aaamusic | On 05, Jun 2011

Everybody loves you when you’re dead, the line goes. Many a posthumous release has been given the holy grail treatment out of respect for the dearly departed, but let me tell you, Rory Gallagher’s ‘Notes From San Francisco’ is not praised out of tokenistic worship of the dead (a favourite hobby amongst us music fans) but because this is the real deal.

Lost to the world for over 30 years, this gem from Gallagher’s late-70s solo work is a quality slab of blues-rock mastery. ‘Rue The Day’ starts things with a full-on barroom boogie rocker, the trembling piano and smoky rasped vocals held up by Gallagher’s stellar guitarwork and passion that burns straight from the pages of rock history to the present day. Following is the swinging dazzler ‘Persuasion’, a playful number with seductive piano and a sharp yet silken percussion approach to provide simple counter to the intricate yet grounded riffs and solos. ‘Cruise On Out’ is the railroad track to end all railroad tracks, the dumkit chugging away just as solid and twice as thrilling as any runaway train, while the distorted guitar snarls out a feral desert tornado of notes. ‘B Girl’ has some tight-as-anything semi-psychedelia in a gravel-toned growl in the vocals and an organ-centred sound that’s reminiscent of The Doors’ ‘L.A. Woman’, with a dose of edge and real life in the psych-dabbling. For all the melodic spiralling, this track has feet firmly on the ground and a sublime attitude and devil-may-care smirk. This 60s air follows into the slowed-down ‘Mississippi Sheiks’, with its leisurely pace and jangling edge to the growling guitar, although blues dirt permeates the heart and soul of this track to beautiful effect. Tumbling drums, heady bassline, a hazy atmosphere, and guitars that bleed out charisma and finesse. Clinking bells and a vaguely exotic tone offset the traditional rock n roll wonderfully. But just in case you felt things were getting too trippy, a beautiful acoustic heartbreak ‘Wheels Within Wheels’ takes us back down to earth, before ‘Overnight Bag’ provides an almost poppy number with hooks and melodies to spare and a troubadour smile coated in roadside dust and shining with vitality that spirals into a simply jaw-dropping instrumental section, each musician seeming to communicate a novel’s worth of expression into their playing.

Basically, to elucidate upon the studio tracks would be to go around in circles, as they offer up a base of blues-rock in two flavours: stunning and phenomenal. So let’s move onto the live tracks. Here we have Gallagher and his band take a stripped-down approach to their tunes, and yes it well and truly pays off. From the blinding rollercoaster thrill of ‘Follow Me’ to the searing blast of ‘Sea Cruise’ we are treated to the finest of a band at the peak of their style. Inspired in part by the bare bones and blood ‘n guts approach of punk, the band take their sound and peel away the trimmings to leave a lean, mean beast of a set. Gallagher’s raucous, impassioned roar matches his guitar work, which sparks with vitality enough to wake the dead, and he manages to make his highly skilled playing feel consistently organic and spontaneous. ‘Tattoo’d Lady’ offers up real rock exhilaration with a speeding momentum into a solo to burn the ears of lesser mortals, ‘Off The Handle’ is a swaggering stomp through sweaty summer blues, and ‘Bullfrog Blues’ has cheek, charm, and some of the best get up and dance riff-stomp-and off-we-go musicianship to really launch what must have been an unforgettable show into the stratosphere.

Lest we forget, this is the man whom Hendrix himself considered the greatest guitarist in the world, and this is the lost grail album that got not only my own uninitiated ears upon first listen, but drew my dad into the room to spontaneously remark: “Fucking hell, I needed reminding how good Rory Gallagher is.” If you’ve fallen in love with the raucous punk-blues boogie of The Jim Jones Revue, this will likely provide the God for your Messiah.

Author: Katie H-Halinski