Following his premature death in 1995 at the age of 47, the legacy of legendary Irish blues guitarist Rory Gallagher has fallen to his brother Donal to manage.
“Sadly it seems that his stature is increasing,” Donal told Goldenpec, when asked about his brother’s reputation since his death. Sad that it is, in the sense Rory didn't live to see it. Now, to appeal to both this mix of new fans and a dedicated hardcore of long-time devotees, Donal has tried something different with a new collection of Rory’s music. ‘Kickback City’ is a combination of media forms to produce a unique type of musical package that hasn’t really been tried before.
Drawing on Rory’s love of pulp crime novels and film noir, ‘Kickback City’ (review here) incorporates a new novella by Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin, art by graphic artist Timothy Truman as well as a double CD collection of Rory’s most crime influenced songs.
“I think what I want to open up to is the fact that Rory’s writing was always overshadowed by his guitar playing,” Donal explains. “A lot of his songs, people enjoyed them, but they probably never got where they were coming from.”
The aim of ‘Kickback City’ is to do just that, while at the same time providing fans with a unique physical product. Donal’s motivation for the produced stemmed from the feeling that a simple collection of music wasn’t enough. “Nowadays getting a plasticated CD inside is not on. Being able to get a package with the art work and everything is certainly good for the record shops. In a way, it’s a physical thing.”
The process that led to ‘Kickback City’ began with an idea that Donal had been kicking around for years. “I was working on another album as it happened, and I was asked to write the foreword for a crime novel in America, because the guy was a fan of my brother’s, and the whole idea was to play on the correlation between Rory’s crime songs and the novel. When I was excusing myself from the studio, the engineer said to me, he said, ‘Oh that’s funny I’m just reading an Ian Rankin novel, and Rebus the detective in that, likes Rory too.’ So in the process of writing that [foreword] I drew on various tracks to illustrate the point for the book, and I thought ‘oh, well this could make a good album idea.’”
After kicking the idea around for a bit longer Donal got in touch with Rankin to sound him out; he even burned him a CD of the relevant crime tracks, “particularly Continental Op, the track that was a tribute to Dashiell Hammett, and I just put a little post script saying: one day I might do an album like this, and maybe you’d be up for writing a few sleeve notes. “
In the end Rankin wrote more than just sleeve notes, he penned a new novella that seems like it was always intended to parallel the music of Rory. The hard-boiled detective yarn in the mould of Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett serves as a fitting companion to tracks like Kickback City, Secret Agent or Sinnerboy.
When asked if he’d like to produce another project like his, Gallagher is enthusiastic. “Oh I’d love to. Or at least if I could think of an idea I would, because I mean obviously the record companies are delighted with the idea, because it crosses over to the book store as far as they’re concerned and it works very well form a retail/business point of view.”
One thing he’ll be watching closely is if other bands or artists attempt to pick up on the concept. “There has always been the classic rock opera and concept album type albums,” he says, “but where this one is kind of unique in a sense, and in some ways it’d be great to have another idea like that, but in another way if it’s unique its unique and that’s what keeps it special.”
2011 saw the release of a posthumous album ‘Notes from San Francisco.’ But when asked if there is anything else like this yet to be released, Donal responds in the negative.
“Not studio recordings no. I mean there’s a few odd tracks with different takes and a huge amount of live recordings, but at the same time you don’t want to just release willy-nilly. Because Rory made some brilliant Irish tour and live in Europe records, so we’ve done live releases. You can’t undermine what’s already out there, you know?”
Nevertheless, the legacy of Rory Gallagher’s music seems to be in good hands. Particularly with a revival of interest in folk and blues that has taken place in recent years, something Donal has been following intently.
“It’s funny,” he says, “It’s a fashion. One case in point is Mumford and Sons. Winston [Marshall], the banjo guitar player in that band, he lives nearby [in London]. And I’ve met up with him in the neighbourhood. And it’s interesting to see the whole semi-folk revival that they sort of brought along. He called me the other day actually because he was looking into old types of amplifiers, and he was aware of Rory’s love of old amps, and he said, ‘by any chance you wouldn’t have one of these old amps?’ which we had. So it’s very encouraging. As I said he lives nearby, and he was in my front garden the other day, and he had a plastic bag full of vinyl, he’d been to Rough Trade in the centre of town and he was buying music on vinyl.”
And how would Rory have reacted to this revival, particular since it was accompanied with a revival in analogue recording and the sale of vinyls?
“Yeah, he’d have been quite intrigued and encouraged I think. Obviously I’m sort of devoted to Mumford and Sons. I’ve been to a few of their gigs, and they really know how to rock out in their own way. And I think their next album will be a more rocky album from what I’m hearing.”
Another musician Donal is quick to mention is the contemporary American blues rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa (who himself has cited Gallagher as an influence in the past). “Just look at his ability to stretch his playing into something new and still carry the torch for all the blues players.”
When ask how Rory’s own legacy fits into this revival, Donal says that, “I think it’s almost like a couple of generations missed out on it, but now there is younger generation are coming up who got into Rory by YouTube and these other outlets in this new electronic world.
“Not that Rory would have approved necessarily,” Donal adds, “because he was an analogue man. But maybe in some ways this new electronic world has created a more level playing field and kids have the opportunity to see more performance from the past. And it just seems like there is a groundswell of young musicians getting into Rory as well.”
‘Kickback City’ is out now. Read our review here.