“I don’t want to show off as much as before. You realize you don’t have to play so many notes – Albert King taught me that, about leaving space, and it really hit home. The blues is a minimalist thing – it’s like sculpting, you chip away everything you don’t need until you are left with the best bits.”
Gary Moore
Gary Moore was an outstanding composer, guitarist and blues, and rock vocalist. We have known him mainly for the unique, extremely emotional guitar style, and perfect technical mastery of this instrument.
Blues for Greeny
Gary Moore was born on April 4, 1952, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He began his career in the second half of the 1960s. The work of contemporary rock blues guitarists, with Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall at the forefront, always was an inspiration for him. He was the guitarist of the Irish group Skid Row. It was then that he was noticed by his idol Peter Green from Fleetwood Mac, who helped the group sign a contract with an extensive record label and gave Gary one of his favorite 1959 Gibson Les Paul guitars. After years, Moore played the whole album with compositions of his idol “Blues for Greeny” on this guitar.
Gary Moore solo career
The 70s were a hectic time for Moore. He began his solo career by releasing the album “Grinding Stone” in 1973. He also participated in many side projects. He was active mainly in Thin Lizzy and the pro-rock project Colosseum II. At the end of the decade and throughout the 1980s, he took his solo career seriously, releasing seven albums during this period and leaving behind such classics as “Parisienne Walkway’s,” “After The War,” and “Over the Hills and Far Away.” In the 1980s, his style departed a bit from blues in favor of hard rock and soft metal, but in 1990 he recalled himself as a blues guitarist by releasing his most famous album “Still Got The Blues.” Albert Collins, Albert King, George Harrison have appeared on this release.
Back to The Blues
Blues accompanied the guitarist on the next albums “After Hours” and “Blues for Greeny.” At the turn of the century, Gary Moore experimented with new sounds, but fans and critics did not very well receive the albums released in this style, so in 2001 he returned to blues again with the album “Back to The Blues.” He remained faithful to his beloved music until the end of his career.
He died on February 6, 2011, of a heart attack, asleep, while on vacation in the Spanish town of Estepona.
Video From the DVD The Definitive Montreux Collection
