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Rory Gallagher – “Best of the BBC Collection”

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What does it sound like?:

As the title suggests, this is a selection of Rory’s many BBC appearances spanning the early 70s to the mid-80s and as you’d expect, the sound quality is uniformly excellent. Many versions of the 1973/4 tracks also appear on “Irish Tour ‘74” which is considered by many to be the definitive Rory live album. Well, those tracks are equally excellent here in much better fidelity so are a pleasure to listen to, like an old friend appearing fresh faced and in great shape after the passage of the years. Other gems have also been pulled from the archives. A particular highlight is 1971’s “Used to be” from “Deuce” – certainly one of Rory’s best studio albums. He’s still with the first trio here who blow up a funky bluesy storm, Gerry McAvoy on especially great form. Another treat is “Banker’s Blues”, from 1973, with Rory on acoustic guitar and harmonica fingerpicking superbly with newly arrived Lou Martin on acoustic piano. Nice.
Around half of the set is from a 1979 set at The Venue in London. This was a two-night show and, as it happens, I went to the other night. The band is back in trio format with Ted McKenna on drums providing a more solid rock groove. My diary from the time says, “Rory brilliant but not much blues – I don’t think he liked the venue” and I didn’t like it much either as far as I can remember. Whilst it’s true some of the tracks feature lots of guitar boogie and I find them a bit overbearing, this is a decent mixture, a searing “Keychain” a highlight. A number are drawn from “Top Priority” which was noted at the time as being a shift towards heavier blues rock. You pays yer money etc.

What does it all *mean*?

Interestingly the tracks are not in chronological order, so perhaps someone has sequenced them to sound like a fantasy Rory gig spanning his whole career. An interesting approach and I’m not aware of this methodology being used elsewhere. Anyway, if you like Rory you’ll know what you’re getting and there’s much to love here in decent quality as opposed to the many RG bootlegs which were recorded under a greatcoat 50 yards away. This set is a best of compilation of a much larger 20 CD set with the same title covering every session Rory did for the BBC – apparently more than anyone else!
Note to the record company – that Play MPE Player for streaming the tracks is execrable and you can consider yourselves lucky I stuck with it long enough to do the review.

Goes well with…

There’s bags of energy so not a late night album. Perhaps a long drive with it turned up loud might be just right.

Release Date:

11/10/24

Might suit people who like…

Great guitar playing, Rory!

8

Comments

  1. Good review.
    The complete set sounded like much more RG than all but the most dedicated fan needs.
    This sounds much more manageable and has been duly ordered.

  2. How different/the same is this from/as the BBC Sessions 2CD set that came out years ago? One CD of that was of studio material (presumably Whistle Test) and the other one was from presumably the same 1979 gig at the Venue. The two releases aren’t identical, though, because although “Used to Be” is on that old set, “Banker’s Blues” isn’t. But still, if they’re mostly the same material, then I probably won’t bother with this one.

    I quite liked the Venue the one time I went there, to see Gary U.S. Bonds backed by assorted Asbury Jukes. The stage was very high, I seem to remember, but apart from that it was pretty similar to the Camden Palace, the Town and Country Club or the Mean Fiddler, wasn’t it?

    • I remember it had banquets at right angles to the stage so you had to sit really awkwardly to watch the band. It was quite cramped and the sound wasn’t great. I’m probably biased because I saw a dreadful and heart breaking Peter Green gig there which I walked out of.

      A number of the sessions are Sounds of the Seventies studio sessions and one is a Paul Jones show.

      I loved the T&CC which had a much bigger open area and seats upstairs IIRC.

    • I was at that Gary US Bonds gig as well and very good it was too – it was when Springsteen was producing him and he and a brief career resurgence with two albums which were essentially Gary, Bruce and the E Street Band. Also saw Q Tips there, who were a fantastic soul revival band featuring Paul Young as a superb front man, pre No Parlez.

  3. I think only the final track on BBC Sessions is from The Venue – the rest are from various other locations including Hammersmith Odeon and.De Montfort Hall.
    The studio CD was Peel sessions I believe.

  4. I believe only one track is common to both the earlier BBC Sessions set and this 2CD set. The new box set comes with an essay by me, and the 2CD set has a condensed version of that. I wasn’t involved in the track selection or sequencing for the 2CD set but I know that it was compiled specifically not to duplicate the previous 2CD release.

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