Best of Rory Gallagher to provide Satisfaction for a new generation of music fans
Rory Gallagher during his session with Jerry Lee Lewis.
Following fast on the heels of a trio of Rory Gallagher releases in the past two years, a new ‘Best of’ album offers a fine compilation of the guitar master’s work.
The dozen solo studio albums made during his lifetime and the brace with his band Taste are distilled into a 30-track compilation that gives both a comprehensive representation of his studio recordings as well as of the different sides of Gallagher, who died in 1995 at the age of 47.
While other recent releases were firmly aimed at the die-hard Rory afficionados, The Best of Rory Gallagher offers an entry point to a new generation of music fans.
The compilation also throws up a previously unreleased outtake from Gallagher’s work on Jerry Lee Lewis’ 1973 Sessions album, which sees the Cork man singing and playing the Rolling Stones’ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’.
The previous year, Gallagher had appeared on Muddy Waters’ London Sessions album, and in a similar approach, ‘The Killer’ found himself assisted by top British musicians such as Peter Frampton, Albert Lee and Kenney Jones in the English capital.
Daniel Gallagher, Rory’s nephew and compiler of Best of Rory Gallagher, tells the story of that unique recording as well as shares his thoughts on some of the album’s tracks.
"While they were in the studio they were nominating songs to be recorded and then someone said Mick Jagger might come down to the sessions. And Jerry Lee Lewis said, ‘Ok, we need to do a Stones song with him.’ "It appears either Rory or the producer nominated ‘Satisfaction’.
"But then Jerry Lee Lewis didn’t know exactly how it went. I guess Rory or somebody started playing the song so he could hear how it went and shouting the lyrics and apparently Jerry Lee Lewis was aghast at how suggestive they were. Which is a surprise considering ‘Great Balls of Fire!’ Apparently he felt the musicians were having them on.
"So he turned to Rory, and obviously Rory is so mild-mannered and polite, and said, ‘Is this a real song? Is this true? Can you sing it for me?’ “And there’s a great photo of Rory standing over Jerry Lee Lewis as Jerry Lee Lewis looks up at him and as Rory is singing it out to him.
“I heard an interview with Rory and Rory said that Jerry Lee said, ‘can you go in and do the first take singing so I can hear how the melody goes?’ “I’m sure he felt very nervous about it but he went in and did guitar and vocals on the first take with Jerry Lee joining him. And it was lost to the ages on a tape in the archives at Universal in America and thankfully I managed to track it down. When I heard the Rory interview saying that he’d done a take I was like, I have to find this tape somewhere, and thankfully it still existed.
“You always worry when you get something like that that it’s actually only half a take, and they don’t finish the song. But the fact it was a complete take was really fantastic.
"Albert Lee and Peter Frampton were in on the session and they’re both are on the track. I think the only thing the track is missing is a really good Rory solo but you get a Jerry Lee Lewis Fender Rhodes keyboard instead.”
“It’s the only cover [on the ‘Best of’] besides ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Catfish’, which is a traditional blues. With ‘All Around Man’, I think that’s Rory’s best in-studio blues recordings.
"It’s such a great sounding song. It’s a really interesting one. It’s an old Bo Carter song, but Rory pretty much rewrote the lyrics to it. Because the original is quite suggestive of what the all around man might be doing with the wife and Rory takes it in his own style.
“Unlike some other bands who didn’t credit the original blues artist they covered and claimed them as their own songs Rory could rewrite the whole song and still know the inspiration is Bo Carter. He still credits him for the song. I think it’s a really great track.
“I was trying to think of a really brilliant in-studio blues number, because I think Rory, when live, you get things like ‘I Wonder Who’ and ‘What in the World.’ Playing those songs live, the blues guitar work that he does is just phenomenal. And I thought for an in-studio one this is my favourite. His slide solos are really great.
“I was working out what would go in and what wouldn’t and the last one to go in was ‘Cruise On Out’ from the Photo-Finish album. I was tossing it up with a couple of other ones.
"It’s a really fun song with some great lyrics in it. Again, it showed a different side of Rory because it’s almost rockabilly. So it’s not like a straight rock song or a blues song.
"It’s a fun rockabilly song about Fats Domino and those kind of artists. And I know my dad [Rory's brother and tour manager Donal] is a big fan of it, so I kinda put it in for him. I think that’s what swayed it.
“Being a 'Best Of' I’d hate for it if it was just strictly blues. Hopefully to broaden Rory’s fanbase and new people coming into it, I wouldn’t want them to think Rory was just heartfelt, painful blues songs about a broken heart. So I picked some really fun upbeat songs like ‘Edged in Blue’, Cruise on Out’ and ‘Philby’.
The variety of the collection is important. You can hear on ‘Cruise on Out’ how much fun he has playing that song, so it warranted going in.”
“When you talk about the best guitarist in the world and whichever else, they have many strings to their bow but I think Rory is quite extraordinary in the different attributes that he brings to guitar playing, and that’s why ‘Out of My Mind’ went in.
"Because his fingerpicking in that, it’s almost a Doc Watson country blues song. I’d be very surprised if some of the other guitarists can drop into that country blues, very fast fingerpicking style, like Rory. He really just nailed that. And that’s in there to show the diversity of his playing.”
“It’s such a beautiful song. Rory did a really good line in sort of melancholic sort of heartbroken songs, like ‘A Million Miles Away’. You always have to find a nice spot in the ‘Best of’ to put them in. You can’t open it with it [chuckles]. You can’t open a ‘Best of’ with it and then everyone suddenly feeling sad with themselves.
"He does some really good ones and I thought ‘I Fall Apart’ is the best to include.” ‘It's Happened Before, It'll Happen Again’ “I wanted to show Rory’s sax skills from his Taste days. It was either that or ‘On the Boards’, from On the Boards, And I love the riff to ‘It Happened Before…’
