The Acoustic Rory Gallagher

Rory Gallagher is known for his ear meltingly brilliant electric guitar playing, the solos wrenched from his famously battered Stratocaster being the stuff of legend. As much as he could raise the roof with his full band sets, however, he also placed a lot of emphasis on the acoustic guitar too.

A small segment of each gig was set aside for a few numbers on acoustic. In this, he took the audience deeper within the music with his sheer command of the instrument. It’s hard to get beyond the pain barrier to the point of finger calluses, strumming, three chords and the truth for many who pick up the guitar, requiring a lot of patience. And perhaps a bit more patience. But when you stick with it and see results, it’s quite gratifying. Rory stuck with it to the point it seemed he had some sort of unearthly connection with the instrument, displaying a mind-boggling array of – well – just about everything an aspiring guitarist can dream of.

When asked about how someone might go about learning guitar, Rory maintained that it was best to start on acoustic before picking up electric to really get to grips with it. He had a point - acoustic is a great place to get a grounding and develop your skills. And you can really hear the strength of a guitarist when they pick up an acoustic and play it well.

Acoustic guitar can be a beast. Cheaply made ones run the joys of high actions and steel strings like cheese cutters. Classical guitar may seem a little gentler with its nylon strings, but then you have the wide neck that makes barre chords an interesting enterprise, and the risk of the neck back bowing as not all classicals come with adjustable truss rods (mine thankfully does!). Guitars are immensely frustrating, but they are also wonderful instruments. Despite the issues and frustrations they throw up with their, er, quirks, for some, the main point is they have a guitar to begin with, and that is enough. On a personal note, I love my wee classical. Despite the ongoing Barre Chord War.

Rory was 9 when he got his first guitar – an acoustic – when he moved to Cork from Derry with his family. By all accounts, he got to grips with it quickly, working through tutor books and copying the chords he saw his heroes make in photos. Lonnie Donegan was a key guide to the young Rory. He played acoustic for 3 years before getting his first electric guitar at 12 and graduating to his Stratocaster at 15.

Working in a showband and Taste required a lot of time on electric, but Rory remained studious with furthering his skills, listening to country blues and picking up pointers on acoustic. Taste saw this begin to come into fruition. By the time he went solo, he was literally whizzing over the fretboard acoustically with the same expertise he applied to electric.

In 1969, Rory got the Martin D35 acoustic, which was with him through the majority of his career, though at first he was a tad disappointed with it, noting in a 1975 interview with Melody Maker that it ‘takes about 5 years to play itself in, it has to develop through a whole lot of things, like the heat of the players body, the atmosphere it’s played in and all that.’

In 1973, the Martin D35 was joined by a 1932 National Triolian Resonator. Rory noted that unlike Nationals with two or three resonators, which had the fretboards join the guitar on the 14th fret, his joined at the 12th, but he was still full of praises for this guitar, which he bought for about £100 while on tour in America. ‘You get these traveling guitar salesmen going round there… …The National is really good though, even for a beginner to pick it up and play it, it almost plays you. I can tell you it brings power to your hands, you move from that to the neck of the Strat and it’s like running your hands across jelly.’(International Musician April 1977)

Both of these guitars were firm fixtures for Rory live for years and can become a familiar sight for someone checking out his work retrospectively on YouTube. However, wear and tear caught up with the Martin D35 and he later switched to replacements. But the National, much like the Strat, remained ever present. Perhaps two of the best performances to see Rory with the Martin D35 and National are the 1976 Rockpalast, where the first half of the set is close to an hour of Rory on acoustic. Not only is it a great introduction to the blues, but it’s also a masterclass in acoustic playing. The other video is RTÉ’s 1977 Valentine’s Day broadcast of My Music and Me. It’s shorter than the Rockpalast, but mesmerizing nonetheless. Another gem is a film shot for French TV in Lille with Jean-Noel Coghe in 1975, seeing him play sat on a car, in a studio and composing on the spot for a film played to him in a theatre.

Rory often discussed in interviews his wish to make an acoustic album. Unfortunately this never came to fruition in his lifetime. In 2003, his brother Dónal produced the brilliant Wheels Within Wheels album, featuring a wide range of material from live performances, collaborations with other artists and studio work that didn’t get released. Wheels Within Wheels showcases Rory’s talents beautifully and is a must for anyone wanting to explore his work in depth. Another one to check is disc 2 of the deluxe version of the 2019 Blues album, disc 2 being exclusively acoustic. There’s no doubt scope for more iterations of Rory’s acoustic work in album form due to how prolific he was.

Acoustic classics by Rory to hunt out:

· Out On The Western Plain

· The Cuckoo

· As The Crow Flies

· Too Much Alcohol

· Pistol Slapper Blues

· Bankers Blues

· Wheels Within Wheels

· Lonesome Highway

· Seven Days

· Walkin’ Blues

· Bela Fleck Jam, Montreux 1994

· 20:20 Vision

· Don’t Know Where I’m Going

· Just The Smile