's become a kind of an art with the people. I get very annoyed about that - people just spend their time as kind of rock'n'roll chat-show hosts rather than real musicians. That's not a lofty title but I mean you have to do some things just privately and quietly," sometimes.
"But you can't win. Y'see, if I was living up in Buckinghamshire with a huge mansion and seventeen alsation dogs and a limo and acting the guitar-hero thing, I'd probably get more respect. But we've stayed on the street within reason, we've been touring ... I think it's kind of the story of my life in that I'm certainly not part of the
mainstream here."
Rory's perception of himself as being outside the mainstream is a theme that recurs on "Defender", where many of the characters peopling the songs tread a thin line between legality and low-life. And although he's at pains to point out that the influence on his songwriting of an encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema and crime fiction has been previously overplayed, he does admit that "Defender" was certainly informed by the minimalism of Raymond Chandler and Ernest Hemingway.
"I can see a great affinity between Rhythm and Blues, we'll say, and crime _ fiction," he explains. "If you look at Rhythm and Blues, whatever that means, compared to the pop scene, and then you look at a hard-boiled detective story with sort of amoral crime in it, there's a kind of funny connection. Plus the writing in a crime thriller is very sparse and sharp and bitter-sweet, usually bitter. And I can see some kind of connection myself, y'know.
"But it's not a connection I was conscious of at the time," he says of "Defender''.
"Y'know, I don't sit down and write the opus in one day - songs come up. Still, when I got the lyric sheet and I looked at it it was clear that the characters were on the borderline, in a very dangerous pocket between protecting the law and protecting the Mob.”
Whether or not "Defender" signifies the start of a sustained return to more bluesbased material, remains to be seen; what can be said with certainty is that the Devil's Music has long been the primary source of inspiration for Rory Gallagher, despite his status as "a white European and all those corny cliches," as he puts it. "I never adopted the blues thing," he says. "I had heard rock'n'roll and skiffle and things, but when I heard blues music I just said 'hang on a second'. I felt akin to this thing and, even if I'm a distant relation, I empathise with it." As he's quick to acknowledge, we may not have suffered the slings and arrows with which the pioneering blues-men had to contend, but at the very least, says Rory,
"I understand a corner of the blues."
Rory Gallagher is positive that this time around there's not going to be another long hiatus in his recording schedule.
"We have to definitely get in the studio by January or February," he says. "I don't see a ridiculous departure. Writing-wise, I'm still interested in certain angles but I'll probably do one or two more acoustic tracks, and maybe get some hammer-dulcimer and a few exotic instruments.
"But I can never predict albums," he confesses. I’m terrible at it because I've recorded tracks before and they just end up in the bin, y'know. I have a kind of a vague image of it, but it's still too early to tell really. Like any artist or outfit, it takes a couple of days in the studio to throw away the dross. And then you throw away the notebooks. I mean, I've got books of lyrics and lyrics and lyrics and eventually you just pare it down to the point ... "
And the point, as it's always been, is to make the best and most honest music that he can. "When I was a kid," says Rory, "the idea of being a Chuck Berry or Buddy Holly was like becoming Superman. It was totally impossible. I also knew that I wasn't going to try to be Freddie And The Dreamers or Gerry And The Pacemakers. I was trying to do something else and I'm still working at it . . . I suppose if I became a rock artist or a pop artist, things would be simpler. But emotionally, I'm going for deeper territory I suppose."
Contrivance is anathema to him.
"Y'see if I were to say to you (adopts affected accent) 'well, I sat back last year and I looked at my career and I looked at all the things I can do well ... that's what's ruined rock'n'roll. They have boardmeetings now. The Wall Street mentality's creeping in.
"We can still do what we want more or less. There was a time I could plan ten years ahead, five years ahead, two weeks ahead. Now, it's one day at a time. The music's better for that, I think - it's more quirky and so on. I think the next album will be . . . interesting and, really, I'm just looking forward to the future now."
Him and thousands of loyal fans,