This Irish blues-rock guitarist would be 64 if he was alive today.\u00a0 He was born in Donegal, raised in Cork and died at 47 years of age.\u00a0 As a charismatic live performer in the Irish band Taste, he sold 30 million albums worldwide. Although he didn’t tour the U.S. enough, spending most of his time in Europe, he was, however, known for his no-holds-barred, marathon live shows at clubs and theatres around the United States. A comprehensive biography hit the shelves late last year (2012) written by Marcus Connaughton.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m talking about the rock Legend Rory Gallagher.\u00a0 Pronounced \u2018Gal-a-her\u2019. This bio was requested by TonyJ.<\/strong><\/p>\n William Rory Gallagher was born on 2nd<\/sup>\u00a0March 1948 in Ballyshannon, in County Donegal to Danny and Monica. His father, who came from Derry, was working on a hydroelectric project in the area at the time. He also played the accordion and sang with the Tir Chonaill Ceile Band.\u00a0 Monica was a singer and acted with the Abbey Players in Ballyshannon.\u00a0 Rory got his first guitar at the age of nine, although his brother Donal (later his manager) remembers him tuning into American radio in search of blues music at six years of age. His inspirations were Elvis, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran, Muddy Waters, Woody Guthrie, Big Bill Broonzy, Lead Belly and Lonnie Donegan. \u00a0Both brothers were encouraged to play music.<\/p>\n When Rory was eight, the family moved to McCurtain Street in the cosmopolitan centre of Cork City, his mother\u2019s home town. Still at school (aged 14), he was determined to play. “I had tried to get a group together at school, which lasted one night!<\/em>” he remembered. “I was still doing the odd show on my own like talent shows and charity shows, pioneer rallies. So when I saw an ad in a paper -‘Showband needs guitar player’ – I said, Well, I’ll give it a bash. These fellas were doing two or three gigs a week and I could plug into an AC30 – the amplifier I had at home was a four-watt Selmer! I handled the rock\u2019n\u2019roll department, basically. The two years I had with them was fun – at the age of 16, I was playing the showband gigs in England in Lent [Irish dance halls closed for the six weeks of Lent] – which gave me the chance on nights off to go down to the Marquee and see The Yardbirds or Spencer Davis<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\nRory\u2019s very Early Years<\/h2>\n
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