OUTSIDE IT'S a wet and windy night but inside there is steam coming off the heads and shoulders of an assortment of ageing rockers, young blues fans, record bosses and music royalty.
All have gathered in the Irish Embassy’s very auspicious London location for the official launch of the 40th anniversary edition of guitar legend Rory Gallaher’s finest hour, his Irish Tour ’74 live album.
Then something odd happens. Sony Music’s Vice President Phil Savill stands up to present Rory Gallagher’s younger brother (and former manager) Donal with a disc to mark sales of 200,000 in Britain for Irish Tour ’74, but as he does so, he says that the gold disc in his hands doesn’t really do Rory justice.
In fact, he says sales of that one record alone in Britain are thought to be around 10 times that figure. Then the cameras flash and everyone goes back to drinking their Guinness.
A few days later, down the phone in London, Donal Gallagher explains his brother’s approach to selling records. “Everyone wants their music listened to, but if he had really wanted to sell a hell of a lot more he would have gone for single records.”
Rory famously rejected going down the single route (although some were released without his consent) not because he didn’t like them, but because he was a purist.
“He felt that if you got into the popularity Top of the Pops contest you’d have to dilute your music. In that period in the ’70s every record had to have a gimmick for the single release so Rory went the album route.”
Gallagher watched on as his folk and blues hero Lonnie Donegan released the novelty record Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour and was determined not to follow suit.
Gallagher onstage during his Irish Tour '74 (Photo: Pat Galvin)Handsome, down to earth, effortlessly cool and talented beyond belief, Rory Gallagher’s story has been told a million times.
He toured like a madman, gig after gig, night after night, earning the reputation as one of the hardest working musicians of his time.
When Jimi Hendrix was asked how it felt to be the best guitarist in the world? He replied: “I don’t know. Ask Rory Gallagher.”
Born in Donegal, raised in Cork, his music went global — he was worshipped in America (and the first person The Rolling Stones called when they wanted to find a replacement for Mick Taylor), he had number ones in Germany, legions of obsessive fans in Japan, and yet he always came home to play, which is why Irish Tour ’74 is so special, even if we have no idea how many people bought it.
One major complication in calculating Rory’s sales is copyrights.
Very few artists, including The Beatles whose copyrights were owned by EMI Records, had the rights to their own songs.
“Rory was very unusual. His contract stipulated that he retained his copyright. His catalogue moved through several companies. Music that started life with Polydor in the late ’70s moved to Chrysalis Records and then changed again to Demon Records and then again to BMG.”
The catalogue moved, paperwork was discarded and no sales pattern emerges.
Even so, why not add the existing figures from each of Rory’s labels past and present and get a ballpark figure? Because, there’s another catch — bootlegs.
“Certain artists like Rory and Bruce Springsteen sell millions and millions of bootlegs because that’s what the hard core fans want… you can’t quantify it,” explains Donal Gallagher.
Another problem is very simply the Seventies. Great for flares, sideburns and flower power but not great for technology and communication.
Take a prime example — Rory’s second album at Polydor, On The Boards, was a huge hit, a British Top 10 that topped the charts in the US and Germany too.
Official British chart reporting figures only date back to 1994 and with the absence of the BPI (British Phonograph Institute) or IRMA (Irish Recorded Music Association), information about sales was sporadic at best.
Tracking sales wasn’t the only issue, the Irish Tour ’74 album itself was beset with problems, and almost never happened.
A mobile truck, built by and belonging to Ronnie Lane from The Small Faces had been booked, but there was red tape because of the volatility and violence in the North of Ireland.
“They couldn’t get insurance in the UK to go to Belfast so the mobile truck didn’t turn up,” explains Gallagher.
It eventually did show up in Dublin, but too late for the show, and then made its way to Cork where they recorded the last show of the tour.
Looking back, Gallagher says maybe it’s as well that the truck never got to Belfast.
“I don’t think the guys in the truck would have liked to be parked up outside the Ulster Hall in Belfast” (on a route charmingly nicknamed ‘Bomb Alley’ in the ’70s).
The album did get made, and it captured the spirit of a young generation.
“Ireland wasn’t fashionable, particularly touring in the UK a lot of bands covered up their roots or where they were from; they didn’t really want to fly the flag. This was putting Ireland out there. It wasn’t putting an ugly face on it, this was rock ’n’ roll. In a country at war, Rory was a uniting force.”
Senior product manager at Sony Legacy Recordings UK, Lisa McErlain, worked with Donal and Daniel Gallagher on the reissue of the 40th anniversary edition of the album and says it’s a “real shame” that official statistics are so foggy pre-1994.
“We know that the figures we have for Irish Tour don’t go anywhere near recognising the true volume of sales or culture impact this record had,” says McErlain.
Pushed on Sony’s sales figures she explains that it is “near impossible” to verify.
“It is the same issue any record label would have with a 40-year-old album that’s been with a few different labels over the years. Rory’s catalogue hasn’t always been with Sony and therefore we have limited paperwork. Officially, the BPI have certified Irish Tour as over 230,000 units (double gold) in the UK alone.”
In the coming weeks IRMA is due to award the album multi-platinum status too but as McErlain says they already know that Irish Tour “has gone platinum many times over on Rory’s home turf.”
All in all, Rory Gallagher has had 18 “full releases”, beyond that there are compilations and posthumous releases bringing the total his brother cites to 25.
So what about this elusive total sales figure? One American label who put out an unauthorised album after Rory’s death came up with one of the most commonly quoted guestimates so far — a staggering 30million records.
Staggering in today’s world, gob-smacking when you think it was done without an advertising budget, Pepsi commercials or social media.
What makes that figure even more impressive is that since Rory’s time, official chart bodies have reduced the sales levels it takes to get to number one, so Gallagher would have to shift more units than Lady Gaga or Katy Perry to top the charts.
“The high jump has been moved downwards,” says Donal Gallagher, “physical sales have been completely eroded.”
Undoubtedly, an even bigger number is how many concert tickets Rory sold in his lifetime.
Gallagher gigged relentlessly; in fact he may have gigged himself to death. Yet with the rate of concerts and shows he played and the numbers he performed to it’s equally difficult to gauge how many people saw him play live too.
Today it’s much easier to assess Gallagher’s lasting appeal — Bullfrog Blues has more than 4,488,296 hits on YouTube and the 40th anniversary edition of Irish Tour ’74 will make his music available to a whole new audience.
And so the humble Irish musician, who never sold out, sells on.
