Empty Rooms

As I get older, it's not so shocking anymore when musicians or actors I've admired for years die. Still sucks, though.

Today I found out about the death of Irish singer-guitarist Gary Moore at the relatively young age of 58. While not a mainstream success in the U.S., Moore was one of the best rock and blues guitarists around and acknowledged as such in Europe. He's probably best known for his multiple stints playing in Thin Lizzy in the '70s and later for his string of blues albums in the early '90s.

I first heard of Moore in late 1981 while I was still in Toronto. One of the rock stations was playing a song by Greg Lake (of Emerson, Lake and Palmer fame) called "Nuclear Attack" that featured a hot solo by Moore, who played on the album and toured with Lake. It wasn't until a few years later that I heard some of Moore's solo stuff on a heavy metal show on the radio and was intrigued enough to pick up his album Corridors of Power and a Japanese import of his live album Rockin' Every Night at Midland Records in the Methuen Mall. The live album especially revealed a wickedly talented guitarist who could play circles around just about anybody.

Moore was playing hard rock at this point, but I could tell instantly he had much more feel in his playing than the other guitar wank stuff I was listening to at the time. I continued to pick up his solo albums and bonded with my buddy Chris over the ridiculously fast solos Moore would play. To my mind, he was right up there with Eddie Van Halen in terms of the best guitarists of the '80s, and Eddie dropped off after DLR left the band.

I also revisited the stuff he played in Thin Lizzy, mostly for the Black Rose studio album and on the Life live album. He and Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott worked well together and some of the last recordings Lynott made before he died in early 1986 were vocals on a few songs for Moore's Run for Cover album.

Moore had a minor radio hit with the Celtic-themed song "Over the Hills and Far Away" (not to be confused with the Zeppelin song) off 1987's Wild Frontier album. WBCN even simulcast a show he played at the Paradise in Boston on that tour; I taped it, but the recording quality is shite. I wish I'd gone, but I didn't have a car during the school year back then.

A few years later, he switched from the hard rock sound he'd been mining for years to electric blues and he finally found some U.S. success. The 1990 album Still Got the Blues is terrific and features some outstanding guitar as well as guest spots from George Harrison, Albert Collins and Albert King. He followed it up with After Hours, another good blues album. Then I started getting into alternative and punk and didn't keep up with Moore's output, but he made several blues albums as well as some rock releases.

I'm still bummed by the fact that I never saw him play live, but at least he left behind plenty of great music to remember him by.

Thin Lizzy - Waiting for an Alibi:



Victims of the Future:



Over the Hills and Far Away:



Still Got the Blues: