Disc: 1
1. Follow Me
2. Moonchild
3. Bought & Sold
4. Laundromat
5. Bad Penny
6. Edged In Blue
7. Brute Force & Ignorance
8. I Fall Apart
9. Loanshark Blues
10. Who's That Coming
11. As The Crow Flies
12. Barley & Grape Rag
13. Lonesome Highway Refraining
14. Out On The Western Plain

Disc: 2
1. In Your Town
2. Philby
3. Slumming Angel
4. Continental Op
5. Cradle Rock
6. A Million Miles Away
7. Wheels Within Wheels
8. Crest Of A Wave
9. They Don't Make Them Like You Anymore
10. Walk On Hot Coals
11. Shadow Play
12. I Could've Had Religion
13. Tattoo'd Lady
14. Bullfrog Blues


http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005NKMWEO/?tag=imwan-21

Great price for someone who doesn't already own the catalog.

I own no Rory Gallagher (and to think I am Irish). Is this a good set to buy?

John, without a track listing, no way to tell. I was just commenting on the price.

The 2 i would personally start with are

Tattoo
(current version) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z17ZRG/?tag=imwan-20

(older version better price)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000026RUS/?tag=imwan-20

&

Irish Tour '74

(current version) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004NDVK1I/?tag=imwan-20

(older version better price) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00000G6NG/?tag=imwan-20

or
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EKP5NY/?tag=imwan-20

or
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K061TG/?tag=imwan-20

From the few 2011's I've heard the current versions are slightly less bright then the last generation, which were horribly shrill. The best sounding ones are the very first gen which are now quite expensive & also do not have the bonus tracks.

During a Rolling Stone interview, Hendrix was asked how it felt to be the greatest guitarist alive and he responded, "I don't know, go ask Rory Gallagher." I'm a big blues fan but not a big fan of Gallagher. He plays a very gritty style. You might just start with his first album, John, or his "Essential Collection." You can always re-sell them on amazon, he has a big fanbase on there and they re-sell quickly, in my experience, if he wasn't your cup of tea (or other beverage of choice.)

John:
I have but 2 words for you on Rory. And they are as follows...Pure Genius. I believe this man to be one of the finest to ever lay hands on the instrument-and he turned down the Stones, who certainly knew the right guy to ask.
Electric, acoustic, dobro, whatever-he could play it all and with such passion and joy you could feel every damn note. And he could sing his ass off too. The world is a much worse place without him still playing.
So, yeah, I'd say get this!

Thanks guys. I'll check him out.

Received my 2012 CD Rory Gallagher 'Irish Tour '74' the other day and have found the sound has been improved on the previous versions. I am very satisfied with the sound but the cardboard case (digipack) is a bit of a shame, with just a small booklet containing an article from 1974 on the concerts in Ireland.
Paid 4 Pounds so I can't complain about the cost.

I picked up a 4-disc box of Rory's "Let's Go To Work" on ebay for $32, I'm going to give him another shot. It's not that I didn't like him, I just couldn't get into him. This box contains Live In Europe, Irish Tour, StageStruck and a previously only available as a Dutch boot Meeting With The G-Man and is supposed to be a 2011 remaster, so I'm looking forward to it.

I had the G-man box when it came out. Have to admit i didn't like it & I sold it soon after purchase.

I'll have to look into this if it's that improved, thanks!

Important question: did you get the 2011 Sony or the 2011 Eagle?

I have no clue if they used the same mastering, but Eagle has a tendency to master loud.

Geff

It states 2012 and it's a Sony Legacy release.

OK:
I'm even more confused now. I see a batch of remasters from Sony in the UK came out in January. Are these new, or reissues of previous remasters? They're nice and cheap.
And what of the ones released here last year on Eagle? They were new I believe-are these UK ones from the same sources. This is maddening!

We've been talking about this on the SH forum. Yeah, his catalog on CD is so confusing it is maddening.

The original albums were hard to get imports at the time (and they never released either Deuce or Photo-Finish on CD!!!). I believe all of those original CDs are now out of print.

In '98 or so they "remastered" & re-released all the albums, most with bonus tracks, but at the same time also remixed like half of them, and some are radically different sounding mixes, even with different verses and stuff like that. Plus they left off a track or so from Irish Tour '74 if I recall right. And changed all the artwork on the CDs as opposed to what they used to be.

Then those remasters/remixes were re-released again a couple times, to much confusion, like what I think the 2011 Eagles are.

And now to REALLY effing confuse us, supposedly the 1st 6 albums have now just been released on CD, using the original mixes - or something like that.

Here is an excerpt of what they say on the Rory official website:

>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.rorygallagher.com/#/news/...sary_remasters

RORY GALLAGHER - 40th ANNIVERSARY REMASTERS
January 24th, 2012

RORY GALLAGHER - 40th ANNIVERSARY
THE FIRST SIX SOLO ALBUMS RE-ISSUED

Re-mastered, Original Artwork, Liner Notes
CD (Digipack), Download & Vinyl


Sony Music in association with Capo Music and Legacy are proud to re-issue the first six original Rory Gallagher albums in chronological release date order – “Rory Gallagher” (1971), “Deuce” (1971), “Live In Europe!” (1972), “Blueprint” (1973), “Tattoo” (1973) and “Irish Tour ’74” (1974). These seminal re-issued albums celebrate 40 years since the start of Rory’s solo career.

