"What do you think of that
I'm sleeping down at the laundromat"
My buddy John Hughes came back from vacation and told me about this guy Rory Gallagher, who had a debut album that they were playing all over K.C. radio.
I never had much respect for K.C. radio. I figured that was the boonies compared to New York. I didn't cotton to that Foghat record he loved, with "I Just Want To Make Love To You", and this band Randy Bachman had formed after the Guess Who, with this song "Blue Collar".
But I'm a diehard Foghat fan today. Meat and potatoes rock that makes me forget about all my problems and gives me the macho edge I sometimes need. Wanna go for a SLOW RIDE??
And, of course, the following summer, "Takin' Care Of Business" was huge. I still didn't respect Bachman Turner Overdrive, but I never switched the radio on that song.
Back in the seventies, hot guitarists were as prevalent as beatmasters are today. So, I wasn't wowed by Rory Gallagher's chops at the time. But there WAS this feeling to the intro to "Laundromat". Like he was eating a buzzsaw. But the vocal thereafter, it was as smooth as...someone who'd slept in a laundromat for a week would sound. The rough and smooth got under my skin, I bought the album.
Rory Gallagher never blew up. He had a shitty label, no promotion, and they never did play him in New York.
But some of these peripheral artists, who never really got traction here in the States, make it onto XM's Deep Tracks. That's where I heard Rory Gallagher's "Walkin' Wounded".
Of course I immediately downloaded it. Even though Richard Griffiths sent me every album Rory ever did on CD. It was easier this way, to just sit in front of the computer and take it. But it didn't come down so fast. You know somebody's fading out when you can't get their tunes P2P.
Do you know that song by the Lynch Mob? "Tangled In The Web"? Remember how that guitar intro made your body fold in upon itself? The intro to "Walkin' Wounded" does the same thing. It's not about the notes, but the groove.
Rory Gallagher slides into the kind of groove that Clapton never gets into anymore. A gutter with soul. One within which you don't fuck Sheryl Crow, but you spend all night in the corner bar, debating sports and then going home alone.
We don't talk about the wounds. Have you seen some of the pictures of the Iraq veterans? Like the guy in the "New York Times Magazine" with one eye?
Turns out modern technology allows the wounded to live. We just don't want to look at them. Put that guy on Katie Couric's feel good news with Suri Cruise and the war would end in a week. It's about the inhumanity to man.
And there's a certain inhumanity in the fact that Rory Gallagher never made it. It caused him to drink himself to death.
Oh, he got a shot, with his first band, Taste, I saw them open for Blind Faith. But then he slogged it out to little recognition and little money. Not everybody gets to be Elton John or Rod Stewart.
But listening to "Walkin' Wounded" it's clear we lost a talent. Rory wrings out of his guitar something you just can't get out of a synth, life. He's manhandling his axe. He's on a first name basis with it. They've got a symbiotic relationship. It's the strong, silent type. Whereas Rory is the vocal one in the relationship. He pulls the best out of his companion, just like a husband pulls the best out of his wife, or vice versa.
Actually, vice versa is better. You're lying there in bed. And she reaches over and places her hand knowingly upon your sword. She polishes it, gets it ready for action, to the point where she then slips it inside.
There was a sexual element to the music of yore. Not "SexyBack", not something exterior, not some laser that bounces off of you, but a soulful feeling, that lodges in your gut. THAT'S why we went to the show. Not to be a member of the group, not to look at the opposite sex, but to get that FEELING!
"Walkin' Wounded" is from Rory Gallagher's last album, 1988's "Fresh Evidence". After decades pass, most people are just going through the motions, they're past their peak, they've lost the desire. But there's a hunger, a truth in "Walkin' Wounded", that sounds as modern TODAY as when it was cut.
The skinny white kids over the pond heard the Delta bluesmasters and were inspired to not only pick up and play their guitars, but to invent a whole new sound. That's what the British Invasion was based on, black American music.
This is not New Kids On The Block, nor 'N Sync. No, this blues-influenced rock is timeless, it's why Led Zeppelin sells so prodigiously today.
But Zeppelin wasn't the only act of worth. Sure, Rory Gallagher wasn't hidden, Alan Lomax didn't have to find him, but maybe in this era of sheen we have to be reminded of the grit, players who only had the music, who didn't have videos to get them through, who only knew how to strap on their instruments and WAIL!
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