Gary Moore – The Irish Bluesman Feb 6 2011

Today is a sad day for the fans of Guitar based Rock and Blues Rock music.  Sadly, guitarist Gary Moore died in his sleep last night and right now there is no other details available.  If you were to look up (or google) Gary Moore right now, most of the headlines will read “Thin Lizzy Guitarist Gary Moore dead at 58”. But, for fans like myself, he was more than just the guitarist for Thin Lizzy. Yes, he played in Thin Lizzy for a time. He was a good friend of Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott.  Gary Moore could also be credited for rejuvenating his career in the early nineties when he basically changed from being a hard rock guitar slinger to a soulful bluesman. Tonight, I’d like to talk about my memories of Gary Moore.
I first remember hearing about Gary Moore in my early teen years of reading Hit Parader magazine. I remember seeing his albums in the local record stores I would frequent in North Platte.  Drummer Ian Paice(from Deep Purple) had recorded and toured with Gary Moore in the early 80’s after Paice had been playing drums for David Coverdale in Whitesnake and between the much publicized reunion of DP in 1984.  So, I was familiar with the name but not his music.  Later, I obviously found out about involvement with Thin Lizzy. 
In my college years at Kearney State College, I would often try to find a TV to watch an MTV show called Heavy Metal Mania.  Since we didn’t have cable in the dorm rooms, you usually had to share the TV lounge with others from your floor or the entire dorm. So, I would sometimes try to find a lone TV (possibly on campus) at the student union and watch it there. I distinctly remember seeing a Gary Moore video where he was performing live with a small camera attached to the neck of his guitar. It looked very cool and sounded even better.  As I have been searching for this video, I have discovered it was a duet that Gary Moore was doing with his former Thin Lizzy bandmate Phil Lynott called Out in the Fields. I loved how the song sounded and felt. I still can’t express how cool it sounded.

 It wasn’t very long after that I started working for Dustys Records and found that the Gary Moore album Wild Frontier was one of the promotional records that the store had for in-store play.  I honestly believe that the first record I played as my first turn as a Dustys Employee was Gary Moore’s Wild Frontier.  I absolutely loved the Irish/Scottish Highland rhythmic feel to the song Over the Hills and Far Away. I had no idea what the geographical regions were. But, it sounded very unique, individualistic and downright cool!

I soon learned that in Dusty’s Grand Island store was another employee that had a love for Gary Moore. Jayson Obrecht was a guitar player and a fan of anything involving an electric guitar.  I would soon find out that he was a HUGE fan of Gary Moore. Gary would release another album in 1989 called After the War.  This featured drummer Cozy Powell who was a favorite of mine and it was generally a good rock album.
Then, in the summer of 1990, Dusty received a promo cassette of Gary Moore Still Got the Blues.  The tape didn’t have a lot of artwork on it and it didn’t seem to be anything fantastic by the packaging.  But, I remember popping in the cassette and just being blown away by awesome blues album he had put together.  By this time, I had become a big fan of the burgeoning blues-rock scene that had been spearheaded by Stevie Ray Vaughan.  In fact, Jayson offered me a ticket to go see Stevie Ray Vaughan at Fiddlers Green in Denver in July of 1990.  As we started our road trip to Denver, one of the first things Jayson asked me was “Have you heard the new Gary Moore Album?”  I had and we were both in agreement that it was good…very good!
In September of 1990, I moved to Grand Island and began working at Dustys there. I slept on Jayson’s couch for about a month while I found a place to live.  I then realized that Jayson was a BIG GARY MOORE FAN! He had all of his albums on CD and had some videos too. That’s what I liked about Jayson.  Many fans and musicians have an artist that they love and obsess about.  As a drummer, I had been a huge fan of Carmine Appice since 1982 and had collected many of his recordings.  Jayson was like that only his “hero” was Gary Moore. 
Jayson had done an in-store promotional display for the Still Got the Blues album.  It was very impressive. I had seen a Guitar magazine article (or review) for the album and I remember reading “You either love Gary Moore or you’ve never heard Gary Moore”.  I told Jayson this and he added that to the store display. 
We would listen to the album over and over.  The record company sent the store a promotional copy of Gary’s live concert titled One Night of the Blues.  Since Jayson was the major GM fan, it was definitely his to own..no doubt about it. I actually found it for a good price at a second hand record store in Omaha about 3 years later.  On this video, Gary had Mississippi bluesmen Albert King and Albert Collins playing with him.  That was when I found out that the song Oh, Pretty Woman was originally an Albert King song. Gary also paid tribute to the great blues players like Billy Gibbons and Stevie Ray Vaughan in Texas Strut.  He paid tribute to the father of British Blues John Mayall with a version of All Your Love.  It was then that I learned about lesser known guitarist Peter Green who had joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers after Eric Clapton.  I also found out that he would go on to form Fleetwood Mac with John McVie and Mick Fleetwood.
Dustys in Grand Island closed and I moved to Omaha in 1991 and eventually moved back to Kearney in 1994.  Jayson, myself and my brother Mike formed a blues trio called BOOGIE CHILLUN and (of course) we had to play Gary Moore blues tunes. We actually played All Your Love and Walking By Myself.

