It's true: sometimes they really do. Nothing shows quite how good a musician is than instrumental tracks, and though few and far between, Gary had his share of instrumental work on his albums over the years, most of which were his own original compositions. Here are the ones I could track down. Some have been featured before, whether in album reviews or as part of our series “The softer side of...”, but this is the first time I've gathered them all together in the one spot.
From his debut, “Grinding stone”, there are two, the title track
and “The energy dance”.
“Back on the streets”, his second solo album, released five years after his debut, also has three instrumentals, in “The flight of the snow moose”
the somewhat jazzy “Hurricane”
and the much shorter “What would you rather bee or a wasp”
There are also three versions of "Spanish guitar" on the album as extra tracks, one of which is an instrumental version.
It's another six years before we come across “Dirty fingers”, title track to the album released in 1984, and also the only instrumental on the album.
Also in 1984 we had "Victims of the future", the remastered edition of which contains "Blinder".
It's not then till “Wild frontier”, 1987's powerful effort, that Gary again tackles an instrumental, but man has it been worth waiting for! This is “The loner”.
Then there's 1989's amazing cover of “The messiah will come again”, from “After the war”. This, to my knowledge, is the first time Gary commited to vinyl/acetate an instrumental cover.
Also on that album were two instrumentals called “Dunluce”, parts 1 and 2.
The compilation, "Ballads and blues", released in 1994, features this great instrumental, "Blues for Narada".
The next one appears on “Back to the blues”, 2001, and it's “The prophet”.
His last album to feature an instrumental then was 2006's “Old new ballads blues”, on which we find “Cut it out”.