Gary Moore

Gary Moore (born Robert William Gary Moore, 4 April 1952, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a Northern Irish guitarist and singer.

In a career dating back to the 1960s, Moore has played with artists including Thin Lizzy, B.B. King, Colosseum II, Greg Lake and the blues-rock band Skid Row, as well as having a successful solo career. Among many cameo appearances over the years, he performed the lead guitar solo on "She's My Baby" from Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3.

Biography

Moore grew up on a road opposite Stormont, off the Upper Newtownards Road in east Belfast and started performing at a young age, having picked up a battered acoustic guitar at the age of eight. Moore got his first quality guitar at the age of 14, learning to play the right-handed instrument in the standard way despite being left-handed. Like so many others, Moore's early musical influences were artists such as Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Later, having seen Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in his home town of Belfast, his own style was developing into a blues-rock sound that would come to dominate his career.

Moore's greatest influence in the early days came from guitarist Peter Green, of Fleetwood Mac fame, who was a mentor to Moore when performing in Dublin. Green's continued influence on Moore was later repaid as a tribute to Green on his 1995 album Blues for Greeny, an album consisting entirely of Green compositions. On this tribute album Moore played Green's 1959 Les Paul standard guitar which Green had loaned to Moore after leaving Fleetwood Mac

. Moore ultimately purchased the guitar, at Green's request, so that "it would have a good home".

Moore has remained relatively unknown in the US, although his work has "brought substantial acclaim and commercial success in most other parts of the world – especially in Europe". Moore throughout his career has been recognised as an influence by many guitarists including Randy Rhoads, John Sykes and Kirk Hammett.

Over his long career, Moore has been anything but predictable in his style and genre, at times to the dismay and confusion of his fans and critics alike,Citation needed

Skid Row

In 1969 Moore joined the group Skid Row with Noel Bridgeman and Brendan "Brush" Shiels. It was with this group that Moore earned a reputation in the music industry, and his association with Philip Lynott began.

Albums

Skid (1970)
34 Hours (1971)
Gary Moore/Brush Shiels/Noel Bridgeman (1971) Released (1990)
Live And On Song – BBC Live in Concert (1969–71) Released (2006)

Solo career

Moore released his first solo album in 1973, Grinding Stone and was billed as the Gary Moore Band. In 1978 his solo career continued with help from Phil Lynott. The combination of Moore's blues-based guitar and Lynott's voice, produced "Parisienne Walkways", which reached the Top Ten in the UK Singles Chart in April 1979; and the Thin Lizzy album, Black Rose: A Rock Legend hit number two.

In 1987, Moore collaborated on the UK charity record "Let It Be", a cover of The Beatles track. Moore performed a guitar solo for inclusion on the recording, which was released under the group-name of 'Ferry Aid'. The record raised substantial funds for the survivors of the MS Herald of Free Enterprise disaster.

In 1993, Moore was included on a cassette called Rock Classics Vol. 1 with "Run To Your Mama", and "Dark Side of the Moog".

After a series of rock records, Moore returned to blues music with Still Got the Blues, with contributions from Albert King, Albert Collins and George Harrison. The album was well received by fans and a huge success. Moore stayed with the blues format until 1997, when he decided to experiment with modern dance beats on Dark Days in Paradise; this left many fans, as well as the music press confused. Back to the Blues saw Moore return to his tried and tested blues format in 2001, then continued by Power of the Blues (2004), Old New Ballads Blues (2006), Close As You Get (2007)
and his most recent album Bad For You Baby (2008).

