#7 Walk On Hot Coals

 

Album: Blueprint, 1973

Also, check Irish Tour ’74 and Check Shirt Wizard for live versions

 

The middle of 1972 saw a slight sea of change in the line-up of the Rory Gallagher Band. Rod de’Ath, the flatmate of bassist Gerry McAvoy was called on to stand in for Wilgar Campbell on drums after Wilgar found it difficult to carry on touring thanks to a fear of flying. Soon, Rod became a permanent replacement on drums. Shortly afterwards, the band then expanded from a three-piece to a four-piece when Lou Martin, who was previously with Rod in the blues-rock band Killing Floor, was added on piano and keyboards.

Following extensive touring, including a very long stint in America, the band wrapped up the year in the Marquee Studios and Polydor Studios to record the album Blueprint, which saw its release on February 18, 1973. For a band that had been together less than a year, the sound was impressive. It can take a while for new line-ups to gel, but they sounded like they had been playing for years, which is perhaps a testament to the number of live shows they had gotten under their belts by the time they reached the studio.

The opening track of Blueprint, ‘Walk On Hot Coals’ is a perfect example of the tightness of their sound. It’s an expansive piece of music, telling the tale of a luckless man who loses a card game, his job, his fortune playing roulette and a horse race, giving up his good luck charms because he claims each one was somehow rigged, though he refuses to gamble his girlfriend in case he manages to lose her too!

"Well I walk on hot coals, sleep on a bed of nails
Walk on thin ice, skate on razor blades
Got my little girl beside me no matter what else fails
Well I walk on hot coals, sleep on a bed of nails
Walk on thin ice, skate on razor blades
Got my little girl beside me no matter what else fails"

 Both lyrically and vocally, Rory encapsulates the desperation of the situation, a man living life at the very edge. Though it appears that with his girl still with him, there is still a sliver of hope left.

‘Walk On Hot Coals’ is a favourite among Rory fans, who enthuse at the sheer energy of it. Rory’s guitar is both subtle and soaring, merging and duelling with Lou’s piano. It perhaps is not an exaggeration to say that Lou was probably Rory’s equal in terms of piano playing. The two could lock their instruments together beautifully. In a 1973 interview with Bibi Lehman for the March edition of German magazine ‘Popfoto’, Rory said about Lou, “Well, one day I saw Lou Martin while he was playing and I was immediately smitten by him. This man has everything! He is just fantastic! In my opinion, he is a great pianist. Well, and I just hired him. Rory Gallagher Group with piano accompaniment, that’s something else.”

Also of note is Rod’s drumming. It has been said that Rod was ambidextrous, which must have given an interesting edge to his drumming. ‘Walk On Hot Coals’ has outstanding drum work, interweaving perfectly with the music. This is the song that picked up my ears to Rod’s drumming and he’s admittedly one of my favourite drummers. He also works brilliantly in a rhythm section with Gerry McAvoy, who, it has to be said, is a monster on bass.

Rory and Gerry, it has been said on many occasions, by both, had an almost intuitive understanding of each others playing. Gerry has said that though there were no setlists, he could pick up immediately on what song Rory was about to play. Rory himself said that he found Gerry’s playing inspirational.

Played live, ‘Walk On Hot Coals’ is a feast for the ears. Watching video footage of it live is also an experience. Perhaps the most powerful can be found on the Irish Tour film, which picks up the song halfway, in the middle of the extended guitar solo, where Rory gets a little improvisational. Here, he is in whatever world the music and the band are in, soaked in sweat and egging Gerry, Rod and Lou along, with a lot of ecstatic fans leaping around his feet. It’s perhaps a different form of walking on hot coals. To have experienced that would have been something else.

#6 Smear Campaign

 

Album: Defender, 1987

 

There had been something of a gap between albums for Rory by the time Defender was released on July 1, 1987. It’s predecessor, Jinxed, had been his final album on the Chrysalis label in 1981. By the time of Defender, Rory was now an independent artist with his own label, Capo Records, with Defender as its first release.

The main line up of the Rory Gallagher Band by now was of course Rory, Gerry McAvoy, and Brendan O’Neill of Belfast, who joined as drummer in 1981. There may have been a gap between albums, but Rory hadn’t been quiet, touring and recording, as well as the set up of Capo. Unfortunately, his fear of flying had become well established, making the travelling involved as a touring musician an unpleasant experience.

