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DARK SECRETS: 3 | Rare Historical Photos

“You realise these things are designed for hospitals, and MRI machines?”: Joe Bonamassa reveals the secret to keeping his tube amps sounding their best night after night – and he “nicked it” from Angus Young

Tube amps are like fine wine; they often don’t travel well. But a power gizmo designed for clinical settings keeps Bonamassa’s epic touring rig in top form

MusicRadar

“He was backstage in the Marquee cleaning off his guitar and said, ‘Look!’ The paint was starting to come away in chips – he was almost crying”: How Rory Gallagher's 1961 Strat got its now-iconic relic’d finish

Gallagher's brother, Dónal, recalls the time Rory noticed that the paint on his beloved guitar was chipping away

Guitar World

“He seemed to get so much out of so little, didn't he?”: Former Primal Scream guitarist Barrie Cadogan reacts to playing Rory Gallagher’s golden-era Gibsons

Cadogan notes how Gallagher managed to create such a distinct sound, even with relatively simple gear, as he tries out the legend's 1963 Gibson Melody Maker

Guitar World

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Watch Rory Gallagher and The Kinks set The Midnight Special ablaze in 1974

Includes the fastest version of The Kinks' You Really Got Me you're ever likely to witness

Louder

"Gallagher delivers electrifying performances of his heavier numbers": Rory Gallagher's BBC Collection showcases the very best of the real deal

The blues boy from Ballyshannon at his peak

Louder

“The decline of America’s biggest guitar companies during the ’70s was essentially a hangover from the over-ambitious reaction to the Beatlemania-inspired guitar boom of the ’60s”: Why the ’70s was a time of innovation and folly for guitar gear

The ’70s gets a bad rep from some guitarists but it's too easy to say this was a bad time for Gibson and Fender and that's the story. There were some real treasures and technological breakthroughs

Guitar World

“The band had come on, but no Rory: most unusual. He was in astate of shock and couldn’t bring himself to step on stage”: The night Rory Gallagher was spooked by his childhood hero – as the Royal Albert Hall waited in anticipation

Gallagher’s iconic Strat is one of the most storied guitars in the world. But the day Rory, with untold thousands of gigs under his belt, became stage struck in the presence of his hero is one of his brother Donal Gallagher’s favorite tales

Guitar World

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“Ozzy put a pint glass over his mouth and sucked it until he burst all the blood vessels around his face. Then he turned into a character from Planet Of The Apes”: Gary Moore’s wild tales of Ozzy Osbourne, Phil Lynott and Led Zeppelin

Ozzy, Robert Planet, Rory Gallagher, Peter Green, Ginger Baker – late, great guitarist Gary Moore crossed paths with them all

Louder

“It feels a bit wrong to play it. But I don't think anyone who has a guitar that they love would want it to never be played after their death”: Fontaines D.C. guitarist Carlos O'Connell reacts to playing Rory Gallagher's prized guitars

O'Connell also tries out Gallagher's 1959 Silvertone, 1963 Epiphone Coronet and 1968 Martin D-35 ahead of the much talked-about auction

Guitar World

“I think it’s a national treasure that should stay here. I threw in a couple grand into the GoFundMe anonymously”: Joe Bonamassa throws his support behind the movement to keep Rory Gallagher's famous Strat in Ireland

Bonamassa was previously rumored to be one of the big-name guitar collectors interested in bidding on Gallagher's 1961 Strat

Guitar World

“That beautiful thick Irish accent could melt anyone’s heart. And the lady ended up selling the guitar to Rory for $50!” How Rory Gallagher’s sweet talk secured him his bargain ’61 Kay Value Leader – with a little help from Eric Clapton

This vibey early ’60s electric looked too pricey to buy, even with the help ofblues musician John Hammond Jr– but Rory’s charm secured it in a New York minute, as his brother Donal explains

Guitar World

Joe Bonamassa to perform Rory Gallagher's legendary Irish Tour '74 set at two shows in Ireland

Joe Bomamassa's one-off tribute to Rory Gallagher will take place in Gallagher's hometown of Cork next summer

Louder

“I went backstage and said to Rory, ‘There’s a guy out there called Slash who’s come to see you…’ Rory’s eyes lit up”: The night Rory Gallagher gave the Guns N’ Roses guitarist a taste of affordable Gibson via his 1960 Melody Maker

Modded with a Gibson humbucker, this 1969 student guitar has lived a life, and was the star of the show when Gallagher jammed with Slash in 1991