Studio albums

Grinding Stone (1973)
Back on the Streets (1979)
G-Force (1980)
Gary Moore (1982)
Corridors of Power (1982)
Victims of the Future (1983)
Dirty Fingers (1984)
Run for Cover (1985)
Wild Frontier (1987)
After the War (1989)
Still Got the Blues (1990)
After Hours (1992)
Blues for Greeny (1995)
Dark Days in Paradise (1997)
A Different Beat (1999)
Back to the Blues (2001)
Power of the Blues (2004)
Old New Ballads Blues (2006)
Close As You Get (2007)
Bad For You Baby (2008)

Live albums

Live at the Marquee (1981)
We Want Moore! (1984)
''Rockin' Every Night - Live in Japan (1986)
Blues Alive (1993)
Live At Monsters Of Rock (2003)
Live At Montreux DVD Definitive Montreux Collection (2007)

Compilation albums

Ballads & Blues 1982-1994 (1994)
Ballads & Blues 2 (1996)
Out in the Fields: the Very Best Of (1998)
Blood of Emeralds: the Very Best Of (1999)
The Best of the Blues (2002)
Have Some Moore – The Best Of (2002)
Parisienne Walkways: The Blues Collection (2003)
Back on the Streets: The Rock Collection (2003)
The Essential Gary Moore (2003)
Blue Collection/Rock Collection (2004)
The Platinum Collection (2006)

Selected singles (UK Singles Chart Top 40 hits)

"Parisienne Walkways" – 1979 – No. 8
"Out in the Fields" – 1985 – No. 5 a
"Empty Rooms" – 1985 re-issue – No. 23
"Over the Hills and Far Away" – 1986 – No. 20
"Wild Frontier" – 1987 – No. 35
"Friday on My Mind" – 1987 – No. 26 ß
"After the War" – 1989 – No. 37
"Still Got the Blues (For You)" – 1990 – No. 31
"Cold Day in Hell" – 1992 – No. 24
"Story of the Blues" – 1992 – No. 40
"Parisienne Walkways" – 1993 re-recording – No. 32

a Credited to Gary Moore and Phil Lynott.
ß Cover version of The Easybeats 1966, No. 6 UK hit.

Thin Lizzy

Moore played in Thin Lizzy for several periods and worked with Phil Lynott subsequently in his solo career.

Albums

Night Life (1974) (note that he only appears on the song "Still In Love With You")
Remembering – Part 1 (1976) (Compilation)
Black Rose: A Rock Legend (1979)
The Continuing Saga of the Ageing Orphans (1979) (Compilation)
The Adventures of Thin Lizzy (1981) (Compilation)
Life (1983)
Dedication: The Very Best of Thin Lizzy (1991) (Compilation)
Thin Lizzy Greatest Hits (2004) (Compilation)

Colosseum II

Colosseum II is a band that came from the ashes of Colosseum and featured Don Airey, John Mole, Jon Hiseman and Moore.

Albums

Strange New Flesh (1976)
Electric Savage (1977)
War Dance (1977)

Greg Lake

Moore participated in the recording of Greg Lake's two solo albums, Greg Lake (1981) and Manoeuvres (1983). He also played live in Greg Lake's line-up. Some notable performances of his touring stint with Lake, were the live covers of King Crimson songs "21st Century Schizoid Man", "In the Court of the Crimson King", as well as "Parisienne Walkways".

Moore's 1980 album Dirty Fingers (which also featured ex-Ted Nugent vocalist Charlie Huhn, former Rainbow/Wild Horses and later Dio bassist Jimmy Bain, and ex-Black Oak Arkansas/Pat Travers and later Ozzy Osbourne/Whitesnake/Ted Nugent drummer Tommy Aldridge) had a song called "Nuclear Attack", which he also performed on the Greg Lake album.

BBM

Formed in 1994 the group comprised Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker (both formerly performers with Cream) and Moore.

Albums

Around The Next Dream (1994)

(Gary Moore's) Scars

Formed in 2002 the band issued an eponymous album Scars which was released on 10 September 2002.
The band featured Moore (vocals/guitar), Cass Lewis of Skunk Anansie (bass guitar/backing vocals) and Darrin Mooney of Primal Scream (drums).

Note: This group is not to be confused with the Scottish punk/post-punk band called Scars, which existed from 1977 to 1982.

Albums

Scars (2002)

Connection with Peter Green

Cleanup According to numerous interviews Moore has given to guitar magazines, he is the protégé of British blues pioneer Peter Green, whom he has admired ever since the Bluesbreakers days. When Green quit Fleetwood Mac and the entire music scene, he sold his famous nasal-sounding 1959 Gibson Les Paul to Moore, for the same price that Moore had managed to sell his then guitar, a Gibson SG. In an interview in Classic Rock Magazine, Moore claims that when he and Green met for a photo-shoot with the guitar to promote Blues For Greeny, the latter picked up the guitar and commented that he'd sold his own Les Paul. Moore had to point out that this was the guitar Green had sold him since he hadn't recognised it and forgotten he'd sold it to Moore.

