Artist: Gallagher, Rory
Label: Capo
Release: 1999
Duration: 2h 6.49
Rating: 4.5/5
BBC Sessions is an important album in the Rory Gallagher story, mostly because it paints such a vivid picture of the full breadth of what the legendary guitarist had to say. The album is a mosaic of archive recordings that spent decades hidden away in the bunkers of the British BBC, pulled out of different creative periods of the great musician. This chronologically lined-up collection of gems offers a unique chance to watch the master at work from different angles, and on top of that, caught in about the most intimate setting you could ask for. The album brims with classic Rory Gallagher magic, while also bearing witness to the incredible breadth of musical versatility of one of the most captivating guitarists in the blues rock world.
The contrast in the repertoire is surely one of the essential elements of Rory’s mission, and it sets the guitarist well apart from a lot of his contemporaries. With this collection of BBC adventures, Rory strides confidently through different genre worlds, from the jazzy-flavored noodling on Calling Card, They Don’t Make Them Like You or Jacknife Beat, gems spiced up for the “live” setting with a ton of stunning melodic interplay, to heavy-metal-style ironmongery like Hands Of, which is blues magic of the typical Gallagher caliber, while on Race The Breezez we catch Rory in a grandiose blend of both jazz and blues. Throughout, Gallagher builds an incredibly tense atmosphere of magical, intangible energy, and that mysterious sense of uncertainty about which way things will go has defined his music so strongly since the very start of his solo career. I Take What I Want, for instance, comes across as a slightly headlong charge of heavy rock, mostly thanks to the hyperactive nature of Lou Martin’s Hammond, which, after limping along at first in the shadow of the ever-present force of sharp guitar riffing, erupts uncontrollably into a barely manageable chaos of sound. Aside from that moment of uncertainty, Martin’s first-class keyboard work faithfully plays the role of chief provocateur for many of Rory’s outbursts of pure brilliance, and the fruitfulness of their partnership also guarantees a steady supply of improvised power struggles, a welcome departure in organic feel from the tidiness of the album versions of the songs.
If you’re not yet familiar with Rory Gallagher’s legacy, BBC Sessions will shake you up good and proper (though I’d bet that in most cases it’ll mostly wear you out) with its demonstration of the musician’s remarkable grasp of traditional blues rhetoric. Besides revealing Gallagher’s improvisational skills, What In The World rightly bets on the guitarist’s ability to interpret, with real feeling, ancient motifs unknown to most music connoisseurs. We get less convincing treatment with the robust Roberta, which comes off as an instant extension of Rory’s evergreen favorite Garbage Man, while Rory shows his deep respect for the sounds of the past, under whose baton the point of his own expressive nature was sharpened to a fine edge, with an inventively rounded-off When My Baby She Left Me by blues legend John Lee Williamson.
Gallagher was considered an exceptional musician, and his instrumental delivery and often hard-to-pin-down mood-driven vocals always came as a package with first-rate instrumental backing. Today, with the guitarist’s timeless legacy unjustly sinking into oblivion, BBC Sessions stands as perhaps a reminder of those facts, while at the same time documenting the astonishing power of Gallagher’s stage presence. Rory simply lived to present the power of the blues on stage. That’s where he could connect with the audience, toward whom he always had a genuine, honest and directly emotional relationship.
Lineup
Rory Gallagher: vocals, guitar
Gerry McAvoy: bass
Lou Martin: keyboards
In Concert
Rod deAth: drums (1-9)
Ted McKenna: drums (10)
Studio
Wilgar Campbell: drums (5,6,10,12)
Rod deAth: drums (1-4 & 7-9)
Brendan O’Neil: drums (11)
Production
Donal Gallagher
Tracklist
In Concert
1. Calling Card
2. What In The World
3. Jacknife Beat
4. Country Mile
5. Got My Mojo WorkingFuller
6. Garbage Man
7. Roberta
8. Used To Be
9. I Take What I Want
10. Cruise On Out
Studio
1. Race The Breeze
2. Hands Off
3. Crest Of A Wave
4. Feel So Bad
5. For The Last Time
6. It Takes Time
7. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
8. Daughter Of The Everglades
9. They Don’t Make Them Like You
10. Tore Down
11. When My Baby She Left Me
12. Hoodoo Man
