Guest Book

TanDan's info on Rory Gallegher got me thinking about a story. Rory played two shows a night from Monday through Saturday at Richards, a nightclub in Atlanta, sometime in late 1973. I had first seen him about a year earlier at a 1-day festival in Rockingham, NC, that the ABB headlined and Rory knocked my socks off. I was buddies with the two Richards and made arrangements to get the same front-row center table for all 12 shows -- I quite literally could rest my heels on the front of the stage and lean back in my chair! I was no more than three feet in front of Rory ... The early show on Thursday was broadcast live on WREK-FM, and my best friend's wife recorded in on his reel-to-reel machine -- you can clearly hear Ray Pavlovic and me shouting for Rory. Earlier in the day Thursday he visited the WREK studios and performed a couple of sweet acoustic numbers, too. There was a girl named Margaret who was at the table next to ours for every one of the Richards shows -- she and I got to chatting with Rory and he invited us backstage. I had a chance to ask him why he used a steel slide instead of a glass one and he replied, "It's the tone. Sometimes I want a sweeter tone and I use the glass slide, but the steel slide is stinger." Margaret later went on to correspond with Rory in Ireland and became one of his circle of friends. She grieved mightily when he passed. Coincidentally, Margaret is still around and is friends with Derek's family. After the last show on Saturday night Rory said from the stage, " I want to thank everyone for coming to see my music -- especially those who were here for several nights," and he gestured at those of us in the front. Made me feel proud, it did. These 12 shows rank collectively as one of the most amazing musical experiences in my lifetime. I was truly blessed to have been there.