Gary Moore

Gary Moore
Gary Moore performing at the Beer Festival in Belgrade, in September 2007
Gary Moore performing at the Beer Festival in Belgrade, in September 2007
Background information
Birth name Robert William Gary Moore
Born 4 April 1952 (1952-04-04) (age 57)
Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
Genre(s) Hard rock, Heavy metal, rock, Blues-rock, Blues
Occupation(s) Musician, Songwriter
Instrument(s) Guitar, Vocals
Years active 1970–present
Label(s) Various
Associated acts Thin Lizzy, Skid Row, Philip Lynott, Colosseum II.
Website www.gary-moore.com
Notable instrument(s)
Gary Moore Signature Les Paul

Gary Moore (born Robert William Gary Moore, 4 April 1952, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a Northern Irish guitarist. In a career dating back to the 1960s, he has played with artists including Thin Lizzy, Colosseum II, Greg Lake and the Blues-rock band Skid Row, as well as having a successful solo career. Among many cameo appearances over the years, he performed the lead guitar solo on "She's My Baby" from Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3.

Contents

Background

Moore grew up on a road opposite Stormont, off the Upper Newtownards Road in east Belfast and started performing at a young age, having picked up a battered acoustic guitar at the age of eight, and got his first quality guitar at the age of fourteen, learning to play the right-handed instrument in the standard way despite being left-handed. Like so many others, Moore's early influences were artists such as Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Later, having seen Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in his home town of Belfast, his own style was developing into a blues-rock sound that would come to dominate his career. His largest influence in the early days came from Peter Green, of Fleetwood Mac fame, who acted as a mentor when Moore was playing in Dublin. Green continued to influence Moore, and Moore later paid tribute to Green in his 1995 album Blues for Greeny, an album consisting entirely of Peter Green compositions. On the album Moore played Peter Green's celebrated 1959 Les Paul standard guitar which Green had loaned to Moore after leaving Fleetwood Mac. Moore ultimately purchased the guitar, at Green's request, so that "it would have a good home".[1]

Gary Moore has remained relatively unknown in the US, although his work has "brought substantial acclaim and commercial success in most other parts of the world - especially on Europe".[2] Moore has throughout his career been recognised as an influence to many guitarists such as Randy Rhoads, John Sykes and Kirk Hammett.[3]

Over his long career, Gary Moore has been anything but predictable in his style and genre, at times to the dismay and confusion of his fans and critics alike, ranging from an amalgam of rock, jazz, blues and country, to traditional electric blues, to hard rock, heavy metal and more. Although primarily recognized as a blues-rock artist, his variations and versatility are no more evidenced than by a glimpse at some of his collaborations including such diverse acts/artists as Trilok Gurtu, Dr. Strangely Strange, Colosseum II, Albert Collins, Jimmy Nail, Mo Foster, Ginger Baker, Jim Capaldi, Vicki Brown, Cozy Powell, The Beach Boys, Ozzy Osbourne and Andrew Lloyd Webber, to name a few.[4]

Skid Row

In 1969 he joined the group Skid Row with Noel Bridgeman and Brendan "Brush" Shiels. The music was eclectic, covering a wide range including jazz, rock and blues. It was with this group that he earned himself a reputation in the music business, and his association with Philip Lynott began.

Albums

Solo career

In 1973 he released his first solo album, Grinding Stone, billed as the Gary Moore Band. In 1978 his solo career started again with help from Phil Lynott. The combination of Moore's blues-based guitar and Lynott's voice, produced "Parisienne Walkways", which reached the Top Ten in the UK Singles Chart in April 1979; and the Thin Lizzy number two hit album, Black Rose: A Rock Legend.

After a series of rock records, Moore returned to blues music with Still Got the Blues, with contributions from Albert King, Albert Collins and George Harrison. The album was well received by fans and a huge success. Moore stayed with the blues format until 1997, when he decided to experiment with modern dance beats on Dark Days in Paradise; this left many fans, as well as the music press confused. Back to the Blues saw Moore return to his tried and tested blues format in 2001, then continued by Power of the Blues (2004), Old New Ballads Blues (2006), Close As You Get (2007) and his most recent album Bad For You Baby (2008).

Albums

Selected singles (UK Singles Chart Top 40 hits)

α Credited to Gary Moore and Phil Lynott. β Cover version of The Easybeats 1966, No. 6 UK hit.

Thin Lizzy

Moore played in Thin Lizzy for several periods and worked with Phil Lynott subsequently in his solo career.

Albums

Colosseum II

Colosseum II is a band that came from the ashes of Colosseum and featured Don Airey, John Mole, Jon Hiseman and Gary Moore.

Albums

Greg Lake

He participated in the recording of Greg Lake's two solo albums, Greg Lake (1981) and Manoeuvres (1983). He also played live in Greg Lake's line-up. Some notable performances of his touring stint with Lake, were the live covers of King Crimson songs "21st Century Schizoid Man", "In the Court of the Crimson King", as well as "Parisienne Walkways".

Moore's 1984 album Dirty Fingers (which also featured ex-Ted Nugent vocalist Charlie Huhn, former Rainbow/Wild Horses and later Dio bassist Jimmy Bain, and ex-Black Oak Arkansas/Pat Travers and later Ozzy Osbourne/Whitesnake/Ted Nugent drummer Tommy Aldridge) had a song called "Nuclear Attack", which he also performed on the Greg Lake album.

BBM

Formed in 1994 the group comprised Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker (both formerly performers with Cream) and Gary Moore.

