RIP Rory Gallagher June 14, 1995

With all respect to Joe and all of the other great players who came before and after Rory, I must say he was The Greatest guitarist/performer I ever saw live. I was fortunate to see him twice, both times up close. Many people talk about "Legends", but there was and only will be one Rory Gallagher.

Roy

Has anyone got the lost album Notes from San Francisco yet?

In November/December 1977 and January 1978, Rory Gallagher recorded a complete new studio album in San Francisco. There were a variety of reasons why the album wasn’t released at the time, though in 1992 Rory did reveal that the main reason it didn’t come out (it would have fitted between Photo Finish and Top Priority) was because “the mixing of it had become complicated” and, as a result, he “couldn’t get some of the songs to sound right”. He also said that with the passing of time, he now felt there was a good chance the album “could eventually come out in some form--remixed”.

Sadly, of course, Rory is no longer with us in person but his legacy has been lovingly maintained and nurtured by his brother and manager, Dónal. He, now along with his son Daniel, Rory’s nephew, have returned to these recordings and performed the extraordinary job of mixing the album with contemporary technology--and Rory would surely approve of the results. To enhance what is already a 'holy grail' package for Rory’s fanbase, the Gallagher’s have also compiled and mixed a live album recorded over the four shows Rory performed at The Old Waldorf in San Francisco around the same period, in December, 1979. The result is a mouth-watering package.

The title, Notes From San Francisco is, of course a play on words with notes being both musical ones and written ones, as Rory used to send postcards back to Ireland from wherever his career took him. The sleeve is an original postcard he sent and several others from the time have been sourced from the original US postcard company who produced them. This limited deluxe edition includes, amongst other things, a set of personalised Rory postcards complete with Rory ‘stamps’.
Rory’s hand-written lyrics for the studio album were in a notebook in the possession of the album’s original producer, Elliot Mazer (famous for his work with Neil Young, Janis Joplin, Linda Ronstadt and The Byrds, amongst many others) and these have also been reproduced in the new artwork.

My Limited Edition copy of NFSF arrived late last week and I would recommend it to any Rory fan and to those who have yet to discover one of the greatest guitarists ever to grace a stage. First class production on the unreleased album and the live set is up there with his best. A fitting tribute at this time. RIP Rory