Rory Gallagher
The Beat Club Sessions
Eagle Records
It’s no secret that Rory Gallagher is one of the most
criminally overlooked axemen of the guitar hero’s
golden age. But more releases like
The Beat Club
Sessions may yet right that injustice. This archival
release is a record of Gallagher at his most laserguided
and nasty. And the opening cut “Laundromat,”
is a showcase for everything that made Gallagher
special—touch, dynamics, killer timing, and phrasing that slays. Working with his
equally deadly rhythm section—Wilgar Campbell on drums and Gerry McAvoy on
drums—Gallagher also gives his smoky and sonorous vocals a prominent place in
these tunes, further demonstrating that he was one of the most complete musicians
working in the fertile-to-overflowing ’70s blues-rock scene.
Attempting to play along and cop some licks with this record can feel a little like getting
worked over by a middleweight champ. Gallagher jabs, stabs, and delivers crushing hooks
that leave you staggering and wondering which sleeve concealed the trick that just left
you flat on your butt. But if you’re wise enough to just listen, there’s a lifetime of lessons
about economy, rhythm, and working with tones that fit a mix. Nothing is too muscular
or overblown on these tracks, even when the band is trucking at open-throttle muscle-car
speed. “Hands Up” is a raver that hooks together enough sweet lead phrases in six and a
half minutes to line a highway.
“Sinner Boy” and “Could Have Had Religion” are showcases for Gallagher’s deft and snaky
slide hand—the latter track combines screaming and sailing top-end runs with stuttering
pull-offs that sound like Gallagher and his clone doing battle. When Gallagher drives
his tone into hotter spots, as he does on the gloriously overdriven “Used to Be” and the
roadhouse slide stomper “In Your Town.” he loses none of the snap that distinguishes
his cleaner, lightning-fast workouts, but you get to enjoy some gorgeously hanging-andnever-
ending vibrato bends and skittering, positively squirrelly bottleneck stuttering that
sounds like you’re getting simultaneously doused by grease and broken glass.
Considering his soul, his songs, his pipes, and his well of outside-the-box blues moves
that is a mile deep, it’s shocking that Gallagher remains outside the pantheon of widely
heralded ’70s blues guitar gods. But doubtless,
The Beat Club Sessions will leave another
legion of converts in its wake.