Rory Gallagher

“Basically, I like anything with guts - Lead Belly, Bill Big Broonzy, Johnny Winter, the Stones.”

“I liked Slash. He's a nice guy and can really play.”

“I could bear being in the charts and being on everyone's car radio 10 times a day. I'm just terrified of... a lot of people I respect have done it with a real little 'ditty' and that was the end of it - that was all they were ever known for.”

“Basically, I try to treat the electric guitar like an acoustic guitar. What you have to do is attack the instrument and know that your feelings aren't controlled by the controls of your guitar.”

“If anything, even though I can play in the sort of standard string-bending style, in the B.B. King mold and all of that, I've always had a great interest in the more primitive playing, the open chord playing, rhythm and figures.”

“If somebody needed a guitar player for a tour and I was free and it was the right situation, I'd do it and it would be good fun. There would be much less pressure if I just had to stand there and play leads.”

“I won't squander my credibility, whatever that is, just for one silly song.”

“The strange thing is I can't play jigs or reels or any of that traditional Irish stuff as well as I ought to, whereas I think I have got a good ear for blues, the tonality of it and so on.”

“The first songs I learned were 'It Takes a Worried Man' and Woody Guthrie's 'Grand Coulee Dam,' 'Rock Island Line' - those kind of American folk songs that were probably on the edge of blues. After that was Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry songs. And then I heard Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed and Big Bill Broonzy on the radio.”

“A lot of the time I use slide tuning for rhythm parts. I play a lot of slide in regular tuning as well as open tunings. I'm still mad about slide, there are so many ways of progressing on it.”

“Lonnie Donegan and the folk movement were responsible for a lot of the spread of the blues in England. The group Them with Van Morrison was a big influence on me, too, as were The Stones; The Yardbirds, John Mayall, and the other British blues pioneers.”

“I've never been that career conscious.”

“As a kid, I loved any guitarists, whether it was Elvis Presley, Lonnie Donegan, Chuck Berry or even the cowboy guitarists like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. The image of the guitar appealed to me.”

“Obviously, I would like to play to bigger audiences and have a bit more success, but not if I have to commercialize.”

“I started on acoustic guitar after I heard Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy.”

“My favorite lineup is just a trio, because then every night you can improvise and change the repertoire. Keyboards and brass can be great, but it puts you in a different ballgame because you're not quite as free. You have to stick to the arrangement of the song.”

“I've been playing a Fender since 1963, and before that it was my dream guitar. I can't endorse it more than that.”

“I kept playing blues-based music all during the 1980s, and it was tough.”

“Audiences aren't that different for my show from area to area. Other acts, I think, experiences differences, but not me.”

“The best slide guitar, unless you're playing the Muddy Waters-style, is the old '52 Goldtop Les Paul.”