A crappy crappy way to start the week. Gary Moore is dead, aged 58.
Moore's music was a passing interest for me, and in all that interest probably didn't outlast my sixth form year. At the time though he was The Man - a very ordinary-looking bloke with a prodigious talent for guitar, evidenced by his very early career start with Thin Lizzy and later on his series of solo albums where his rather decent vocal talents were also employed. Around the time of my interest in his canon Moore shifted genres and became predominantly a blues guitarist. Blues was my brother's music, had an air of superiority and snobbishness in its audience, and so that was enough for seventeen-year old me and that was that. But Wild Frontier - some way into his solo career and perhaps not as good as earlier efforts, is still an important album for me, introducing me to a broader set of musicians after my enthusiasm for heavy metal had waned. Most importantly it introduced me to Thin Lizzy, although the Skids got a not-small look in as well, the three being roughly 'Celtic rock' and therefore to my still in-training ears, a very good thing.
Above, Moore get reacquainted with his former bandmate in a very ropey and over-earnest video for his Run for Cover album (it's Lynnott's last recording before his death the following year). Below, Moore joins erstwhile compatriots Knopfler, Gilmour - oh, and a couple of bassists, in a rather amusing Raw Sex/French and Saunders skit from a little further back in the day.
There, that's cheered me up. RIP Gary.
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Gilmour? Should have been Waters!
ReplyDeleteWaters? A middling bassist despite being a decent lyricist and composer. But that riff is Gilmour's fair and square (even if the disco beat was... Ezrin?)!
ReplyDeleteLevel 42 bloke also deserves to be there for mad bass skillz, altho' he looks a bit like a twonk there.
No way! I was just looking at Gary Moore on Wikipedia on Friday (sparked by finding a lo res video of Over the Hills and Far Away on my computer) and was wondering if he'd got over his blues phase yet. Damn.
ReplyDeleteUncanny - I was going to post that very video but for the excess of cheese in it. It's a cracking song though, and it was the one that led me to Wild Frontier of course. Was it based on the poem The Highwayman at all, or just a coincidence?
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I too patiently waited for him to 'get over it', too! Saw a Best Of in the Warewhare recently and noted that it was pretty much all the blues stuff. Bah.
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