Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There are names that will undoubtedly live on long after the generation that was inspired by their ideas and steel eyed vision have moved on, left the stage and the auditoriums, taken their six strings and their t-shirts, and packed away their albums in boxes labelled legend; these names will live on because of fables, myths, truisms, and vitally the sincerity of the performance captured for eternity…after all some names are never meant to disappear from view, they are meant to enthral and educate for all time.
This process is underlined when an icon of the modern day, their own personality stamped upon the conscious of the public and looked upon by many as arguably the godfather of the now long established revival of a genre that, if not weary, had certainly lost in way in the battle for attention against new forms of expression that demanded excessive time on radio.
The Blues never died though, and in Joe Bonamassa, the spirit of all who came before lives on, their names continually spoken of as a matter of fact and by disciples who laud the names and the perseverance of their endeavours, and in one of the most venerated performances of his career, the American Blues man brings one of Ireland’s most talked of sons into the 21st Century with his stunning live album The Spirit Of Rory Live From Cork, and it is one of complete harmony, of the joining together of vision, that makes it such a delight to hear the music of Rory Gallagher played in such marvellous fashion.
It is never right to compare styles of anyone, if it works, if the audience or the listener is turned on by the sound, then that rarely matters, but when it is exceptional, when the love of the living is framed in such a way that it acts as a flourishing display of more than just appreciation, it is a sense of absolute respect and as the legacy of one becomes the immense regard of the other, what the listener is offered in this vital recording is connection, of reforging a relationship that made the genre so important in the first place.
Recorded in the June of 2025, The Spirit Of Rory Live From Cork, the tribute is one of colossal ferocity, played with the sense of touch of angel, dedicated to memory, bonds, and humility, and as tracks such as Walk On Hot Coals, Tattoo’d Lady, Who’s That Coming, Messin’ With The Kid, Bad Penny, the fantastic I Fall Apart, and the sublime A Million Miles Away which acts as the sensation curtain closer, all combine, what is felt is agency of the exquisite merging with the power of responsibility, an obligation to the genre to be always tasked with beauty, and the sorrow of a million tales granted deep love.
An excellent album by Joe Bonamassa, a spirit of two men captured in the name of pleasure.
The Spirit Of Rory Live From Cork will be released Friday June 19th via Joe Bonamassa’s own J&R Adventures.
Ian D. Hall