Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Legends are not just presented to the crowd fully formed, all smiles and P.R. presentable, they are cultivated, they have a history, they have lived in the dirt, soaked up the atmosphere of a thousand disappointments, and they perhaps bow out before their time.
Legends, everyone seems to be one now. Appear on television once and you are described in the same endearing terms as one who pulled a sword from a stone, and yet you don’t have to go back to far in time to find a place where the word meant something more than just appealing to a certain mindset that catered to the here today, gone tomorrow crowd of indifferent belief, of the ‘hilarious’ and single catchphrase use; as in our lifetime and collective memory we have people that stood tall and their name became synonymous with their craft.
Half a century has passed since Rory Gallagher released his self-titled debut solo album, 50 years in which the legend has grown, morphed, taken root in even the most unlikely of corners, to the point where that which was originally laid down, which was already extraordinary, has come to mean so much more in the annals of Blues Rock history, and in doing so has cemented the man’s reputation as one of the last great performers of the genre in the 20th Century, and before the style began to lose its soul as the era wound down.
Many don’t believe in the idea of magic, shrugging it off a fancy, an impressive elaboration, but as the music, as the ideas and form begin their journey, what is apparent in the 50th anniversary boxset of the eponymous debut release, is that magic exists; it might have the template of hard graft, of outtakes, of the occasion slip, but magic is real, it survives, it endures when all around it fades into the scenery and background.
There is no doubt of the talent that lay in the mind of Rory Gallagher, and yet as the boxset reveals its secrets, the original album sounding fresher than ever, tracks such as the sublime Laundromat, Wave Myself Goodbye, Hands Up, Sinner Boy, and For The Last Time, sessions and outtakes offering a more introspective look at how the album was weaved, and a glorious addition of a live performance on the set of Sounds of the Seventies and various tracks from The John Peel Sunday Concert, magic is perhaps not strong enough term, instead it is bewitching, an enchantment that leads to alchemy.
Along with the four audio discs, there is a DVD that adds the crowning glory to an already elegant package, and as the rare never-before released concert of Pop Deux, filmed in 1971 for French television is watched, the experience becomes one that is arguably unbeatable.
The milestone to which all others would be judged is not harshly viewed, if anything, and certainly for Rory Gallagher, what the listener soon establishes, is a sense of rapport and history, of a connection to a time where legend meant what the speaker of the spell meant. An astonishing procurement of music to put in one outstanding boxset. This is Rory Gallagher as he was meant to be heard, raw, beautiful and every inch the legend.
Rory Gallagher’s 50th Anniversary boxset of his 1971 album Rory Gallagher is released by UMC on September 3rd. Pre-order the album from – https://rorygallagher.lnk.to/50thAnniversary.
Ian D. Hall