Rory’s songwriting had always followed several themes from the start of his career. As well as the deeply personal, he was also a great storyteller. A fan of hardboiled detective fiction, songs featuring crime themes were a big part of his oeuvre. But he also explored other topics. Rory was a voracious reader and if anything, seemed to be a sponge for information on any topic that caught his interest. He was for instance well versed in politics. Apparently anywhere he went on a tour where there was an election, he could knowledgeably discuss the proceedings.

The protest song wasn’t for him. He didn’t especially see the point in him writing any. But that didn’t prevent him using the more nefarious side of politics for the theme of a song, as he did for Defender’s ‘Smear Campaign’, in the form of a loose tale.

"Feed those lies
Bend those minds at any price
Foul or air
As long as he's not there
Election time

Don't believe the papers it's not anybody's race
He's not a rank beginner it's not a children's game
He may get the nomination if he breaks through the chain
Or they'll shoot him down on Main street in this smear campaign."

 The lyrics describe succinctly the corruption and sabotage involved in any ‘democratic process’ designed to win an election for a candidate in whom the vested interests of a select few, rather than the electorate, are at the forefront. And nothing is considered unreasonable if it secures a victory. Dirty work if you can get it, and perhaps an age-old tale familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in politics. Rory perfectly captures the use of propaganda to twist minds towards dubious truths and the underhand methods in which an opposing candidate can be undercut.

Bob Dylan is perhaps the unarguable king of writing songs that can make you think about what is going on in the world around us, making you consider things you weren’t aware of. There is no arguing his genius as a lyricist, he is one of the best, but there are times where he can go off in a tangent that may make the listener lose the thread of what Dylan is trying to say. Rory is the opposite. He is by no means a simplistic writer and he was a huge fan of Bob Dylan. But lyrically, Rory hits the nail on the head. What he says stays in the mind longer, without any head-scratching about what was just sung. While he may not have seen the protest song as a thing for him, Rory still had the gift of making us think about something important, ‘Smear Campaign’ being just one example of this.

As ever, the music of ‘Smear Campaign’ features brilliant guitar, bass, and drums. On the song, Rory is quoted on his official website as saying, “That was the Strat doubled up, with an acoustic drifting in. John Cook doubled the guitar with a keyboard sound. Over that there are Hank Marvin type country lines on the Talbo”. Rory in an interview was perhaps more inclined to discuss what went into his songs instrumentally and the recording process. We, however, can conclude at this point that what he did, in this case, was subtle enough to bring out the words of the song. And that riff is an earworm.

#5 A Million Miles Away

 

Album: Tattoo, 1973

Also check out: Irish Tour ’74, The BBC Sessions, and Check Shirt Wizard: Live in ‘77

 By 1973, it’s safe to say Rory Gallagher was at a career peak. Not only did he release the brilliant Blueprint and Tattoo albums, but his tour of Ireland at the end of the year also became something of a landmark, producing both the Irish Tour documentary directed by Tony Palmer and the legendary Irish Tour ’74 live album.

 With the release of Tattoo came ‘A Million Miles Away’, rated as the ‘quintessential Rory song’ by fans on his social media pages in 2019. It’s a song that once it arrived, was to stay on the scene forever. The track features the lineup of Rod de’Ath on drums, Lou Martin on keyboard/piano, and Gerry McAvoy on bass. On the album version, you also get to hear Rory play saxophone, triple tracked over the chorus. It also became a regular fixture of his shows, each appearance of it on live albums (or the BBC Sessions album) a treat for the ears.

 The writing of the song even has something of a tale behind it. Dónal, Rory’s brother, thinks the inspiration for the lyrics may have come from a walk along the cliffs at Ballycotton in County Cork, where Rory enjoyed going to clear his head. Dónal has recalled in a few interviews one instance when he found such a walk anything but relaxing. He and Rory had become separated, and Dónal was getting no response when he called for Rory.

 Fearing the worst, that Rory may have fallen over the cliffs, he was about to call out the Ballycotton lifeboat, when Rory shouted back to him. It turned out Rory had heard Dónal shouting for him but was busy getting some song lyrics down and didn’t answer until he had finished! ‘A Million Miles Away’ is thought to be those lyrics that held his attention. Another contender is ‘Lost At Sea’, from 1975’s Against The Grain Album.

 A nice epilogue is that in 2014, Dónal auctioned one of Rory’s amplifiers and donated the proceedings, €7,500 raised from the auction and a further €3,500 anonymous donation from an unsuccessful bidder to the Ballycotton RNLI lifeboat.