Guitar World

“I walked through the ‘Nothing To Declare’ lane, though it was in an embarrassment of a guitar case atthat point”: The remarkable story behind Rory Gallagher’s 1968 Coral 3S19 Electric Sitar

Famously used on Philby, the electric sitar is one of the most unique instruments in the Rory Gallagher Collection. Donal Gallagher tells us how he found it and its glam Transatlantic journey home

Guitar World

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All three-and-a-half hours of the show to raise money to bring Rory Gallagher's guitar back home can now be watched online

The evening featured a special guest appearance by Rory Gallagher's longtime bassist Gerry McAvoy

MusicRadar

“I said, ‘Well, Rory, look, you’ll probably kill me for this, but I spotted they had a guitar”: Rory Gallagher’s 1963 Gretsch Corvette was a pawnshop find that cost just $150

Vintage guitars hard to come by? Over-priced? Back in the day you could find happy accidents, like when Donal Gallagher found his brother a red Corvette while shopping for a case

Guitar World

“He looked at it, closed the case and said, ‘Let’s get out of here before they realize what they’ve sold you’”: How Rory Gallagher grabbed his iconic 1963 Gretsch Corvette for the princely sum of $150

Can you judge a guitar by its case? Not usually, but when Donal Gallagher was shopping for cases for brother Rory, he found one with a very special guitar inside, and there was a deal to be made

Guitar World

“Even for a beginner to pick it up and play it, it almost plays you. I can tell you, it brings power to your hands”: The story of Rory Gallagher’s 1932 National Triolian – the resonator that had all the mojo but not the volume for his raucous live show

Rory’s battered National Triolian could be seen as the acoustic sibling ofhis infamously weathered 1961 Strat – though this metal workhorse could howl,too

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Guitar World

“Rory was a peaceful man, but I thought he’d thump poor Chris on the spot”: The story of Rory Gallagher’s 1959 Fender Esquire, the guitar crushed on a runway with a refinish job worth fighting over

Heavily modded over the years, thishot-sounding Esquire was, outsideof the Strat, Rory’s go-to Fender for slide work – but it nearly came to an untimely demise on anairport runway…

Guitar World

“It’s so difficult. The guitar has got a life of its own and it’s got to move on”: Why Rory Gallagher’s iconic Strat is up for auction now – and the political pressure to keep it in Ireland

Nearly 30 years after Rory Gallagher’s death, we join Rory’s brother Donal to find out why it’s time to let go of his legendary 1961 Fender Stratocaster as it heads to auction

Guitar World

“When I heard Nirvana’s Live at Reading it became less about learning solos than putting the guitar in front of an amp and making it scream”: Fontaines D.C.’s Carlos O’Connell on playing Rory Gallagher’s Strat and why a spring reverb is the best overdrive

One half of the Fontaines D.C. six-string machine talks songwriting and influences, and admits that he, too, is a disciple of YouTube’s Kurt Cobain tone guru Aaron Rash

Guitar World

“There were six guys dressed as emergency gas men with bolt-cutters. It was horrifying how quickly they got into our unit”: Rory Gallagher’s family on why safety and security concerns for his guitar collection encouraged them to sell it at auction

The safety of the guitar has become an increasing concern over the years as several attempts to rehome it in a museum have failed

Guitar World

“Rory Gallagher’s a saint in my house. There’s even a saintly painting of him above where I hang my guitar”: Meet Louise Patricia Crane, the solo-loving songwriter, seeking new prog sounds with King Crimson’s Jakko Jakszyk

Netherworld is the sound of Crane and producer Jakszyk testing the boundaries of where guitar can go, in the company of special guests Tony Levin, Gary Husband and Ian Anderson

Guitar World

“The worst-case scenario is if you just hang the guitar on the wall and brag to your rich buddies that you bought it. These things are tools to make music”: Joe Bonamassa plays Rory Gallagher's 1959 Esquire, calling him “one of my guitar heroes”

Bonamassa debunks the rumor that Gallagher only had one guitar throughout his career, namely, the '61 Fender Strat

MusicRadar

“It’s a real honour to actually hold the man’s instruments and spend a few minutes playing them”: Watch Joe Bonamassa play throaty slide blues on Rory Gallagher’s Tele-modded ’59 Esquire and explain what made Gallagher a global guitar icon

“Here was this guy with long hair and a flannel shirt, and looked as if he just came out of an auto factory, and playing some some of the most gutbucket blues and rock you’d ever heard”

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