[Lyrics]
Like many — maybe most — Americans with an interest in music (blues or otherwise), I know very little about the Northern Irish singer-songwriter-guitarist Gary Moore. The little I do know about him and his music, I’ve picked up after he died of a heart attack, at age 58, in 2011.
But he apparently was very well-known in Europe, especially among musicians. Wikipedia:
In a career dating back to the 1960s, Moore played with musicians including Phil Lynott and Brian Downey during his teens, leading him to memberships with the Irish bands Skid Row and Thin Lizzy, and British Band Colosseum II. Moore shared the stage with such blues and rock musicians as B.B. King, Albert King, Jack Bruce, Albert Collins, George Harrison and Greg Lake, as well as having a successful solo career. He guested on a number of albums recorded by high-profile musicians.
This single, from the 1990 album of the same name, was his best-selling release in the US, at number… [heavy thud] 83 on the Billboard 200 list. In contrast, it went gold or platinum throughout Europe (especially Sweden, where it rated a double-platinum designation).
On the way into work today, The Missus and I were talking about the knack of American Idol (and similar competitions) for unearthing outstanding musical performers — whether we’ll buy their music or not — from non-musical fields. We think about the people we’ve known who work in shops or blue-collar jobs but bring fairly sophisticated listeners to their feet, or to tears of appreciation, in karaoke bars and church choirs. It’s a little sad, in a way, to think about all the hidden talent that doesn’t make it as professional musicians (or artists, writers, and so on, for that matter).
But it’s another sort of sadness — and another level of it — to think of all those who made their way as musicians, whose music we’d love… if we’d only heard it while they were alive.
Gary Moore: now there’s a name I want to hang onto.
Sevigne says
It’s a little sad, in a way, to think about all the hidden talent that doesn’t make it as professional musicians (or artists, writers, and so on, for that matter).
Yes, but the upside is that it exists. I was struck when I read your thought because immediately I had a kind of opposite experience, one of joy; that no matter where you look you can find talent even it never goes farther than its own shop or block. And that is something very hopeful for the world at large. I can’t quite say why. Only that it has something to do with talent being part of the very fabric of the universe.
Froog says
I can’t help thinking that we might have had – should have had – this conversation over at ‘my place’ a few years ago, but Gary Moore has long been a favourite of mine. He played several times at the Montreux Festival during the 90s and 00s, mostly playing blues sets, and there are some great DVDs you can get of those shows.
One of his finest hours for me is the album Blues for Greeny, a tribute to his friend Peter Green – founder of the original Fleetwood Mac (a spearhead of the ‘British Blues revival’ in the mid-60s), and perhaps the greatest blues guitarist of them all. [Don’t just take my word for it: John Mayall joked that he was “better than Clapton” when he joined The Bluesbreakers as a teenager, to fill the hole left by Eric when he went off to form Cream. And BB King raved about him, saying that he had “the sweetest tone I ever heard”.]
John says
I don’t remember our having a Gary Moore conversation, but I do (of course!) remember a lot of back-and-forth about the blues, and guitarists, and bassmen…