Guitar Legend Gary Moore And His Monster Tone

Earlier this year, we lost the true guitar legend, Gary Moore.  I have been, and still am, a big fan of Moore for his playing, songwriting, versatility, and most importantly his tone.  Moore was a guitar monster, and could play alongside guitar greats Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page.  Moore’s music is inspiring and his music versatility alone is a great reminder to all guitarists to explore different styles of music to expand their playing abilities.  This feature will provide blues guitar fans some of Moore’s history, his impeccable tone, and a few videos of his work.

Gibson Lifestyle provided a great feature about Gary Moore following his death in early 2011.  Check it out now at http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/gary-moore-0317-2011/.

There’s no questioning the greatness of the Irish guitar legend Gary Moore, who died on February 6 at age 58 while vacationing in Spain. What’s worth asking is why he wasn’t on the same pedestal as his fellow Gibson Les Paul demi-gods, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

After all, when it came to electric guitar firepower, Moore had it all: chops, compositional imagination and tone — a tone as big as anything Page plastered on Led Zeppelin’s early albums. Maybe Moore, nearly a decade younger than the members of the British Guitar Triumvirate, was just a little behind the curve of six-string immortality that swept them up. Or maybe, as the American sonic rock guitar wizard Reeves Gabrels, a huge Moore fan, suggests, Moore’s Belfast ancestry swept him into the long-running complexities between the English and the Irish.

At any rate, to quote an old English axiom, “the proof is in the pudding,” and Moore offered proof of his greatness at every turn of his career. The evidence of his undeniable genius is embedded in numbers like the steel-toed melodic jazz-rock masterwork “Parisienne Walkways,” the Celtic-flavored shred fest “Over the Hills and Far Away” and his other epic compositions.

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Moore left behind more than 27 solo albums that range from blues to hard rock to metal to fusion and back to blues. He also made outstanding music with the rock and fusion bands Thin Lizzy, the original Skid Row and Colosseum II, and was a bandmate with two-thirds of Cream in BBM, with drummer Ginger Baker and Gibson EB3 bass giant Jack Bruce.

It’s said that a guitarist’s tone is his fingerprint — the ultimate signpost of his identity. Moore’s tone was, at its foundation, a derivation of his British blues influences: Peter Green and Bluesbreakers-and-Cream-era Eric Clapton. But the most distinctive part of Moore’s character as a player was in his head and his hands. Moore’s picking speed and attack were ferocious, and his vibrato was equal to that of Green and Clapton — among the world’s finest.

Nonetheless, in purely mechanical terms, it’s possible to get close to Moore’s immense tone. The ideal tools are a Gibson Les Paul Standard and a Marshall amp or its high-gain equivalent. Like Green and Clapton, Moore made his mark initially with a classic Sunburst. In fact, his primary guitar was the classic Sunburst: the so-called Holy Grail Les Paul that belonged to Green during the latter’s heyday with the original Fleetwood Mac and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.

Moore first saw Green in the Bluesbreakers when he was 14 and heard his calling in the distinctive throaty voice of Green’s 1959 ’Burst, a guitar with a singular and magical tone. There’s been a lot of speculation over the years on just how Green’s instrument achieved it’s super-warm trebly sound. Green says he reversed a magnet in the neck position humbucker while tinkering with the guitar. Another tale has a repairman accidentally re-winding the pickup in reverse.

Moore acquired the guitar in 1969, after Green became his mentor. That year “Greenie” quit Fleetwood Mac and began his long estrangement from the music business. Moore used the guitar throughout his musical evolution, which veered into hard rock with his first solo disc in 1973, then on to artier but no less heavy turf with bassist/singer Phil Lynott in Thin Lizzy, and to the fusion based Coliseum II. The guitar makes several prominent and extended appearances on Moore’s last DVD and CD releases, 2007’s Live At Montreux DVD — The Definitive Montreux Collection and 2009’s five-CD Essential Montreux.

After 37 years in Moore’s hands the guitar was auctioned in 2006 beginning with an asking price of $2-million and made its post-auction debut on display at the Dallas Guitar Show in 2007.

The other half of Moore’s historic tonal equation was a Marshall. The ideal tool is a 50-watt head with a 4×12 or 2×12 cabinet, to get some air moving, or a “Bluesbreakers” style combo. Moore set his amp’s dials with gain at half-mast, treble at roughly seven, mids up to 9 for a warm core sound, bass at five (to roll off some lows) and presence at five for extra definition, handy for punching out the fleet solos with distinct, crisp single notes that were his calling card.

