Rory Gallagher on guitars (yes again!)

 so any excuse I say . . . . . . 

 Rory Gallagher: “I use a Fender Stratocaster, mostly, and have a Telecaster for slide guitar. I kind of like Fenders. They’re good and crisp, and they travel well. Gibsons are nice, but they’re a little more low key. Fenders have a much more vicious sound. People have made guitars for me, but I never end up playing them, or I haven’t so far. I’m attached to the one I have.”

“For acoustic, I have a Martin D-35 or a National steel-bodied, “the one-resonator Acolian. I used to play the Martin a lot more, but now I just, more or less, work on the National because it’s a lot brassier. The material I do suits the National.”

“I don’t have any real Irish music in my thing, even though it creeps in here and there. But I don’t deliberately play any Irish gigs or anything. Oh, I like that when it happens, but I don’t see myself as an electric Celtic rocker.”

“When I started playing , the first guys I liked were Lonnie Donegan (of “British skiffle” fame), Buddy holly, Eddie Cochran, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Gene Vincent. And later on, Tommy Tucker, Willie Dixon, and Muddy Waters….the obvious blues people. I played on The London muddy Waters Sessions (Chess), and did a few Willie Dixon numbers that time. I have the album, yeah. Muddy was really good at it. I have the London Muddy Waters-Howling Wolf Sessions as well.”

Photo: John Prew

Don's Tunes

Rory Gallagher - Pistol Slapper Blues/Too Much Alcohol - 2/14/77 RTE Studios, Dublin

playing his National Resonator Acolian