 ‘A Million Miles Away’ is described on Rory’s website thus, “A Million Miles Away quickly became one of the most-loved numbers in Rory’s repertoire. It demonstrates the deep, introverted side of his emotions.’

 Lyrically, the song sets the scene in a fairly lively bar. A pianist is happily tinkling the ivories, the barman is somewhat seven sheets to the wind and the revellers are having a good time, talking and singing. The one person not feeling the mood is Rory’s protagonist, wondering why he is even there. It certainly puts a spin on the old line, ‘alone in a crowd.’

 "Why ask how I feel,

Well, how does it look to you?
I fell hook, line and sinker,
Lost my captain and my crew.

I'm standing on the landing,
There's no one there but me,
That's where you'll find me
Looking out on the deep blue sea."

 The music is somewhat anthemic, adding to the poignancy of the lyrics. It’s perhaps one of those songs where with any other act, the audience would have the lighters swaying appreciatively in the air back in the days before it was the glow of a smartphone screen. Though given how much of a frenzy Rory worked his audiences into, the glowing lighter moment was perhaps inadvisable as a potential fire hazard.

 There are pressures in life to join in with the general ambience of a party, but it’s not something everyone feels. ‘A Million Miles Away’ certainly captures that mood.

#3 Edged In Blue

Album: Calling Card, 1976

By 1976, it’s thought by many that Rory was starting to fully flourish in his talents. It may however be a matter of opinion as many are as blown away by the 22-year-old ripping it up with Taste at that legendary gig on the Isle of Wight in August 1970, as they are by the 28-year-old doing his 1976 Rockpalast set, as well as many other eras of Rory’s career.

This was the year Rory recorded Calling Card, his second album for Chrysalis, with whom he signed in 1975. Previously with his solo albums, Rory himself oversaw production. This time he tried something a little different, obtaining the services of Deep Purple’s Roger Glover as a co-producer. Calling Card was recorded at the Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany during the summer of 1976. At this point, his line up consisted of the highly regarded Belfast pianist/keyboardist Lou Martin and drummer Rod de’Ath of Saundersfoot, Wales. As ever, Gerry McAvoy remained on bass.

This incarnation of The Rory Gallagher Band has been around the block a few times by the time they reached the Musicland Studios. Rod had replaced Wilgar Campbell in 1972, when the latter struggled with the travel involved in a touring band, having developed a fear of flying. Soon after, Rory added Lou to the line up after being told by Rod how good a pianist his fellow ex-Killing Floor bandmate was, and Rory was duly blown away by seeing him play. This was the line up of the legendary Irish Tour 74 album and Irish Tour movie. They were a force to be reckoned with.

Calling Card is a slight departure from Rory’s previous work. It still had the blues rock, but this time meshed with a hint of jazz and features some of the most sublime songs Rory has ever written. When asked what album people new to Rory’s music may want to check out first, his nephew Daniel said Calling Card. ‘Edged In Blue’ is a perfect example of this. Described by some as having a tinge of the Peter Green style, it is an all-out rock classic full stop. The record saw it as a potential single, and it was suggested that both the intro and guitar solo could be edited down to make it short enough for radio play. Rory, famously anti-singles, was having none of it. Who knows what could have done in the charts? But at the same time, why mess with something that good?

"Here I am, where are you?
Tell me please, what to do,
Here I am, broken into,
All my days are edged in blue.

I'd go anywhere, if I thought you'd be there,

'Cos I've made up my mind that's where I belong.
I've travelled the world 'cos I couldn't be told,
Told by my heart that you really had gone."

 Again, it’s another interesting exercise in taking the lyrics apart from the music and seeing the lie of the land. There’s no doubt about the fact that Rory was rather a formidable writer. Song lyrics aren’t just throwaway in rock and blues. They can  carry a depth and more than hold their own against some of the best poems (or indeed beat them, but that’s just this particular writer’s opinion.)

 It has been said several times Rory was a quiet, reserved person, perhaps not given to wearing his heart on his sleeve. But in his words and music, it’s a different kettle of fish. It’s there clear as day. We don’t know what caused the hurt, nor is it our right to probe the private life of a man who kept it just that, private, but it’s clear he’s had his heart broken.

 But there is a juxtaposition between the slightly chirpy music and the lyrics. Despite laying it out in the song, he still seems to be hiding the emotion of the words. To get to it, you really have to listen. Rory certainly did not make background music.

