Robert William Gary Moore (April 4 1952 – February 6 2011)
Today marks the first anniversary of the untimely and tragic death of one of rock's favourite sons, a modern icon and champion of the blues, and one of Ireland's, if not the world's most talented guitarists. Gary Moore died in Estepona in Spain one year ago today of a suspected heart attack. He was only fifty-eight.
During his time, Gary played with Thin Lizzy, being fast friends with founder and frontman Phil Lynott, who was to die in 1986, twenty-five years before Gary himself was taken from us. He also worked alongside some of the greats in the business, the respect and affection he held for figures like Albert Collins, BB King and George Harrison reflected in their participating in recording and/or performing with him. Raised listening to giants of the blues, Gary was hoisted on their shoulders and by the end of his career and too-short life, was proud and competent and respected enough to stand toe-to-toe, alongside his heroes. In the end, Gary leaves a legacy few can boast, and will go down as one of the greatest guitarists and proponents of the blues from certainly the twentieth century, if not of all time.
This week, we honour his memory in our own small way with seven days of tribute to the man who started at Skid Row and ended up doing what he loved to the end, playing the blues. Over the course of this week, right up to and including Sunday, we will be reviewing all, or as many of his albums as we can, side projects, live performances, and running special sections and features to remember the man of whom it was said, among many, many tributes following the news of his death, that he was “without question, one of the great Irish bluesmen. His playing was exceptional and beautiful. We won't see his like again”.
(Bob Geldof)
Robert William Gary Moore was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but left the north just as the “Troubles”, the conflict that raged across the border for nigh-on thirty years began, moving to Dublin and later to the UK. In Dublin he met a young black singer who was in a band with his mate Brendan “Brush” Sheils called Skid Row, and Gary joined the band as their guitarist, but soon after Phil Lynott left the band, eventually forming Thin Lizzy, whom Gary would later join on an on/off basis. Gary thrived in Skid Row, performing on both their official albums, and touring the USA with them, where he met one of his later idols, Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green. This would prove to be a turning point in Gary's young career, as Green took to the kid with the burgeoning talent, taking him under his wing and becoming his mentor, introducing him to a record label.
When he left Skid Row Gary decided to put out his own solo album (although it was released under the name of “The Gary Moore Band”) and sought the help of Lynott, who wrote some of the songs, and sang on most of it, also playing bass, which Shiels had taught him in recompense for having fired him from Skid Row. The album was well received but did nothing to break him commercially, so Gary then joined Thin Lizzy at Phil Lynott's behest, but was only really involved in three tracks, one of which made it onto Lizzy's album “Nightlife”, and would go on to become a solid standard for them. The version of “Still in love with you” though, that Gary performed on, bears little resemblance to the classic it later became.
The next year Gary left Lizzy to join John Hiseman's band, Colosseum II. They cut three albums (two of which were almost entirely instrumental) before disbanding, and Gary moved on, joining Thin Lizzy again in 1978. This was in fact the third time he had joined Lynott's band, as he had helped out in 1976 for one of their tours when Brian Robertson was unable to play, having injured himself. This time, however, he stayed long enough to record and be featured on an album, the only Thin Lizzy album he features in, “Black Rose: A rock legend”. He left shortly thereafter and did not return until after Lynott's death, in support of the Irish version of LiveAid, SelfAid, and again in 2005 for a reunion concert to mark the erection of a statue of Phil Lynott in Dublin.
His second album, on which Lynott again guested, was released in 1978, while he was still in Lizzy, and proved to be his breakout, containing the classic “Parisienne walkways”, on which Lynott takes the vocals but which is written by both. The record catapulted him to international stardom, and while on tour with Lizzy in the States, Gary decided to try to put together his own band, ending up with G-Force, with whom he released one album in 1980. It was successful but the band did not last, and it would be two more years before his first “proper” solo album since “Back on the streets” would hit the shelves.
“Corridors of power” (reviewed here elsewhere, and so not included in the many Gary Moore album reviews this week) was very successful, and brought his music firmly back into the public eye, with radio-friendly ballads like “Falling in love with you” and “Always gonna love you” sitting alongside hard-rockin' stuff like “Gonna break my heart again”, “End of the world” and “Cold hearted”. This album started a commercial “purple patch” for Gary which would last (with the exception of the next album) through to 1987, and along the way he would renew his partnership with Phil Lynott, just a year before the Thin Lizzy frontman's death.
After the success of the last of those albums, 1987's “Wild frontier”, Gary would soon return to the blues which had informed his first two albums, and with the exception of 1999's “A different beat”, which would prove a wild left-turn in direction for him, he never really deviated from that pattern. As a result, there were few if any singles and no more commercial successes like “Over the hills and far away”, “Empty rooms” or “Out in the fields”. To the general public, Gary disappeared from view after 1987, but he was still there, plugging away, playing and recording great albums right up to 2008, three years before he died. A timeless servant of the blues, the world is poorer and a little darker for the loss of Gary Moore, but brighter thanks to the wonderful music he left us to remember him by.
To open our tribute, I'd like to first feature two of Gary's albums, one of which I've always loved and one which I had not heard until I started putting together this tribute, but which has since become one of my favourites of his.
Wild frontier --- 1987 (Virgin)
Starting off with one of my favourites of his, 1987's “Wild frontier” betrays Gary's deep connection to his Irish roots, and many of the songs on the album are either written about Ireland or in an Irish, celtic style. The album would have been topped off by having Phil Lynott sing the title track, as was Gary's intention, but Phil's passing the previous year put paid to that, and so Gary took the vocals himself. There's a huge feeling about this album, a feeling of wide-open spaces and nature, and yet at the same time the sense of being crushed and crowded and pinned down by the weight of history, particularly the troubled history of Northern Ireland. All drums were programmed, though no programmer is credited, and Gary uses only two other musicians on this, surely his most personal album.
