Over the course of a few nights in the summer of 2025, Cork became the centre of the rock’n’roll universe. That, at least, is how it felt to the thousands crammed into the swooping Live at the Marquee tent on the city’s docklands to witness New York guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa recreate the songbook of Cork blues wizard Rory Gallagher — conjuring from out of the heady July air the immortal spirit of one of Ireland’s greatest ever musicians.
Gallagher, who died in 1995 aged just 47, was among the leading bluesmen of his era — a mercurial, brightly blazing talent up there with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Hendrix. Stepping into his shoes — in Cork no less — was a daunting undertaking, and Bonamassa is open about his pre-gig jitters.
He would be playing in front of Gallagher’s hometown crowd, his family and friends, and former bandmates — including Gerry McAvoy, Gallagher’s long-time bass player, who joined him on stage for a cameo.
Twelve months later, Bonamassa recalls how flattered he felt at being invited to play Gallagher’s music — and his fear he might be in over his head.
“I said, yeah, ‘I’m honoured. Thank you for asking’. I hung up the phone and I said, ‘Oh shit, I said, what have I signed up for?’ And then I almost backed out. I was like, ‘I’m just gonna get murdered, I’m just gonna get hammered’.”
There were two options, he concluded. Panic — or make a conscious effort to enjoy the experience. He opted for the latter. “I said, ‘you know what you said you were going to do. So do it. Be yourself’.”
The trio of Gallagher shows he played at the Marquee have now been captured for perpetuity on a live album, The Spirit of Rory: Live From Cork, which brilliantly conveys the experience of being under the canvas hearing Bonamassa bring to life Rory Gallagher’s music — a performance the Irish Examiner praised as “awesome and yet eerie at the same time”.
In the liner notes to the record, Bonamassa talks about approaching Gallagher’s repertoire with a “mix of humility and reverence". He recalls the shows as a blend of emotions — excitement at the opportunity to honour a guitarist he had grown up listening to in Utica, New York — but also nerves about doing justice to blues-rock classics such as Tattoo’d Lady and Bad Penny.
Adding to the sense of occasion and raising the stakes was the fact the performances were being recorded for a documentary that later aired on America’s PBS network.
He was conscious he would have to carry off the tricky balancing act of breathing new life into the Rory Gallagher songbook without becoming a karaoke act. It had to be Gallagher’s music — as filtered through the singular style of Joe Bonamassa. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work.
“It was Joe Bonamassa plays Rory Gallagher for three nights at the Cork Marquee,” he says. “I’m not Rory. But I love Rory. But it's like saying I play Hendrix. You're going after the same comet.”
One thing that Bonamassa was clear about was that he wasn’t going to go out on stage and impersonate Rory Gallagher. The two artists might share an equivalent mastery of the guitar: Bonamassa is a former child prodigy who, at 12, opened for BB King.
But their performing styles could not be more different. If Gallagher blazed like a meteor on stage, the more restrained Bonamassa has the energy of a dark star: powerful and mysterious. It’s a study in contrast that intersects beautifully with the material — Bonamassa honours the intricacy and raw maximalism of Gallagher’s work while approaching it from his own more cerebral angle.
“I didn't want to act like Rory Gallagher. It becomes almost like a parody of itself. I certainly don't want that I was like, ‘Just go out there and play. Whatever is going to happen, it’s not going to kill my career. A good time will be had by some’.”
Going to Cork was a true odyssey for Bonamassa. Introduced to Gallagher’s music by his father, he had felt an immediate kinship with another musician who, just like him, had grown up far from the bright lights of the music industry or from the heartland of the blues.
He could never have guessed that one day he would travel to the city where Gallagher grew up and discovered the blues. Or that he would visit Crowley’s Music Store, now located on Friar Street and run by Sheena Crowley. In 1963, a 15-year-old Rory Gallagher purchased his iconic 1961 “Sunburst” Fender Stratocaster from Sheena's father Mick, when the shop was located on Merchant’s Quay.
“It’s legendary in Cork that that’s the shop that Rory got the Strat. They happen to have a reissue Sunburst 62 Stratocaster. And I was like, ‘How many opportunities am I going to get to buy a sunburst Stratocaster in Cork?’ So I buy it.” He signed the instrument and later auctioned it for charity.
Bonamassa had looked into playing Gallagher’s original Strat in Cork, but it was not logistically feasible, as it is on display at the National Museum of Ireland. He did, however, reproduce Gallagher’s take on the slowburn blues ballad As The Crow Flies on the Cork musician’s original 1932 National Resonator.
“It was loaned to me by the current owner, who was very nice to bring it down. We did attempt to get the Strat. Because it’s in the custody of the National Museum, that would have taken a written order from the president of Ireland. We were like, ‘no problem — now is a good moment to come out with that guitar [the Resonator] and play As The Crow Flies’. It was a fun way to end the night.”
Gallagher was a musical genius — but also a pioneer and a pusher of boundaries. Bonamassa believes he helped conceptualise a new type of blues music — neither American nor British but somewhere in between and distinctively Irish.
“The thing is with Rory — his reverence for the blues was very apparent. It was all 'based' stuff [ie authentic to the blues] but it rocked. It's Irish blues to me. Van Morrison is similarly very steeped in the blues, but it rocks, and it's a little more melodic,” he says. “Gary Moore, you know, it's blues. There’s British blues that is a little more traditional sounding. The Irish interpretation of the blues was a little more electric.”
Bonamassa is one of the most acclaimed blues musicians of his generation. However, even a guitarist of his stature was challenged by Gallagher’s songwriting — which is both visceral and technically complex. “Rory would play straight blues, but he would play it with an intent that’s very specific to him. The way he played slide, the way he sang and developed songs and developed ideas within the song,” he says.
The other challenge was deciding which 'version' of Gallagher’s iconic songs to perform. As Gallagher fans know, songwriting was always a work in progress for the Cork man, who would constantly re-shape his material on stage — so that new two gigs were the same. How do you recreate the repertoire of an artist who was constantly shapeshifting?
“When we did the deep dive on the set-list, it's like, ‘well, what version?’ There are 100 recorded versions of these things. Not a single one is the same. We all defaulted to [Gallagher’s iconic live album] Irish Tour ’74 because that was the record where I discovered him. Our band was much more familiar with those versions."
The deeper he delved, the more there was to learn about Gallagher and his unique alchemy. “It became apparent to me that Irish Tour ’74 was highly edited as far as the length of the songs. The outtakes from Irish Tour ’74, all the stuff I waded through… Some of those songs would go 12, 13 minutes. The band and I were more familiar with the more concise versions. We said we’d start there and try to develop it, the spirit of Rory. That’s what we tried to do.”
CD Track Listing
1. Cradle Rock
2. Walk On Hot Coals
3. Tattoo'd Lady
4. I Wonder Who
5. Calling Card
6. Who's That Coming?
7. Messin' With The Kid
8. Bullfrog Blues
9. Treat Her Right
10. Bad Penny
11. I Fall Apart
12. A Million Miles Away
13. As The Crow Flies
Vinyl (180 gram Red Marble Double LP)
Side A
1. Cradle Rock
2. Walk On Hot Coals
3. Tattoo’d Lady
4. I Wonder Who
Side B
5. Calling Card
6. Who’s That Coming?
7. Messin’ With The Kid
8. Bullfrog Blues
Side C
9. Treat Her Right
10. Bad Penny
11. I Fall Apart
Side D
12. A Million Miles Away
13. As The Crow Flies
14. Back On My Stompin’ Ground
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