#29 - Loanshark Blues

 Album: Defender (1987)

Following 1982’s Jinx album, it would be five years before Rory Gallagher released another studio album, leading to some believing he had apparently vanished into the ether.

“I was quite busy, I wasn’t back in Ireland for a long time. We were playing a lot on the Continent, we were in America for a couple of trips. We also played behind the Iron Curtain. So it was more active than people would know, but unfortunately if you’re not playing in this part of the world, people think you’ve faded away.” Rory on RTÉ’s Borderline, 1 March, 1988.

Defender was released on 1 July 1987. It was the first album he released on his own independent label, Capo Records, having parted company with Chrysalis following Jinx. In many ways, it’s one of his heavier albums, ranging from rock to veritable blues classics. Recorded across a number of London Studios, including The Point, Olympic Studios, West 3 Studios, Music Works and Redan Studios, personnel included band regulars Gerry McAvoy on bass, Brendan O’Neill on drums and Mark Feltham on harmonica (‘Don’t Start Me Talkin’) , with former keyboardist and pianist Lou Martin making a return to guest on ‘Seven Days’. It was a successful album on the independent charts, with many positive reviews, some even describing it as Rory’s best to date. Discussing Defender on the aforementioned Borderline interview, Rory said:

“We did an album called Torch, it wasn’t satisfactory in the end. And it was like, it was a good thing it turned out that way, because sometimes it’s good to get really disgusted with the stuff you’re doing and give yourself a real ticking off and start again. Costs a fortune, but that’s more or less how we started the album.

“I feel very reasonable about this particular album; it’s nice and to the point and it has a nice mood to it, I think. That’s my own review, anyway.”

In these comments, it seems that, happy as he is about Defender, there comes across a very hefty personal self-criticism. Much has been written, mooted, discussed, and opined about Rory’s health and general state of being at this time. It is true he wasn’t in a happy place at this point, and it was during the Defender sessions, often working late into the night, that Rory said something ominous loomed over him. Many have taken this and his subsequent health issues as an opportunity to write off Rory as a musician and performer (Defender was his second last studio album), and it feels as though this is a sad and unjust line drawn under his talent. Indeed, there are some who won’t listen to Rory’s later work or footage of his live shows because of this. It’s deeply unfair and an injustice to the man. Take the time to sit down, watch and listen. He still had it in him. And if anything, he was maturing to something incredible.

‘Loanshark Blues’, the second track on Defender is a case in point. Rory is very much making his mark as a bluesman. The lyrics begin with a variation of the traditional call and response found in blues songs:

“Give me 'til Monday, that's only a day or two
Give me til Monday, that's only a day or two
I'll pay you back with interest the last thing that I do
I'll pay you back with interest the last thing that I do
Yeah, yeah”

Interspersed between variations of these choruses are verses that tell the tale of a man literally begging for the survival of his family and himself in the most desperate destitution:

“Wife needs shoes, the kids must eat
Feel so cold, I can't feel my feet
Can't get my hands on one thin dime
I'm gonna turn to a life of crime

No work here, so I walk the street
Sign on the door, I feel I'm beat
I know you run Pier 15
You got a grip on all my dreams”

It’s powerful stuff – thematically, the poverty is something featured in several traditional Delta blues. Rory must have had thousands of those songs stored in his inner ear by this point. There is also a hint of the books Rory liked to read, the hard-boiled detective novels, some of which, like the Delta songs, date back to the Great Depression. Both have simmered deep in Rory’s creative well it appears in ‘Loanshark Blues’. It was a song he was very satisfied with, to the extent of describing it as the best he had ever written:

“My favourite track. It’s a rhythmic thing, that I had to keep calm and controlled. There’s a sort of John Lee Hooker feel to it.”

He’s not far wrong in describing it as having a touch of John Lee Hooker. It appears Rory has fully come back into the blues he grew up besotted with and was taking it into a new direction, making it his own. His band by this point had transformed from the blues-rock/heavy rock of the 1970s and early 1980s to something with a heavier electric blues kick. Gerry McAvoy had been with Rory 16 years by time Defender came around and Brendan O’Neill had taken over from Ted McKenna on drums in 1981, becoming Rory’s longest served drummer. Mark Feltham had also become a regular in the line-up, often trading licks with Rory on live shows. It was a formidable unit to say the least!



For more information on Rory during this period, this article is a worthy read. And remember, mental health issues are no one's fault and help is available if needed.