It opens with “Over the hills and far away”, which was also released as a single, and the celtic feel is immediately evident, with fiddle and oileann pipe sounds made by Neil Carter on the keyboards, Gary's guitar as ever the star of the show as he tells the story of a man who must go to prison for a crime he did not commit, rather than betray the honour of the woman he loves. The sheer power in the song is almost breathtaking, reminiscent indeed of the very best of Big Country, with a huge sound and an atmosphere about the music that makes you think in terms of ancient battles and castles, men riding or marching to war, smoke and banners in the air, and shouts of “Freedom!” all around.
The title track then, is Gary's first and most direct reference to “The Troubles”, as we colloquially called the thirty-some years of sectarian violence, death and conflict that plagued Northern Ireland till just relatively recently. It's another powerful rocker, riding on squealing guitar from Gary, as he cries
”I remember the old country/ They called the Emerald Land/ And I remember my own home town/ Before the war began.” There's a lot of uninhibited anger in the song, anger for those who lost their lives for a pointless cause, but halfway there's a short, introspective little guitar passage, when he sings softly
”Those are the days I will remember/ Those are the days I must recall/ We count the cost/ Of those we lost/ And hope it's not in vain/ The bitter tears of all those years/ I hope we live to see those days again!” This was, of course, before peace, of a sort, came to Northern Ireland, thankfully.
After two strong tracks, I find “Take a little time” slightly weaker, a fast rocker built mostly on a keyboard melody, though with plenty of Gary's trademark screaming guitar. Top quality is soon restored however with the amazing instrumental “The loner”, which I have featured probably about three times already in my journal. The first song not written by Gary, it's a searing, emotional workout on the guitar which just wrenches at the heart, and demonstrates not just how proficient Gary's guitar playing was, but how he could make the instrument do just about anything he wanted it to: cry, sing, scream, yell, whisper.
I could definitely do without the cover of the Easybeats' “Friday on my mind” --- I didn't even know who they were until I heard this song, and I care less --- I think it takes from the general theme and feel of the album, and is a cheap attempt at creating a hit single for the album. Which in fact it was, but it does not to my mind reflect the kind of music I associate with Gary Moore, not at all. Much better is “Strangers in the darkness”, co-written with Neil Carter, which tells the harrowing story of the dispossessed, the homeless, the destitute, those who walk our streets, no matter where we live, and pass by as unnoticed by us as ghosts. The whole aura of the track is of desperation and danger, the vocal from Gary low and restrained until it rises as his guitar punches its way into the song, backed by Carter's expressive keys.
Gary sings of the woman who
”Sells her fading beauty/ To the passersby/ And tries to hide that far-off look/ That's in her eyes.” and as for the guy? Well,
”They found him after midnight/ On a city street/ A young man with a problem/ That he couldn't beat.” The guitar goes into overdrive as the song winds to its end and Gary asks
”Why is it no-one seems to care?” His other effort with Carter is next, the rocking, blazing “Thunder rising”, with not surprisingly a strong keyboard melody from Carter to lead the song in, in fact in some ways he emulates Darren Wharton on Thin Lizzy's “Angel of death”, his keys shimmering and racing while Gary pounds out the chords and sings with effortless power.
The celtic theme is back for “Johnny boy”, an almost acoustic, indeed almost acapella ballad sung in traditional Irish style by Gary, as he sings
”When I look to the west/ Out across the River Shannon/ I can still see you smiling / Johnny boy, oh Johnny boy.” Whether this is a reference to someone he lost, or just a generic character I don't know, but it's a moving and powerful song, amply demonstrating that the deepest emotions and the biggest effect can be achieved with the very minimum of instrumentation.
The next two tracks are twelve-inch (ask yer dad!) versions of two of the tracks, and so not really worth discussing, but the closer certainly is. Starting off with a very Journey-ish keyboard intro, quite similar in fact to “Who's crying now”, it's another ballad which again explores the plight of the lonely, this time two lovers who see each other, having broken up, but ignore each other, perhaps unable to look into the eyes they used to adore, or else just not caring, hatred or apathy having replaced love. Again, Gary looks at the problem from the view of both a woman and a man, cleverly (or not) simply switching “he” for “she”, “his” for “her” and repeating the same lyric in alternating verses, thereby avoiding laying the blame, as it were, at the feet of either. And so the lyric goes from
”Sometimes he sees her walking by/ He never looks her in the eye” to
”She doesn't know, she doesn't care/ What he is feeling” and so on. Great soulful little guitar solo to back up Carter's lush keyboards as the song moves towards its conclusion, as well as good backing vocals from the keyboard man.
Like I say, one of Gary's best albums, or certainly one of my favourites of his, “Wild frontier” occupies pride of place in my Gary Moore collection, alongside the likes of “Corridors of power” and “Run for cover”. Rarely has any artiste delved, I believe, so deeply into their own emotions and history to lay bare their soul and committed it to music. But then, with Gary you always got one hundred percent, and you would have expected no less.
TRACKLISTING
1. Over the hills and far away
2. Wild frontier
3. Take a little time
4. Friday on my mind
5. The loner
6. Strangers in the darkness
7. Thunder rising
8. Johnny boy
9. Crying in the shadows
(The album also contains 12” versions of both “Over the hills and far away” and “Wild frontier”, but as they're additional/bonus tracks I haven't included them in the tracklisting here. They will, however, be featured in another section to be run during the week.)