For a deep indoctrination in Moore’s playing and his legacy, check out these 10 touchstone albums, which immortalize his career:

Strange New Flesh, Colosseum II (1976): Moore had already been in Dublin blues-rock outfit Skid Row — with his boyhood friend and musical collaborator Phil Lynott — and recorded his first solo album when he was drafted into this fusion outfit by drummer and band founder Jon Hiseman for its second disc. Although this album was powered by Moore’s intense playing, it failed to break out and the group crumbled. Nonetheless, Moore’s flexible performances during his tenure in Colosseum immortalized the group.

Back on the Streets (1978): Grinding Stone, in 1973, was the first album by the Gary Moore Band, but this disc is his first true solo album — a testament to his compositional abilities and the strength of his collaboration with Lynott, who plays on four tracks and co-composed the disc’s “Parisienne Walkways.” Here, the song clocks in under four minutes, but it became a cornerstone of Moore’s performances throughout his career, often clocking in at 10-minutes-plus and weaving through every stylistic element of his playing.

Black Rose: A Rock Legend, Thin Lizzy (1979): Phil Lynott’s hard-rock/pop outfit Thin Lizzy was something of a revolving door for Moore, but his tenure during 1978 and ’79 yielded the group’s greatest album, which climbed to number two on the U.K. charts. Moore and Lynott perfected their ability to blend Celtic tradition with power rock in the title track. This album had a profound influence on Axl Rose, who has the cover tattooed on his right arm.

Corridors of Power (1982): This was Moore’s first major metal statement. It captured the state of shred in the early ’80s with numbers like “End of the World” and “Don’t Take Me for a Loser,” and sent Moore off on tour opening for Def Leppard. Corridors of Power sent countless guitar players hip to Moore’s fiery attack back to the woodshed.

Victims of the Future (1983): A shoulda-been-hit from the early ’80s hair metal era that compresses all the virtues of that age — power ballads, rock anthems, sweep arpeggios, brain-crushing chords and sweeping epics in “Murder in the Skies” and the title track.

After the War (1989): This pivotal disc found Moore making his evolution back to blues. The track “Led Clones,” with guest Ozzy Obsourne on vocals, ridicules Zeppelin recyclers and indicated Moore’s frustration with the genre. “After the War” is another slice of his Celtic heritage. And his take on Roy Buchanan’s “The Messiah Will Come Again,” re-asserts his blues foundation with soaring majesty.

Still Got the Blues (1990): Albert King, Albert Collins and George Harrison all contributed to Moore’s back-to-the-blues debut. He tapped the catalogs of Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Jimmy Rogers and A.C. Williams (“Oh Pretty Women,” also cut by the Bluesbreakers on Crusade), and fired it up on his own Lone Star blues ripper “Texas Strut.” The highlight is his sparring with King on the Gibson Flying V legend’s earlier hit “As the Years Go Passing By.”

Around the Next Dream, BBM (1994): Moore’s short-lived supergroup team-up with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce produced a monster blowing session that realized a boyhood dream for Moore — playing Eric Clapton in Cream.

Blues For Greeny (1995): This tribute to his mentor Peter Green includes Moore’s take on early Fleetwood Mac masterpieces like “Showbiz Blues” and the instrumental “The Super-Natural.” The latter is a must-hear performance. Green’s version made him a giant of British blues guitar when he cut it with John Mayall for the Bluesbreakers’ A Hard Road.

Essential Montreux (2009): Essential, indeed, this five-disc box is a compendium to every facet of Moore’s playing in one compact college level course. The set captures uncompromising performances at the famed Swiss festival from 1990, ’95, ’97, ’99 and 2001. Its 60 songs display the furious shredding of his hard rock and fusion eras, with both styles compacted into the anti-war epic “Out in the Fields,” as well as the classics “Over the Hills and Far Away” and “Parisienne Walkways.” But there’s also plenty of blues, with heart-attack-inducing nods to a roster of Moore’s heroes including B.B. King, Otis Rush, T-Bone Walker, Freddie King and, of course, Green.

Gary Moore has played in a variety of bands that play very different styles of music.  This next video is a collaboration of some of his best solos in the different bands over his musical career.  Find the video here at http://www.guitar-tube.com/watch/gary-moore-solos1.

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This next video pays tribute to guitar legend, Jimi Hendrix.  It’s Gary Moore playing Red House with a rockin’ trio.  Enjoy the video here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxkzluURe7g.

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Gary Moore is a really great guitarist to dig your teeth into.  His tone is killer, vocals rock, and he can build a great guitar solo.  I hope you enjoyed the feature; be sure to check out more of this great guitarist.

Thanks,

Griff