A welcome addition to the ever-popular The Essential… range, RORY GALLAGHER’s career-spanning collection features 28 newly re-mastered tracks drawn from his entire 21 year solo career.Rory Gallagher was admired – idolised – by artists from Bono to Bob Dylan. This newly compiled ‘Essential’ collection demonstrates why fans and fellow artists have refused to let Rory’s memory fade since his untimely passing in 1995.Each track has been carefully chosen and each one is a highlight in its own way: Laundromat is one of RORY’s most memorable riffs and I Fall Apart demonstrates his strength as a lyricist. Both tracks are taken from his 1971 debut, Rory Gallagher.The blues-drenched In Your Town, which opens this compilation’s CD2 and the dynamic Crest Of A Wave are taken from 2nd album, Deuce, also released in 1971. I Could've Had Religion and Bullfrog Blues are live versions originally captured on 1972’s Live In Europe, the first of three landmark official live albums Rory released during his illustrious careerThird studio album Blueprint provides the intense and scintillating slice of Chicago-blues, Walk On Hot Coals, whilst Tattoo, one of Rory’s most fondly-regarded albums and arguably the most perfectly-realised, weighs in with a heavy-weight quartet comprising Who's That Coming with its virtuoso acoustic slide playing, the swaggering riffs of Cradle Rock and A Million Miles Away, whose lovely elegiac quality ensured the track became a signature tune. Also included is They Don't Make Them Like You Anymore, whose jazzy vibe comes from the same well as fellow-Irishman Van Morrison’s classic MoondanceRory’s seminal live album Irish Tour ’74 provides the acoustic As The Crow Flies - at that time, a new and otherwise-unreleased song - and a storming version of Tattoo'd Lady. There’s the wonderfully loose-limbed Bought & Sold and Rory’s beautiful interpretation of Huddie Ledbetter’s Out On The Western Plain, originally featured on 1975’s Against The Grain.
The highly-crafted Moonchild, Barley and Grape Rag, which displays his virtuoso acoustic picking to great effect and Edged In Blue come from 1976’s Calling Card. The excellent Shadow Play is from 1978’s Photo Finish, whilst Top Priority, from the same year, provides tough-yet-melodic rockers, Philby, Bad Penny and this album’s CD1-opener, Follow Me.
For many artists, live albums are all-too-often stopgap releases or appear merely to fulfil contract obligations. Not so for RORY, for whom they were an essential reflection of his art and, inevitably, big sellers. To that end, third live album, 1980’s Stage Struck provides a kicking version of Brute Force & Ignorance. There is an uncharacteristically long gap to 1987 for Loanshark Blues and Continental Op from the Defender album, which saw RORY triumphantly return to his blues roots.
1990’s aptly titled Fresh Evidence provides Slumming Angel, which sounds every bit as honest & firey as when he first broke onto the scene with Taste, almost 25 years earlier.
The country-blues tinged instrumental Lonesome Highway is another fine example of RORY’s top-notch acoustic picking and comes from 2003’s posthumously-compiled collection, Wheels Within Wheels and The Essential also includes that album’s title track, a minor-key masterpiece with a melody so majestic it might have come direct from the pen of McCartney himself.
So there you have it. 28 tracks that attempt to reflect a musical cannon that ran to 15 albums; 11 studio, 3 live and 1 posthumous.Rory Gallagher