Rory Gallagher – Portraits (Rufus Publications)

Asked once by a critic “What does it feel like to be the best guitarist in the world?” Jimi Hendrix is said to have replied “Why don’t you ask Rory Gallagher?” – And he isn’t the only top musician to hold such a high opinion. To Joe Bonamassa, Rory Gallagher was “the Rocky Balboa of guitarists”.

Portraits is the fourth in the Rufus Publications series of photographs of iconic musicians, the others being about Rush, Kiss and early Iron Maiden with Paul Di’Anno, and this 240-page edition features legendary Irish guitar hero William Rory Gallagher. Known to all as Rory ‘the people’s guitarist,’ the man who gloried his status as an outsider while, at the same time being a superlative axeman and one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of his generation. Rory was sadly taken from us in 1995 aged only 47, a career cut tragically short by illness and premature death. But if you were fortunate enough to have seen Rory performing ‘live,’ either with Taste or his solo band, you’d have realised being on stage was where he really belonged – it was his spiritual home, where he came alive and thrilled generations of fans with his take on blues-rock.

The book features several hundred classic and many previously unseen, carefully restored black and white images of Rory Gallagher, taken by many of rock’s top photographers, either rehearsing, in the studio or in his natural habitat the concert stage. It has an introduction written by Gallagher’s friend ex-Whitesnake man Bernie Marsden, no slouch on the guitar himself, waxing lyrically about Rory’s impact and influence as a guitarist. Gallagher lived almost exclusively in checked workman’s shirts and jeans, so there were no pictures of him in tight leather trousers or with silk scarves tied to his elbow. Rory took great pride in not being a flashy dresser. What you will see, however, are pictures of a master craftsman in action or sitting contemplatively in a studio, always clutching a guitar.

There are two purchase options. A £55 edition printed on luxury 170gsm matt coated paper, with a folded poster and presented in a black slipcase with a gold foil logo. However, should your wallet run to it, there’s a bigger special limited edition (only 66 available) 375gsm and presented in a recycled leather and hand-welded aluminium slipcase with a screen-printed checked shirt pattern, which’ll leave your bank account £550 lighter.

While I applaud Rufus Publications’ desire to keep Rory Gallagher’s name in the public eye, I have to wonder about the wisdom of publishing a book with so many black and white pictures in one place of someone who’s always looked the same at every point in his career?