In 1994, Gary Moore joined up for a “reunion” (of sorts) with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce from Cream.  They called the band BBM(Bruce Baker Moore) and they put out an awesome blues trio album that Jayson and I ate up.  I can still remember being blown away by GM’s guitar playing on it. So, we added the song City of Gold to our blues trio set list. I loved playing Ginger Baker style drums. Mike was a fan of Jack Bruce and well….I already told you about Jayson.  I’ve got a video performance of BOOGIE CHILLUN.  I should try and get that transferred to put on as an attachment.

This morning, I played drums for my church Praise band and after the service was over, I checked my Droid phone for Facebook updates to find that guitarist Joe Bonamassa had reported that Gary Moore had died. I immediately googled the news story to find out it was true. I sent Jayson a text as soon as I could. I thought of him simultaneously.  I’ve been posting Gary Moore videos all day since I found out.
For me, Gary Moore was another artist that took me from my love of hard rock and helped me transition and educate me about the music known as the blues.  I don’t think I would have appreciated Albert King or Peter Green as much as I do if it weren’t for Gary Moore.  I am deeply saddened by his passing. I never knew him personally. But, I feel that if you are effected by the emotion an instrumentalist can convey without uttering a single word, or find something that resonates for you, then you know (maybe) just a little part of that artist.
Thank you Gary! You may be gone from this world. But, you won’t be forgotten!

Electric Light Orchestra – Out of the Blue

Have you ever heard a song or a band from your past and it starts an onslaught of memories of your childhood including friends and places? Obviously, I do because that’s what I write about in this blog.  This week I heard a band that was ultimately one of my first pre-teen and teen favorites. I’m talking about the Electric Light Orchestra or ELO as they were later abbreviated to.  This also reminds me of my childhood friend John S.  John may have been the first person I knew that when they became a fan, they collected every album. The album I’ll be talking about is what many fans regard as their double vinyl masterpiece Out of the Blue!

In 1970, The Electric Light Orchestra was formed by Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne and drummer Bev Bevan who had worked together in the band the Move.  The basic idea for the band was (according to wikipedia) “to form a new band that would use violins, cellos, string basses, horns and woodwinds to give their music a classical sound, taking rock music in the direction "that The Beatles had left off."  As odd as it sounds, for guitarist Jeff Lynne, this link to the Beatles was oddly prophetic. The band only recorded their debut album with Roy Wood. That left guitarist Jeff Lynne as the mastermind behind the band. Critics predicted the band would fail because it seemed that Roy Wood was the original brains behind the band.  In 1973, they released their second album ELO 2.  One of the highlights of the album was a cover of Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven with the string section augmented the piece with some Ludwig Van Beethoven interspersed into the song.  This would be one of the first Beatles references as the Beatles had covered the song very early in their recording career with George Harrison on vocals.
Their third album was called On the Third Day and I still don’t understand why the band is all pictured on the album cover with everyone exposing their navels. This was a point of amusement for myself and my friends. The next album was titled Eldorado.  Then came their fourth album called Face the Music.  This was when they first appeared on my own personal radar. The album featured the hit singles Evil Woman and Strange Magic. This would be an album that at least two of my sisters had on the 8-track format. In fact, I remember laying in the “way back”(behind the back seat) of her AMC Hornet next to the speaker listening to ELO’s Face the Music.  These were before the days of enforced seatbelts and regulation car seats etc. Since that album was released in 1975, I had to have been at least 8 years old.
Sometime later, I think my sister Kathy signed up for the infamous Columbia House record club. She ordered many LP’s and 8-tracks through the record club. So, she ordered both the Face the Music and the follow-up A New World Record.  The New World Record album was the first to feature a definitive logo for the band and a shortened band name. The band name went from the mouthful of 7 syllables with E-LEC-TRIC LIGHT OR-CHES-TRA to 3 letters and 3 syllables to E.L.O.