The nasal sound that resulted when both neck and bridge pick-ups were active on Green's guitar was not, as used to be believed, the result of the pick-up having been turned backward. Instead its neck pickup had been accidentally rewound in reverse using Fender-style wire, by a young repairman, Sam Lee, who had never worked on a Gibson humbucker before. The result was a unique out-of-phase tone that could be more nasal or full depending on volume-knob settings. These sounds were masterfully used by Peter Green, and later, Moore. Green's former Les Paul was Moore's
Green and Moore also reportedly had a disagreement regarding what guitar the former was playing in the song "Albatross". Moore insists it was the Les Paul, because the guitar tone was particularly warm and rich in the bass, while Peter Green maintains he was using a Strat, as the vibrato in that song was not finger vibrato, but subtle tremolo arm vibrato.

Guitar designer and builder Jol Dantzig, who has built a number of his Hamer guitars for Moore, recounted a story in Vintage Guitar magazine about investigating the pick-up mystery with Moore in the 1980s. What Dantzig actually found was that the neck pick-up magnet had been reversed. It was out-of-phase by the magnet being turned around, not by the leads at the pot reverse-wired. "I can't say whether it was done by a repairman or done at the factory originally, said Dantzig, "who knows?" — actually Peter Green is on record as having done it accidentally himself, however it is unclear if he meant reversing the magnet or the whole pick-up.

Equipment used

Over the years Moore has used numerous guitars. These include – Peter Green's 1959 Gibson Les Paul Sunburst, and the 1950s Gibson Les Paul Junior. He has also used guitars from Charvel, Ibanez, Hamer, Jackson, Heritage, Paul Reed Smith and, as seen in the music video for "Out in the Fields", a SynthAxe. He can also be seen using a white Gibson Explorer during the 2003 Monsters of Rock festival. Amplification has generally come from Marshall, although Soldanos and Fender have also been used, as well as transistor-driven Dean Markley units (especially in the studio). He also has used numerous effects over the years. These include; Delay units such as the Roland Space Echo, 555, Overdrive/Booster units such as the BOSS DS-1, Ibanez Tubescreamer variants, Marshall, Bluesbreaker and Guv'nor pedals as well as wah-wah pedals such as the Vox Wah, Dunlop JH1. He appears nowadays to favour Gibson and Fender guitars, through Marshall amplifiers. His choices in effects have remained constant, using an Ibanez TS10 Classic Tubescreamer on many recordings/live shows.

Moore's contribution to music and blues in particular have been recognised in recent years by prestigious commercial endorsements. In 2004 to 2006 Moore was featured in full page advertisements for Marshall's range of reissued classic handwired amplifiers, including classic amplifiers from the 1960s and 1970s, such as the popularly named "Bluesbreaker combo" originally made famous by Eric Clapton. Moore was also recognised by Gibson Guitars in 2008 with a signature model, The Gary Moore Les Paul BFG, which is not a reproduction of an existing model, but a new model with a distinctive lemon sunburst maple cap, a neck as well as a body that is unbound, and a "Gary Moore" name plate engraved on the truss rod cover.publisher=Gibson

DVDs

''Thin Lizzy Live at Sydney Harbour '78, (1978)
The Old Grey Whistle Test 2, (2003)
Live at Monsters of Rock, (2003)
Gary Moore & The Midnight Blues – Live at Montreux 1990, (2004)
Gary Moore and Friends: One Night in Dublin – A Tribute to Phil Lynott, (2006)

VHSs

Gary Moore – Live in Stockholm: Wild Frontier Tour, (1987)
Gary Moore – Emerald Aisles, (1984)
Gary Moore – The Singles
"An Evening of the Blues" with Gary Moore & Midnight Blues Band – featuring Albert Collins & Albert King (1990)

Signed Music Artists