A year ago, blues-rock guitar czar Joe Bonamassa travelled to Cork, Ireland, to perform three concerts in tribute to that city’s native son, Rory Gallagher, the late great blues-rocker who as well as anyone defined the blues-rock genre. A week ago, the highlights from those concerts came out in both audio and video form as The Spirit of Rory: Live from Cork. The album consists of fourteen songs, a mix of Rory’s best originals and the blues covers that Rory recorded in his prime. Those recordings in turn inspired a very young Joe Bonamassa to become the towering talent he is today. With this release he is here to return the favor.
The Spirit of Rory may not meaningfully raise Rory’s profile with the general public, but Rory fans and Bonamassa fans alike are in store for a treat, or something of a disappointment. Or both.
It’s rare for other artists to cover Rory’s music; exceptions to this rule are mostly from lower-profile artists. A star-studded tribute album is long overdue, something along the lines of Beat the Retreat (the Richard Thompson tribute) or Return of the Grievous Angel (Gram Parsons). Such a project may never materialize at this point. But The Spirit of Rory at least gives fans a full-length tribute by an acknowledged master of modern blues guitar. That’s cause for celebration throughout the Roryverse and anywhere else blues music still matters. The occasion may also trigger some griping. Gripers gonna gripe.
To his great credit, Bonamassa has been generous with his fame and fortune; he gives back to the blues community in major ways. Though still in his 40s, Bonamassa has attained the stature of an elder or an ambassador for the art-form. When he saw last year that B.B. King’s centennial was going to pass without adequate fanfare and reflection, Bonamassa took matters into his own hands; he produced B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100, one of the largest collaborative blues projects in decades. And now he has done something similar for Rory. However you rate Bonamassa as a musician, he earns respect here for honoring an artist who was largely overlooked in his day, and who has remained fairly low profile (outside of Cork, anyway) in the 25 years since Rory’s passing.
Gallagher’s commercial and creative peak was in the 1970s, and it’s the period Bonamassa focuses on for this project. While Rory’s power trio, Taste, made a mark in the late 1960s, particularly with its set at the Isle of Wight festival, it was with Gallagher’s solo album debut in ‘71 that his career caught fire. Many more top-notch studio albums followed in steady succession, along with two outstanding live compilations that are the jewels in the discography: Live in Europe and the double live LP Irish Tour ‘74.
In those glory years, upstart bands like Rush and U2 opened for Rory, and the Rolling Stones (or Mick Jagger at least) courted him to replace Mick Taylor. By the 1980s, though, Rory’s new material lacked punch, album releases became infrequent, and his health began to deteriorate. Rory’s death in 1995 at age 47 was a shocker, and nothing short of tragic. (In the blues world, sadly, it’s an all-too-common pattern.)
Judging by Bonamassa’s set list for the Cork concerts, it’s clear that Irish Tour ’74 is his jam. In fact, The Spirit of Rory was initially conceived as a 50-year-anniversary celebration of the Irish Tour release. Incorporating songs from Rory’s other albums was a good call; it makes Rory himself the focus of the celebration, rather than one album from his extensive catalog.
To that end Bonamassa and band present two blues chestnuts from Rory’s Live in Europe release (“Bullfrog Blues” and “Messin’ with the Kid”), and three of Gallagher’s most distinctive originals that were not on Irish Tour: the jazz-adjacent “Calling Card,” the hard-driving “Bad Penny” (Rory’s most popular track), and the lyrical ballad “I Fall Apart.” The latter is a fan favorite that never found a home in Rory’s live shows, so this choice was superb and fills a hole.
All the other tracks on The Spirit of Rory are drawn from Irish Tour, itself a mix of rock-infused blues covers, and fiery originals. I did wonder if one or two of the lesser tracks from Irish Tour should have been dropped, such as “Who’s That Coming.” But Bonamassa and band actually hit some of their highest highs on this song, with keyboardist Reese Wynans laying down spirited Hammond organ work. Wynans has the hot hand on “Calling Card” as well, and he steals the show on “I Wonder Who.” (The keyboardist was a mainstay in Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble band.)
These moments compensate for some uninspired guitar work on several other songs. Some originals are just too original for anyone to match, not even Joe Bonamassa on a good night. (In fairness, Rory had an entire tour of Ireland from which to pick selections for his live LP. Bonamassa had only three nights in Cork for his.)
Another clear winner on the release is “A Million Miles Away.” This rendition reaches a higher plane thanks to vocalist Jade MacRae. She brings a beautiful urgency to the song’s chorus–the track has “Gimme Shelter” vibes when she’s at the mic. Sometimes that’s all it takes to transform a song from a bloodless cover into a truly fresh take on the material. I don’t mean to gripe again, but I had hoped for more of these transformations than Bonamassa was able to deliver.
The most impressive track on this outing may be Bonamassa’s cover of Rory’s cover of “As The Crow Flies,” a deep cut from Tony Joe White. In his intro remarks Bonamassa shares that it’s the first song he learned on acoustic guitar. (OK, only a true child prodigy would consider Rory’s tour de force a starting point.) He then announces he is going to play it on the same guitar Rory used on Irish Tour, a 1930s National resonator on loan from the Cork museum that is now its keeper. (Not incidentally, Bonamassa owns one of the world’s greatest guitar collections in private hands.) And as if to honor the instrument itself, Bonamassa indeed plays with extra nimbleness and sensitivity; he puts his own stamp on the piece in ways Rory would’ve applauded.
Not that Bonamassa comes close to Rory’s consummate version of “As The Crow Flies.” Sorry, but listen to Rory rove seamlessly between soulful blues-harp blowing, fancy finger-picking, and searing bottleneck slide work, and you’ll agree.
To put it plainly: Bonamassa is no Rory Gallagher. (Nor does he try to be!) In his playing there’s always smoke, but rarely is there fire. Hyper-proficiency, yes, but soulfulness…not so much. He’s sharing the love of the music and the man–a grand gesture–and he’s not out to showcase his own mastery. The best tributes, in fact, are often the ones that leave you more impressed by the artist being celebrated than by the artists paying tribute. I’ve listened to Bonamassa and band with open ears, and I’ve heard enough: I come away readier than ever to spin those well-worn Rory Gallagher records one more time.