On the 1977 release - Out of the Blue, the new logo became a huge flying saucer/space station and a great piece of stage scenery for their live show. This was the pinnacle of the band as this album became their most successful studio album. I remember reading about this album in a bunch of major magazines along with my sister’s teen magazines. Even my monthly subscription to Dynamite magazine had an article about the band, the stage show and the lasers. The issue that had the article also had a fold-out poster of the band performing. I really wasn’t into the band that much at the time because (in 1977) I was a major Star Wars fan. I would eat, sleep and drink everything Star Wars. So, I gave the poster away to a mutual friend. I kinda wish I would held onto that. I wasn’t the music fanatic I am now. You would have thought that the spaceship set and the sci-fi movie fan would have brought the two together.

My friend John and I had been great friends for much of our childhood. John is about 7 months younger than me. In fact, I started writing this blog on his birthday in early February. John’s family lived on the same block as mine. In fact, I could walk down the alley to John’s house and I usually did about everyday during summer vacation and usually every weekend.  John and I used to hang out so much. When we were very young, sometimes people would think we were brothers. As I remember it, John and his family came back from a vacation one year and John just had a bunch of ELO records. He had all the albums up to that point. He had the whole collection except the usual greatest hits albums. There was an album called Ole-ELO which was just a compilation of the first 3 or 4 albums. I think I may have even got my opinion of greatest hits albums at that point too.  But, John was such a fan of ELO at this point, that you couldn’t help but be influenced by it.  As I look back, I think because of my sisters being Beatles fans, it was easy for me to like ELO.  John, myself and then our friend Kent would hang out a lot and listen to ELO.  I remember John and Kent going on about how they loved Ma Ma Bell and the ELO version of Roll Over Beethoven.  A few times we would get together for a sleep over at John’s house (and as embarrassing as it is to admit) we would put on ELO’s Out of the Blue album and play “air” instruments to the songs. I distinctly remember playing air drums, John played keyboards and Kent doubled as Jeff Lynne on guitar to the opening track of Turn to Stone and Sweet Talkin’ Woman.  All three of us were big fans of ELO. We continued to follow them through the next few albums.

The next album Discovery had a great big hit with Don’t Bring Me Down.  I was into the band full-throttle by this time.  I really loved the track called The Diary of Horace Wimp.  I had no idea what it was about. But, I thought the title sounded funny and somewhat amusing. I eventually recorded both Don’t Bring Me Down and The Diary of Horace Wimp on a mix tape that I had made from my cousin’s album copy(I think) Then, Jeff Lynne and the band composed music for the movie Xanadu featuring Olivia Newton John and Gene Kelly.  I was not the snobbish music I would become in college. But, I was an ELO fan and would usually only listen to the ELO side of the LP.  In 1981, the band released the album Time and the band was reduced to a 4 piece band with Richard Tandy taking on the string parts with his keyboards and synthesizers. I was such a big fan of the band at the time that I rode my bike from my house to the Kmart store in North Platte which meant I rode over the overpass that ran over interstate 80. I put the LP in my small backpack and rode to my friend Tom’s house who lived a mere blocks away from the Kmart store and then rode back home again. This would probably be the last time I would get excited about ELO as a band. I was getting older and the use of synthesizers over the string section wasn’t my thing. I was entering my teenage years and the sound of a distorted electric guitar sounded better to me because it was usually accompanied by some loud bashing drums too.  It seemed there were a few more small hits in the early and mid 80’s from the band. But, I just didn’t really want to care any more.  Jeff Lynne and Richard Tandy scored a movie called Electric Dreams.  But, it just seemed too synth heavy and that just wasn’t what I wanted to hear.  I had already bought the soundtrack for Xanadu and had only listened to one side of the album.
Fast forward to 1987….Beatle George Harrison is back with an album called Cloud Nine.  It has a big hit on the album with the song I Got My Mind Set on You.  I am a big Beatles fan. So, I was interested in hearing this album. Wow! I find out that Ringo Starr is playing drums on the album along with session great Jim Keltner. But, this album is produced by….JEFF LYNNE!! Wait a minute…Jeff Lynne? the main guy from ELO? That Jeff Lynne? Soon, Jeff Lynne would go on to produce Tom Petty’s solo album Full Moon Fever that would become huge. If you remember the videos, Petty would appear in the videos with Lynne, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in them.  In 1988, Petty would then team up with George and Jeff Lynne (along with Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison) as the Traveling Wilburys. Both Harrison and Lynne took on the aliases of Otis and Nelson Wilbury. 