 

Belatedly dedicated to birthday boys Gerry McAvoy and Brendan O’Neill (first published Dec 2020)

 

 

#3 Bad Penny

Album: Top Priority,1979

 

In 1979, Rory Gallagher returned to Dieter Dierks’ studio in Stommelm, Germany to record Top Priority, which saw its release on September 16 of that year, Rory found the set up of the studio to his liking. It was located far enough outside a big city to be peaceful, but close enough, as Rory put it, to be a short trip away if needed. The fact that it also had accommodation close enough to allow him to walk to the recording studio rather than a big commute appealed too. He had recorded Photo Finish there the previous year.

Gerry McAvoy had been Rory’s bassist since 1971, whilst Ted McKenna from Coatbridge, Scotland had joined on drums in 1978. Previously, Ted had drummed in The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, where he noted he learned to drum hard thanks to Harvey striding over and shaking his cymbals to encourage him during performances.

Sitting in at number six on the tracklisting of Top Priority, ‘Bad Penny’ is one of Rory’s heavier songs. With a riff that sears itself permanently into that part of the brain that creates earworms, it is a song that you may find yourself singing enthusiastically while pottering about the house, without much care as to what the neighbours may think. Neighbours of Rory enthusiasts may also find that they are likely to hear it regularly played at volume, it being one of those rock songs where a certain volume is pretty much mandatory. As Dónal Gallagher writes in Rory’s official website: “No live performance was complete without Bad Penny, this big southern rock number. Again Rory uses a sitar to add texture to the song.” (The electric coral sitar, hired from Pete Townshend, also being a famous feature of another Top Priority track, ‘Philby’.)

 

As well as being a fantastic rocker in general, ‘Bad Penny’ is also a great song for anyone who has been screwed over in life:

 

“Well, like a bad penny you have turned up again,
You're in my sights, there's a mist on my lens.
I think you know how it was when I tripped and fell,
Well, you double-dealed me, baby and I broke like a shell.

Like a bad penny you've sure lost the glow
But I'm out of reach, your smile's sure gone cold.
Well, it can't ever be like it was then,
Well, don't you fool with me, baby,

Don't you mess with my plans.”

 These are lyrics that you can relate to if you have been through the mill with a charmer that draws you in, breaks you, spits you out, and just when you think you’ve got rid of that rotten soul from your life, back they come. Or perhaps it’s someone you can’t fully cut ties with, and they’re in and out of your life like a slow, slightly malignant yo-yo. Either way, it’s a situation that you get to a point where you learn the person’s mind games so that when they come back for more, you’re ready. The shine has worn off – they know they have hurt you, but this time it’s different because the charm offensive no longer works.

 The words are to the point, Rory’s vocal is powerful and to listen to it when you are feeling frustrated with the chancers and manipulators showing up in your life yet again is an incredibly powerful experience. It’s cathartic and reaffirming. Perhaps you’re at a point you know the lay of the land in the machinations of these individuals, and no, they aren’t going to get to you again. You’re healing, but you’re stronger.

 And that can be the power of music, in particular Rory’s music.

 

#2 Blister On The Moon

 

Album: Taste, 1969

It was the mid-sixties in Cork, Ireland, and the music union was in an uproar because a new blues rock trio called The Taste, formed by local musicians Rory Gallagher, bassist Eric Kitteringham, and drummer Norman Damery were challenging the strict union rules that bands had to have at least eight members before they could play live. This worked well with the well-honed Irish showband scene. But it was all a bit dated to Rory, who at 18 had already done the rounds with showband The Fontana, later called The Impact.

At first, The Taste ‘winged it’ somewhat by temporarily adding extra people to the band, getting friends to join them on stage to act as musicians – Rory’s younger brother Dónal also being recruited to play tambourine on occasion! Now with The Taste challenging the union rule, the group with invited to ‘audition’ as a trio, with members of the union then voting on whether or not to scrap the mandatory eight-person requirement. The vote went in The Taste’s favour.

This disdain for inflexible, dictatorial, and dogmatic thinking and it’s suffocating effect can be found in one of Rory’s earliest songs, ‘Blister On The Moon’:

 “Everyone is saying what to do and what to think

And when to ask permission when you feel you want to blink

First look left and then look right and now look straight ahead

Make sure and take a warning of every word we've said

Now you lay you down to sleep make sure and get some rest

Tomorrow is another day and you must pass the test

Don't try and think too different now what we say is best

Listen little man you're no better than the rest”

The lyrics describe a world where it is very difficult to move outside the status quo without the threat of repercussions. Ireland at the time of Rory’s youth was an incredibly restrictive country by several accounts, so it could be suggested he didn’t have far to look for inspiration for this song. An austere, stiff upper lip mentality was part of life in many places during the immediate post-war era.