Album

(Gary Moore's) Scars

Formed in 2002 the band issued an eponymous album Scars which was released on September 10 2002. The band featured Gary Moore (Vocals/Guitar), Cass Lewis of Skunk Anansie (Bass guitar/Backing vocals) and Darrin Mooney of Primal Scream (Drums).

Note: This group is not to be confused with the Scottish punk/post-punk band called Scars, which existed from 1977 - 1982.

Album

Connection with Peter Green

According to numerous interviews he has given to guitar magazines, he was the protégé of British blues pioneer Peter Green, whom he had always admired ever since the Bluesbreakers days. When Green quit Fleetwood Mac and the entire music scene, he sold his famous nasal-sounding 1959 Gibson Les Paul to Moore, for the same price that Moore had managed to sell his then guitar, a Gibson SG.

The nasal sound that resulted when both neck and bridge pick-ups were active on Green's guitar was not, as used to be believed, the result of the pick-up having been turned backward.Instead its neck pickup had been accidentally rewound in reverse using Fender-style wire, by a young repairman, Sam Lee, who had never worked on a Gibson humbucker before. The result was a unique out-of-phase tone that could be more nasal or full depending on volume-knob settings. These sounds were masterfully used by Peter Green, and later, Gary Moore. Green's former Les Paul was Moore's main instrument for many years, and it can be heard to an especially good effect on his albums Still Got the Blues, After Hours and Blues For Greeny.

Peter Green and Moore also reportedly had a disagreement regarding what guitar the former was playing in the song "Albatross". Moore insists it was the Les Paul, because the guitar tone was particularly warm and rich in the bass, while Peter Green maintains he was using a Strat, as the vibrato in that song was not finger vibrato, but subtle tremolo arm vibrato.

Guitar designer and builder Jol Dantzig, who has built a number of his Hamer guitars for Gary Moore, recounted a story in Vintage Guitar magazine about investigating the pick-up mystery with Moore in the 1980s. What Dantzig actually found was that the neck pick-up magnet had been reversed. It was out-of-phase by the magnet being turned around, not by the leads at the pot reverse-wired. "I can't say whether it was done by a repairman or done at the factory originally, said Dantzig, "who knows?" — actually Peter Green is on record as having done it accidentally himself, however it is unclear if he meant reversing the magnet or the whole pick-up.

Equipment used

Over the years Gary has used numerous guitars. These include - Peter Green's 1959 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst, and the 1950s Gibson Les Paul Junior. He has also used guitars from Charvel, Ibanez, Hamer, Jackson, Heritage, Paul Reed Smith and, as seen in the music video for Out In The Fields, a SynthAxe. Amplification has generally come from Marshall, although Soldanos and Fender have also been used, as well as transistor-driven Dean Markley units (especially in the studio). He also has used numerous effects over the years. These include; Delay units such as the Roland Space Echo, 555, Overdrive/Booster units such as the BOSS DS-1, Ibanez Tubescreamer variants, Marshall, Bluesbreaker and Guv'nor pedals as well as wah-wah pedals such as the Vox Wah, Dunlop JH1. He appears nowadays to favour Gibson and Fender guitars, through Marshall amplifiers. His choices in effects have remained constant, using an Ibanez TS10 Classic Tubescreamer on many recordings/live shows.

Moore's contribution to music and blues in particular have been recognised in recent years by prestigious commercial endorsements. In 2004-2006 Gary featured in full page advertisements for Marshall's range of reissued classic handwired amplifiers, including classic amplifiers from the 1960s and 1970s, such as the popularly named, "Bluesbreaker combo" — originally made famous by Eric Clapton. Gary was also one of the first artists recognised by Gibson Guitars with a signature model. The Gary Moore Les Paul is not a reproduction of an existing model but a new model, with distinctive lemon sunburst maple cap, the neck is unbound - unusual for a Les Paul but easier to re-fret and play - as is the body, a "Gary Moore" name plate on the truss rod cover and some early model Gibson Burstbucker pick-ups, one with zebra-coils (one black & one white bobbin).

DVDs

VHSs

References

  1. ↑ Gary Moore - Peter Green
  2. ↑ allmusic ((( Gary Moore > Biography )))
  3. ↑ Gary Moore
  4. ↑ [1]

External links

Thin Lizzy
John Sykes • Scott Gorham • Francesco DiCosmo • Tommy Aldridge
Phil Lynott • Brian Downey • Eric Bell • Gary Moore • Brian Robertson • Snowy White • Darren Wharton • Michael Lee • Randy Gregg • Midge Ure • Dave Flett • Marco Mendoza
Studio albums
Thin Lizzy • Shades of a Blue Orphanage • Vagabonds of the Western World • Nightlife • Fighting • Jailbreak • Johnny the Fox • Bad Reputation • Black Rose: A Rock Legend • Chinatown • Renegade • Thunder and Lightning
Live albums
Live and Dangerous • Life • BBC Radio One Live in Concert • The Peel Sessions • Boys Are Back in Town: Live in Australia • One Night Only
Compilation albums
Remembering - Part 1 • The Continuing Saga of the Ageing Orphans • The Adventures of Thin Lizzy • Dedication • Wild One • Whiskey in the Jar • Vagabonds, Kings, Warriors, Angels • Thin Lizzy Greatest Hits • The Definitive Collection
Key Singles/Songs
"Whiskey in the Jar" • "The Rocker" • "The Boys Are Back in Town" • "Jailbreak" • "Waiting for an Alibi" • "Sarah" • "The Sun Goes Down"
Other articles
Thin Lizzy band members • Discography • Funky Junction