After the first Wilbury album, Lynne would continue his streak of production credits with Roy Orbison’s posthumous 1989 release Mystery Girl and his own solo album – Armchair Theatre.  These albums had a great earthiness to them. There wasn’t a lot of Jeff Lynne synthesizers that plagued the later ELO albums. Suddenly, I began to long for the ELO albums had heard and enjoyed in my early youth. I even met friends and colleagues through Dustys and the College radio station that also had memories and praise for old ELO albums like Face the Music and New World Record.  I found that I could actually like the music of my youth that may have seemed uncool in the late 80’s and yet still enjoy my current faves at the time. It’s a radical idea. But, chances are, if you liked something when you were younger, you can still like it when you’re older too. There’s no rule you can’t!
In my year of living in Grand Island in the early 90’s, I found a used LP copy of ELO’s Out of the Blue double album at a pawn shop or antique shop. I saw the album and bought it for very cheap. I got home and put it on the turntable and was riveted to it with a smile on my face. I put the album on, dropped the needle and it was the perfect album for me at that exact moment at that point in time. I sat in my one room rental outside of Grand Island while all the childhood memories of siblings, friends and ELO flooded back. I would put the album on again after that. But, I didn’t want to lose that feeling I had that day. So, when I put it on again, it was never really the same and never seemed as good as it was that day.
In 1995, Jeff Lynne would get his wish and full induction into the Beatles organization when he would produce Free as a Bird and Real Love for the Beatles Anthology projects.  Then in 2002, Lynne would pay tribute to his friend George Harrison along with Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr at the Concert for George that was held on the one year anniversary of George’s death.
In the first decade of the 21st Century(2000-2010), I remember hearing advertisers start using Mr Blue Sky from Out of the Blue for use in movie trailers and different products. All of a sudden, I felt that youthful joy I had for that music. After that, I felt compelled to put together my own CD of ELO hits. This was the early days of filesharing. So, I would download the songs I wanted and compile my own Greatest Hits CD.  It was a project I loved doing. But, I think my disc has a couple of repeat songs and even a song that is cut off in mid-song. That’s what you get when you download a song from an unreliable source that doesn’t have a whole song and gives the song the title they think it should be.
In 2001, Lynne released an album under the moniker of ELO called Zoom with guest appearances by Ringo Starr and original ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy. There had been legal issues with past members that had formed a band and toured under the name ELO part II. With past lawsuits behind them, ELO recorded a concert with Tandy and Lynne as the only original members for PBS and planned a tour but was cancelled shortly thereafter. There has been speculation has to reasons why the tour never happened. There was limited media about the tour that resulted in poor ticket sales. Also, the events of September 11th have been brought up as a reason why the tour never happened either. Drummer Gregg Bissonette is quoted as saying “It’s the greatest tour I never went on.”  I remember seeing videos from this one recorded concert and felt excited about the whole thing.  When I got married in March of 2001, I had reconnected with my childhood friend John. My wife and I had made a couple of trips to Lincoln to visit him. I remember sharing the news of the ELO reunion with him and he thought it was cool. But, he also thought it would be cool if someone would release some concert footage of the band from “back in the day”.  It wasn’t long after that that I found that EagleRock entertainment released a full length concert video of the Out of the Blue: live at Wembley.  This was such a cool idea and I still contemplate the purchase of this DVD when I see it on the Music DVD rack.

Max Reinhardt writes in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die:

Out of the Blue was a daringly ambitious project-a galaxy-spanning double platter that melded spacey art-rock, Beatlesque pop, and sleek orchestral arrangements
….It kicks off with a trio of tunes that rank among ELO’s finest and draws inspiration from both Berry and Beethoven as moves through rockers and climaxes with Mr Blue Sky and comes to a triumphant close with the cinematic Wild West Hero.

All I know is that this album and this band hold a very distinct and profound memory of a short time where this band was my favorite.  It also represents a time with two of my best friends that I still think about with great fondness and many cherished memories!
To John and Kent…. This blog is for you guys
Love you guys!