WIDE
EYED RORY
Our
amiable Scotsman Ray Telford talks to the
amiable Rory Gallagher
“I'd never put out
anything I
wasn't satisfied with”
Rory Gallagher's
last American tour was the eighth time he'd trekked across the US
of A, but the first time he'd been billed as a headliner.
It elevates him
to the bottom of the first division of the most popular British
groups in the States. Above him are ELP, Deep Purple, Yes and The
Faces who have won themselves over to Uncle Sam with a little
help from hi-charged publicity and a little sheer hard sell. Of
course the music does play its part, but nobody has done it in quite
the same way as Rory has and, he wouldn't have it any other way.
Right now in this country,
Gallagher is probably the safest bet
for any promoter wanting to fill a city hall and make a few bob in
the process. It's a reputation he's had in varying degrees ever
since Taste broke up maybe, as has been suggested before,
people feel they're in safe hands at a Rory concert knowing he
isn't about to pull any weird stunts or try to be clever just
come up with the goods and do it all obligingly at that. When did
you ever see him visibly displeased on-stage?
But Rory is no laborous
methodical plodder. The music has always had
bite and sting and each new album is almost always better than the
last, showing that he does have a very strong sense of direction,
though his style has always been firmly blues based. The blues to
Rory, you guess, is more than a handy form of self expression. He
hears all sorts of things in a John Lee Hooker song, for instance,
which other people don't: “There are John Lee Hooker numbers
which have got more stars and glitter attached to them than any of
the people who consciously try to create that effect. He doesn't
have to dress up either he does it all by music,” is the kind of
comment he shoots at you from a completely unexpected angle.
In the can at present is a
new Gallagher album, a live double
which was recorded over a selection of Irish gigs last Christmas:
“Ideally,” he says, “I'd have liked to have had it released
by now because I've already got the material together for the next
studio album. The live double is current, though, and it shows the
band to be in pretty good shape. It's fresh. I'd never put out
anything that I wasn't satisfied with.”
The release of
another live set following so close on the heels of the highly
successful “Live In Europe” Rory feels is of little
consequence. He sees himself first and foremost as a musician who
functions best in front of a live audience and is generally
pretty pleased with all the live cuts that have appeared on
previous LP’s: “Tattoo” was the last studio album we did and I
found that pretty easy. What helped was that we knew the material
before we recorded. We rehearsed it all in Ireland, which was very
nice. I much prefer preparing for an album there than in London
because you can take your time and, you're never badgered
by time schedules. We rehearsed all the others in London.
“It depends on
what kind of musician you are or in the way you want to sound. Now,
we're a live band first whereas The Byrds, for example, were very
much a studio sound musically, you have to approach it in two
entirely different ways.”
As a songwriter,
Rory feels his progression over the past couple of years has been
considerable. He writes almost exclusively for the group, but doesn't
see any particular reason why someone couldn't do cover versions of
some of his songs.
“I tend to
write a whole lot of songs at one time. Like work really hard for
however long it takes to get what's needed and then there's
a long period where I don't write at all. It's like laying an
egg. That was the way “Tattoo” came about writing the
whole thing over a month or so when I was back home in Ireland. Up
to now I've always written for a small band, but at some time I
might come across a great idea for something for a big band and as
for other people doing my stuff it'd be nice to get other people's
interpretations.”
The audience sizes on the
last US tour, Rory says, had grown
considerably, though he likes to keep a careful eye on the size of his
gigs: “The big stadiums are out because some of them are just a
ridiculous size and when it gets like that there's nothing between
you and the audience. Too many bands lose sight of the smaller
places to the extent that they can't play on a small stage which is
where the whole thing begins.”
Credence to Rory's words can
be seen in the fact that last weekend
he returned to the London Marquee for three consecutive appearances.
He'd been planning on doing a few selected English club dates for
some time: “It is very easy to forget about those gigs. Once a
band has tasted a fine life in the States too often something happens
to them and they never seem willing to play the small gigs again and
there's no reason why they shouldn't.
“How can you
keep in touch with the people if you only play the Royal Festival
Hall once in a year the way some bands do? That way people have to
travel from all over the place to see what's happening. I'd much
rather go to them it's more honest.
“I think
there's too much image building and it looks as though the pub rock
thing is a backlash to all that. There's been too much dependence
on smoke bombs and the like to get an effect when all you really need
is the music. The audience will always come around to you if you're
sincere about it and work hard at it.”
Returning once
more to the States, Rory views his rather ambiguous role there
as superstar with a philosophical air: “I've never found I
had to adjust much within myself between small gigs and the big
American ones. I just got used to it. It certainly doesn't worry
me playing huge places. It's just like putting on a wider pair of
glasses.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This article comes from the May 11, 1974 issue of
SOUNDS Thanks to Brenda O'Brien for finding, typing and sharing this
piece
reformatted by roryfan
