Posts Tagged ‘Beat Club Sessions’

RORY GALLAGHER – ” Just The Smile ” Beat Club Session

Posted: March 8, 2015 in MUSIC
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM4CI9PqDzE

The Beat Club Sessions 1971-72, featuring Rory Gallagher evidenced by this dozen-track collection of live-in-the-studio work from the early years of his solo career. This disc officially appeared in September 2010 and collects four tunes from three separate sessions recorded May 1971 through June 1972 for the German Beat Club TV series (a companion DVD was released simultaneously). The songs will be familiar to Rory Gallagher fans, as most are available on his first few albums. All but Junior Wells‘ “Messin’ with the Kid” and Sonny Thompson‘s “Toredown” (probably best known through Freddie King‘s version) are originals, played by his sturdy backing trio featuring Wilgar Campbell on drums and longtime bassist  Gerry McAvoy. While there aren’t many musical surprises, these versions are noticeably leaner and tougher than their associated studio performances. This also makes a logical companion piece to Gallagher‘s breakthrough release, Live in Europe, since it’s recorded with the same band but only repeats four of its selections. The blues-rocker was young, hungry, and scorching hot during these years and Germany was one of the first countries where he found success. Numbers such as “Crest of a Wave,” “Sinnerboy,” “Used to Be,” the aforementioned “Toredown” along with the acoustic “Just the Smile” and “I Don’t Know Where I’m Going” don’t show up often in concert versions, if at all, even with the plethora of live Rory Gallagher material available, so clean, live recordings of them are a real find for fans. The guitarist hit his groove on these sessions, as can be heard on a surging “I Could’ve Had Religion,” where his slide work simply burns. The song “Hands Up,” caught here from the 1971 show, wouldn’t appear on a studio title until 1973’s Blueprint, although the arrangement didn’t change markedly over the years. Gallagher rips into a seven-minute take on his slow blues “Should’ve Learned My Lesson” with the type of intensity Jimmy Page routinely displayed, and Campbell‘s drums have ferocity similar to John Bonham‘s. The sound is terrific for live music of the time — full, rich, and well recorded, with every instrument easily identifiable in the mix but displaying all the rawness and crackling sparks that made Rory Gallagher such an iconic figure in the history of blues-rock.

 

RORY GALLAGHER – ” A Million Miles Away ” Irish Tour 74′

Posted: February 5, 2015 in MUSIC
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Rory Gallagher Live in Madrid back in 1975, an amazing performance which is still remembered well.

Rory Gallagher Million Miles Away The Old Grey Whistle Test Live

I attended my second ever rock concert  around 1969 But In the coming years the gigs I still recall the most and always an absolute blinder was with Rory Gallagher one of the most consummate and charismatic showmen on the circuit pulling out all the stops in Birmingham Town Hall that was so hot by the end it felt like a Florida swamplands  With his beat up old Sunburst Fender Stratocaster he was a guitar player of such staggering ability that seasoned guitarists and bluesmen would watch in shock and awe. In the seventies this unassuming Irishman spent so much time on the “Old Grey Whistle Test” and European TV broadcasts that he ought to have paid council tax to the BBC. Indeed in those days before video I recorded his 1976 OGWT special on a Grundig Reel to Reel Tape Re-corder with a the microphone taped to the television speaker .
Gallagher was one of the most prolific touring artists and his great live albums of this era especially the “Irish Tour 1974” are peerless. He was also constantly in demand from television across the US and Europe and thus we have the Beat Club Sessions. These are previously unreleased live recordings made for the German TV series of the same name and recorded over three different appearances in the early seventies.

 

RORY GALLAGHER – ” Toredown “

Posted: January 30, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Rory Gallagher from the Beat Club Sessions, was a German music programme that ran from September 1965 to December 1972. It was broadcast from Bremen, Germany and is notable for being the first German show to be based around popular music, and featured artists like The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Tina Turner, The Who, Black Sabbath, The Bee Gees, The Beach Boys and Kraftwerk in its seven-year run. Rory Gallagher was one of the shows most frequent visitors performing four times in the space of just over two years. Rory’s first appearance on the programme was with his band ‘Taste’ in 1970 and he returned soon after with his own solo work. This CD features 12 classic versions of Rorys early solo material from three separate performances during 1971-72, the 1972 recording being a full Beat Club special on Rory Gallagher.