Tag Archives: Rory Gallagher

Last night.

Concert movie The Jimi Hendrix Experience: The Royal Albert Hall was screened at the iconic London venue documenting the final European performance of the original lineup of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Rockstars Cars writes:

Went to see ‘The Last Experience’ Jimi Hendrix film @at the Royal Albert Hall. Shot in February 1969 & has just come out of the can!

This was the rough cut, & was epic Amazing performance, but the behind the scenes was breathtaking…

Including Rory Gallagher (pic 2), anyone?

The Last Experience

Update:

Update:

true that.

Meanwhile..

Colm Henry?

This afternoon.

Áras an Uachtaráin

Central Bank Governor Phili Lane will present the Rory Gallagher silver 15 Euro coin to President Higgins.

The coin is  ‘the first in a series of coins, entitled Modern Irish Musicians, …’

Ultan Mashup writes;

Well deserved. If there aren’t Dolores O’Riordain and Sinead O’Conoor coins planned, I’m leaving. If there is a Ronan Keating one, I’m also definitely leaving…

FIGHT!

Any excuse

Special €15 coin honours Ballyshannon Rocker Rory Gallagher (Leitrim Observer)

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The late guitarist Rory Gallagher is to be honoured with a new statue outside the Ulster Hall in Belfast, where he performed many times over the years and where there’s already a plaque in his honour.

Gallagher’s birthplace  of Ballyshannon in Donegal has a life-sized bronze statue, while Cork where he was raised, named Rory Gallagher Place after him in 1997. There have also been several commissioned street-art tributes, plaques and a bid by citizens to rename the airport after him.

Rory Gallagher to be honoured with statue outside Belfast’s Ulster Hall (Planet Rock)

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An oft repeated quote attributed to Jimi Hendrix, with unfortunately no verifiable evidence.

On the site of what was formerly Sir Henry’s, South Main Street, Cork.

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Ireland’s ambassador to Britain, Daniel Mulhall marked the 40th anniversary of Rory Gallagher’s Irish Tour ’74 at an event at the embassy in London last night.

In related news, Crowley’s Music Store which closed last year and where Rory bought his iconic Fender Stratocaster (above) has reopened as Crowley’s Musician Centre in the Oliver Plunkett Bar, Cork.

Ferrero play though, in fairness.

Previously: A Blue Day For The Blues

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fender

A Million Miles Away

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The former Crowley’s Music Store on Cork’s MacCurtain St today (top) looking neglected and up for sale.

Rory Gallagher purchased his 1961 Fender Stratocaster (centre) in Crowley’s Merchants Quay shop and changed Irish music FOREVER.

In the clip (above) from his 1974 Irish tour documentary Rory is seen sampling the goods in both shops and talking with proprietor Michael Crowley.

Previously: Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fender

Story, Rory?

A Million Miles Away

Marcus Connaughton writes:

Rory Gallagher was a fifteen-year-old schoolboy in Cork when he first laid hands on the guitar that would be associated with him for the rest of his life. The year was 1963 and the guitar was a 1961 Fender Stratocaster (Sunburst Model). Rory bought it secondhand on hire purchase, for £100…

Michael Crowley, late proprietor of Crowley’s Music Centre in Cork, remembered the young musician visiting his shop on Merchants Quay, right on the banks of the River Lee.

There was a new Stratocaster in the window. “Rory called in with his mother, who asked what price was the guitar? Including the case at the time, they were £129. When she heard the price, she said to Rory, “That’s rather expensive, like, would anything else do?” We had a man working here at the time, his name was Seamus Long. Seamus was a great salesman and he interjected and said, “How about one of the Hagstroms?” Rory shook his head and said, “No!” He was only fifteen, which was very young for somebody to be into a guitar of that type, but he obviously knew what he wanted…”

[Rory recalled]: “I’ve had it re-fretted a couple of times but apart from that very little has been done. I had it stolen one time, following a brief appearance at the Five Club to visit Pat Egan about the Dublin scene, and it got very beaten up then. I had borrowed a Telecaster, and it and the Tele were nicked. I was terrified for a few days in case I would have to buy both a Strat and a Telecaster. Both guitars were found (with the assistance of some exposure on Garda Patrol on RTÉ) behind a front garden wall on the South Circular Road, with some of the strings missing and the bodies knocked about but, thankfully, they were OK.

 “I don’t even call it a woman’s name or whatever: it’s just where I came from, to own a Stratocaster was like monumental – it was impossible. There’ll be arch battles for as long as we go on about the warmth of Les Paul guitars and the twang of a Telecaster and all that, but I would panic before I go on stage without this guitar – it would have to be a Strat and this one in particular.’”

From Rory Gallagher: His Life And Times by Marcus Connaughton (Collins Press). On sale now.

(Pic Fin Costello)

Thanks Tara Walsh