Men were ‘not supposed’ to show any emotions, a stark example of this can be found in Paul McCartney’s comments that when he and John Lennon lost their mothers as teenagers in the 1950s, they were, in Macca’s words, expected to just get on with it, and not show any grief. It’s no surprise that many of the 1940s/50s born generation, from The Beatles to Rory, wound up bucking this stifling system.

Even the sound of ‘Blister On The Moon’ is stark and guttural. The guitar cuts a sharp swathe, backed up by the solid drums and bass on the version that appears on the self-titled debut album of Taste, as the trio was now known. The name wasn’t the only thing to have been rejigged by the time the album was released in April 1969, as the line up had also changed. In 1968, new bassist Richard ‘Charlie’ McCracken from Omagh and Belfast drummer John Wilson had replaced Eric Kitteringham and Norman Damery. Eddie Kennedy, also from Belfast, now also managed Taste. Dónal meanwhile had put his tambourine days behind him and was now Taste’s road manager and sound engineer.

However, just before the departure of Eric and Norman, Taste Mk 1, as the first line up is known, recorded ‘Blister On The Moon’ in a demo recording session. Just as the new line up, Taste Mk 2, to fans these days, was getting into business, this version along with ‘Born On The Wrong Side Of Time’, was released as a seven inch single on the Major Minor label. This version is somewhat different from what appeared on the Taste album, being just a bit heavier.

Though ‘Blister On The Moon’ is over fifty years old, listening to it now is a slightly chilling affair. It’s lyrics, coldly delivered by Rory, the severe guitar and rhythm give you food for thought when thinking of the 21^st-century world we’re in today.

#1 I Fall Apart

Album: Rory Gallagher, 1971

In 1971, Rory Gallagher was at the start of what would become a solo career of legendary proportions, in which he eschewed the accepted norms and expectations of the music industry to things his own way. Aged only 23, he was already a veteran of the music scene and a highly regarded musician. At the end of that year, he was voted Best Guitarist in the World by readers in the Melody Maker poll.

Before that, he was busy putting together his first band after Taste, the blues rock trio he had been part of in its two line ups from the trio's inception in 1966. Then, in the company of new bassist Gerry McAvoy and drummer Wilgar Campbell, both previously of the Belfast band Deep Joy,  there was the task of recording his first solo album. The eponymous Rory Gallagher, also known to some as ‘The Black Album, was released on March 21, 1971, on which ‘I Fall Apart’ can be found.

The third song of the album is described on the official Rory Gallagher website as, ‘… an engaging love song with a big melodic Stratocaster guitar riff and a wonderful chord sequence.’

Starting pleasantly – melancholic guitar and lyrics with a sort of longing, it draws you in. This hits you as someone head over heels in love to the extent it is almost unbearable. The words of it are poignant. Rory is often lauded as the best guitarist who ever trod the stage. He certainly could hold it up with the very best, though it has been said he probably didn’t have much time for who was the best at what. What was important was the music. But one area in which he doesn’t get as much recognition as he should is as a lyricist. He was a superb writer.

 “Like a cat that's playing with a ball of twine

That you call my heart

Oh, but, baby, is it so hard

To tell the two apart?

And so slowly you unwind me

Till I fall apart”

His lyrics are like Joni Mitchell’s, Bob Dylan’s, and John Lennon’s in that you can just look at them laid down in text and they read like poetry, though they are very much in a league of his own. A quiet man, he distilled intense emotions into his words. Only Rory could write Rory Gallagher songs, they are just his, whatever the subject matter. And with ‘I Fall Apart’, he shows himself to be more than proficient at love songs. To have a song such as this composed about you, well, you must be someone very special, to say the least. No surprise that in 2018 the Irish Rock n Roll Museum rated it the best Irish love song.

And it’s not only the lyrics. What starts off understated, guitar, bass, and drums, builds up throughout the song to a crescendo that finishes on a guitar solo to hit you hard in what the trendy kids call ‘the feels’. It may date back a few decades, but ‘I Fall Apart’ is like any great song, be it soul, blues, or rock, it doesn’t age or become dated.

 It appears Rory didn’t play this live beyond the initial stages of his solo career, which is a shame given his power as a live performer, though there is a great video of it being performed at his very first live performance as a solo artist in Paris at La Taverne de L’Olympia in 1971. There is perhaps much to be said over the choice to film the band from the back just as Rory is starting to sing and also breaking into that guitar solo, but it is worth a watch.