Ikenna Ike- Rori Gallagher

A member of Taste before going solo, he has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. Chosen as the best musician of the year for 1972, he was a candidate for The Rolling Stones after the departure of Mick Taylor.

Gallagher was the town guitarist. Unassuming, yet tenacious, the Irish bluesman dedicated his life to touring and playing his beloved Fender Stratocaster to adoring audiences. He never stopped working, and could always lead a crowd, but he resolutely avoided the pitfalls of stardom.

Charming, handsome and modest, Gallagher achieved his success when he burst onto the British rock scene in the late 1960s with his first band, Taste.

In an era of guitar heroes, dominated by Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, Gallagher offered a passionate dedication to his playing, born from a desire to give audiences maximum music and minimum fuss. He was competitive and knew what he wanted as a bandleader, but he avoided the confrontational politics of rock.

Rory Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, in 1948 and grew up in Cork. He got his first guitar from him at age nine and played in various local bands until he dropped out of school.

He made his debut as a professional guitarist at the age of 15 in the Fontana sextet, but soon withdrew to create the power trio Taste in 1966. After releasing the albums Taste and On the Boards, he dissolved the band due to problems between its members and He began his solo career in 1971 with the album Rory Gallagher.

He played guitar with the band Fontana, later renamed Impact. He took over the rhythm section of the last trio band that went to Hamburg in 1965. This became the first version of Taste, who spent two years touring Britain and Europe. Then in 1968, when Gallagher modernized his blues style.

Taste were hailed as one of the greatest blues power rock bands, and they opened for Cream at their farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1968.

In 1971 Taste broke up and Gallagher formed a band under his own name with Wilgar Campbell on drums and Gerry McAvoy on bass. Gallagher was also a fine singer and lyricist as well as playing powerful blues solos.

He was an exceptional songwriter, he could play the guitar loudly and emotionally, but he was also a poet behind that facade. The faithful poet of the Irish traditions; Many who worked with him classify him as a difficult person when it came to working, and he was always his band and boss.

Gallagher had a worn style which managed to attract the attention of the public he was addressing, his plaid shirt, black jeans and baseball shoes combined perfectly with his faithful and somewhat worn Fender Stratocaster guitar that he had bought in Ireland in 1961.

Such was the respect Gallagher earned among his fellow musicians that he was invited to play on Chess Records' “London Sessions” during the 1970s with Jerry Lee Lewis and Muddy Waters. In recent years, Gallagher had shown signs of exhaustion and started to get older and fatter, but he did record more well-received albums, including Defender and Fresh Evidence.

In the late 1980s he developed severe aerophobia (fear of flying) and to overcome it he received a prescription for a strong sedative. This medication, with his abusive consumption of alcohol, caused serious damage to his liver, but despite this he continued to give concerts on extensive tours. During his last performance, on January 10, 1995 in the Netherlands, his health deteriorated to such an extent that the rest of the tour was cancelled.

He was admitted to King's College Hospital in London and it was there that it was discovered that his poor health was evident due to multiple failures in his liver, so doctors determined that a transplant was the only way to save him.

His health took a sudden turn for the worse when he contracted a staph infection (MRSA), leading to his death on June 14, 1995 at the age of 47.

Gallagher's fans will remember saying goodbye to him at the end of those tumultuous concerts he performed night after night, for some 20 years or more. Dripping with sweat, he held up his thumbs and let out a breathless cry of:

"Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed".