Rory Gallagher guitar campaign continues with tribute gig at Cork City Hall
Rory Gallagher's iconic Stratocaster is to be auctioned in London.
The announcement of Cork blues-rock icon Rory Gallagher’s guitar going under the hammer for auction in October via London auction house Bonhams has lit a fire under many in the city’s music community, with musicians, politicians and members of the public all calling for its retention in the local public realm.
One advocate for a community bid on the time-tested 1961 Fender Stratocaster is Sheena Crowley, proprietor of Crowley’s Music Centre and daughter of Mick Crowley, who sold a teenaged Gallagher the instrument for £100 in 1963 - who’s arranged a gig on Sunday September 15, at Cork City Hall, a venue with an immortal place in the hearts of Gallagher fans.
“I contacted the Lord Mayor's office, and they allowed us to use the space, and I got very excited about that altogether," says Crowley. "I never saw Rory in the actual City Hall, I saw him in the Everyman and the RTC [the current MTU Cork], but a lot of stories some of our customers tell me are about their gigs that they went to in City Hall.”
The gig is a multigenerational tribute to Gallagher, including Trés Hombres with Brian Tambling and Gerry McEvoy; Moonchild with Sam Healy and The Watermelons with Eoghan Regan, as well as blues-rock legends Hot Guitars featuring Seán Long. The original line-up of Hot Guitars was well known to Gallagher, and even shared the stage with him at the Mountain Dew festival in Macroom in 1978.
“I've worked with Trés Hombres many times before, local musicians who've done Rory Gallagher tributes for a decade or more," says Crowley. "Mick Power is the guitarist and the vocalist, and he's cool as anything, so it's perfect for him. He was going to anchor the whole gig. We have six guitarists on the night, but there were about 23 or 24 that came to my mind straight away - there’s so many great guitarists around.”
The goodwill and effort of all the musicians involved, as well as Crowley and other facilitators, is all in aid of her ongoing GoFundMe campaign to raise a million euro for a competitive community bid for the guitar at auction. That fund is currently at about €32,000.
The fundraising is an endeavour that’s seen the Ballinlough woman engage with Gallagher aficionados worldwide, as well as businesses and civic-society bodies, in an attempt to mount a wide-ranging campaign to keep the instrument in the city’s public realm.
“There's fierce excitement, really; there's people coming from Germany, and America. There’s about 400 tickets sold for the gig, and we're only after a week, and the capacity is 1100, so it’ll probably sell out. What I'm really excited about myself, is to see all the musicians I know doing their thing, with the deepest respect for Rory, you know, and they're giving their time for free. That’s something special.”
A blues-rock power-trio that’s been electrifying Cork stages for thirty years with a blend of repertoire and improvisation, Trés Hombres are best remembered for playing the former Rory Gallagher Bar at Midleton’s Meeting Place.
An enduring name among Cork’s blues-rock outfits, Hot Guitars are deeply rooted in Cork’s rock history, with their initial 1977 lineup emerging from former members of Sleepy Hollow and Boothouse. While that lineup has split and changed countless times over five decades, they remain an active gigging proposition to this day, anchored by singer and harmonica player Joe O’Callaghan.
A Cork-based four piece that specialises in a sax-laden blues-rock that draws from the genre’s deep history and heritage in America and closer to home.
Self-described as “celebrating the work and musical legacy” of the man himself, Moonchild are a regular fixture at bars and venues around the city and county.
- Rory Gallagher Night takes place at Cork City Hall on Sunday September 15. Doors 7pm, tickets €25 at eventbrite.ie. For those unable to attend in person, the gig will be live-streamed on a donations basis.
- All money goes to the effort to keep Rory Gallagher’s legendary Fender Stratocaster in the city - donations are still open at https://www.gofundme.com/f/bring-rorys-strat-home