Each of the albums is now re-released in digipack form, with artwork restored from the original first release cover art. The audio has been re-mastered from the original ¼” inch tapes.

As Daniel Gallagher, Rory’s Nephew and producer of the re-issues states, “We've aimed to release them in the spirit of the original release by going back to the vinyl artwork and original 1/4" tapes so that they look and sound exactly as Rory intended."
<<<<<<<<



To the OP - depending on what kind of music you dig, I have 2 different recommendations for you. If you like ROCK music (with great guitar, songs, vocals) then get something from Rory's more rock period like Top Priority (my favorite). If you like blues more than rock then try his earlier stuff like the aforementioned Irish Tour '74 which is a pretty classic live album. Or better yet pickup his first album, it's pretty good, more than just "blues", and you can get it now in it's original mix if the above announcement is correct.

But - for someone just exploring Rory I say go with Calling Card. Despite Top Priority being my personal favorite, Calling Card is far more diverse and is his "best" record IMO. Note again that many of his records on CD have been remixed though (including Calling Card) much to the chagrin of many fans. I happen to like the remixes but think that especially for someone new, to check out the original versions first, which unfortunately you won't be able to do with Calling Card yet unless you can find an old version on CD somehow. But go ahead, check out the remix, what the hell. It's a fantastic record. Much better than Tattoo or Irish Tour '74 IMO.

Slip, thanks for the info. 4 of those are actually my fav Rory's (Tatoo, Blueprint, Irish Tour & Live In Europe). I'll have to try one & see if the sound is improved.

Fortunately with Tatoo & Blueprint for once I actually had the brains to recognize at the time just how bad the first batch of remasters sounded, & I kept my original Castle 2 cd set of the 2 albums.

I'm having a bit of a problem figuring out if Blueprint & Tattoo still have the late 90's bonus trax?

Good question. I'm confused on that point too. I am suspecting these are just the original LP tracklistings with no bonus tracks but I don't know. Part of that logic comes from the original artwork being used etc claims (therefore original tracklists on the artwork as well).

And - if they have the remaster CD bonus tracks that makes me suspicious that these are just repackagings of the previous remasters (possibly "remastered" again or not I have no idea) rather than new transfers (not using the "R" word on purpose) of the original LP mixes/tapes.

Assuming that these are new CD transfers of the original analog (LP master) tape mixes, and if they DO have the bonus tracks from the remasters on them, then what "mastering/mixing" are the bonus tracks??? I would assume the same as the remasters (did previous mixes/transfers of those tracks even exist back in the old LP/analog days)??? This isn't even something that matters to me per se, but I'm curious. This gives me a headache btw...

Supposedly mine are being shipping now so hopefully in a week or so I'll know more.

Thanks for all the info! So at least we know that what we're looking for seem to be the Sony UK in digipak (yuk) form.
But then I ask-last year's San Fran 2 CD release-was that part of this or the Eagle releases, or was it part of this and will be released again later???

Hmmm. It was a totally separate thing, on Sony/Capo last year. It never was released back when Rory was alive, so I wouldn't categorize it along with latest series of remasters, which are supposed to be revisiting his original albums as Rory first released them & supposedly wanted them to sound (he decided he didn't like the SF album and shelved the project, went back home, changed his band, and recorded/released Photo-Finish instead). I 4get the exact story about SF from the liner notes, think it was mixed last year?? That the original wasn't even finished??

I guess someday even SF will be released/remastered/etc later to just confuse us more!

I wonder if perhaps the sales numbers of SF (was it successful? I dunno) perhaps influenced the Gallaghers/the labels to go back & give us another round of the albums, but this time as the original "sound"?? I think they have to know that there is a niche market of Rory fans who will buy just about anything, just give us something "new", which in this case means something "old". Kind of like with all the "new" Hendrix that keeps coming out over and over, we longtime fans are out here, keep shelling out $for the stuff.

I'll wait to hear what you think. If they're worthwhile, I may spring for all 4 of my favs.

I need to play it again, but I have a 2 CD/SACD UK comp called Big Guns, & my memory is that I found even the SACD to have somewhat disappointing sound. I will try to play it soon, though.

I just played a few tracks from the RG SACD on my new Oppo, & it's actually worse than I remembered. Horribly bright, strident, compressed, etc & at minimum Tattoo'd Lady was a remix. I wasn't familiar enough with the other tracks I played to know if they were remixed or not, but this is the first SACD I can remember to full out join the "loudness wars". It sounds putrid.

It may moderate as the Oppo burns in, but nothing else I've played on it has sounded anything like this.

Big Guns is remixed and *updated* and is lambasted on amazon with a 2 1/2 star rating for the SACD version.