CG

[CG @cdg68everton]

@DCsportsvalue

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@TheHouseof08 Bowie

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@TheHouseof08 The Only Ones an easy choice of those 2 for me.

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@TheHouseof08 Tough choice between Squeeze and Joe Jackson but I’ll go for Up The Junction. First single I ever bought myself.

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

In 1995, Rory Gallagher lay dying in a London hospital.

His liver was failing.

He was only 47 years old.

The transplant surgery succeeded.

Then, while recovering in the ICU, he caught MRSA.

He slipped into a coma and died weeks later.

Outside Ireland, most people barely know his name.

But ask almost any legendary guitarist about Rory Gallagher…

…and watch their face change.

Brian May said Rory helped shape Queen’s sound.

Slash said the same about Guns N’ Roses.

Johnny Marr called him “the man who changed my musical life.”

The Edge said it too.

Even The Rolling Stones tried to recruit him.

He turned them down.

Rory Gallagher was born in Ireland in 1948 and grew up in Cork.

At age 9, he got his first guitar.

At 15, he bought a battered 1961 Fender Stratocaster for £100.

He would play that same guitar for the rest of his life.

By the end, most of the paint had literally worn off from sweat and constant touring.

He started playing tiny clubs as a teenager before forming a blues-rock band called Taste.

By 1969, Taste was exploding across Europe.

They opened for Cream’s farewell concert.

Toured America with Blind Faith.

Played the Isle of Wight Festival.

Then it all collapsed.

The band broke apart in 1970.

Rory went solo.

And this is where his story became unusual.

He never tried to become a celebrity.

No flashy image.

No rock-star persona.

No tabloid life.

Just jeans, a checked shirt, and a guitar.

While most bands avoided Ireland during The Troubles, Rory toured there constantly.

Belfast.

Derry.

Dublin.

Catholics and Protestants standing together in the same audience during one of the most violent periods in Irish history.

Music first.

Always.

Offers kept coming.

Cream wanted him.

Deep Purple wanted him.

Canned Heat wanted him.

Then, in 1975, Mick Jagger personally invited him to audition for The Rolling Stones after Mick Taylor left.

Rory flew out.

Played with the Stones.

Then quietly left for another tour commitment without ever really answering them.

Ronnie Wood got the job instead.

By the late 1980s, everything started changing.

Synth-pop replaced blues-rock.

Record sales dropped.

Rory developed a severe fear of flying.

Doctors prescribed heavy sedatives.

He mixed them with alcohol while continuing relentless tours.

Night after night.

Year after year.

The combination slowly destroyed his liver.

Still, he kept performing.

Because the stage was the only place he truly seemed alive.

Offstage, he was intensely shy.

No marriage.

No children.

No celebrity lifestyle.

Just crime novels, isolation, and music.

His final concert was January 10, 1995, in the Netherlands.

He looked visibly ill.

The tour was cancelled.

Weeks later, his brother found him gravely sick in his apartment.

Doctors said only a liver transplant could save him.

The operation worked.

Then the hospital infection killed him instead.

Ireland mourned like it had lost family.

Thousands lined the streets for his funeral in Cork.

Today, Ireland has:
• statues of Rory
• streets named after him
• commemorative coins
• annual festivals in his honor

Yet outside Ireland, many people still have no idea who he was.

But musicians do.

Because Rory Gallagher became something rarer than fame:

A guitarist’s guitarist.

A man who loved music more than celebrity.

And played until his body finally gave out.

[CG @cdg68everton]

@TheHouseof08 The Clash- mainly for the brilliant bass from the great Norman Watt-Roy

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@BettingSitesCom Shergar Irish Derby

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@TheHouseof08 Photo finish Joy Division and The Smiths.
It’s a dead heat for me between these two.

[CG @cdg68everton]

@TheHouseof08 X Ray Spex for me.

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@TheHouseof08 The Jam

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@TheHouseof08 Joy Division surely?

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Chaddesley Corbett. UK premier point to point venue final meeting of the season today. Killer Clown won a good class Ladies Open for Daisy White to cap a fine season for the pair, seeing off Gracchus De Balme. Very much Ladies day as three mares won other races on the card.

[CG @cdg68everton]

@TheHouseof08 The Damned- remember the wonderfully shambolic performance of it on OGWT

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@DanBarberTF @HonestFrank @NPearceRacing @KnutsfordRaces Won’t be next year mate. Today was the last meeting to held at Tabley.

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@BettingSitesCom No form though with the horses, poor.

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@BHAHorseracing @plumptonraces Pathetic

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@DCsportsvalue @bagshaw2112 Very distant relatives of mine they are Dough

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@DashStud @DCsportsvalue And me I tapped in error. Burnham the snake- not for me.

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@DCsportsvalue Ronnie O’Sullevan