The Irish blues and rock multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and bandleader, William Rory Gallagher was born on March 2, 1948.  Coming up in County Donegal and brought up in Cork, Gallagher first formed the band Taste in the 1960s and then recorded solo albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s.  He died at the age of 47 following complications from a liver transplant on June 14, 1995.

Irish Tour ’74 is the sixth album by Gallagher and is compiled as one might imagine from live recordings from and Irish tour in January of 1974.  Never forgetting for a moment his roots, Gallagher was one of the few top shelf musicians who played gigs in Ireland during those turbulent times.

Some musicians are born to feed off the audiences that love them.  Gallagher was just such a man.  He was never one for recording in the studio.  Live audiences were felt to be the crux of the real energy he wanted to play and the members of his band felt the same way.

Responding to his blues rock loving audience, Gallagher’s machismo solo guitar is filled with staggering single note attacks blended with pitch bends that formed around Delta blues.  When Gallagher arrived on stage, it was clear this would be jaw dropping music.  Between his staggering blues strut of rhythms that drove his songs, there were momentary eruptions filled with stupefying melody lines that delivered one rock -n- roll epic after another.  For these moments and hours of playing along with several of his albums, Aloha Promises Forever is giving this album a eight out of 10.

You may listen to the Irish Tour ’74 at: