There’s no abundance of books dedicated to Rory Gallagher, and what tomes are out there seem to be sharing the same flaw: casting but a cursory glance at the last ten years of the late great guitarist’s life. Not surprisingly, given quite a lot of the Irishman’s listeners thought, for whatever reason, that his career ceased to exist after 1987’s “Defender” which some of them were not really aware of anyway, and all such followers knew was that Rory became ill and bloated – as if it could restrain Gallagher’s creativity. Upon discovering these opinions, two of his faithful fans, Lauren Alex O’Hagan and Rayne Morales, decided to remedy the situation by writing a new volume on the fallen hero.
Planned to be published on October 4th, “Rory Gallagher: The Later Years” is a result of the authors’ meeting and striking up a friendship on the Cork master’s Instagram community. After mutual venting off – in writing – their dissatisfaction with the state of affairs, the academic researchers from Cardiff and Sydney launched the “Rewriting Rory” blog in 2021 which proved to be very popular in its shedding light on the legend’s sunset decade, so that was only logical to turn the material the pair amassed, including interviews with those who worked with Gallagher – among them harpist Mark Feltham, bassist David Levy, drummer Richard Newman, violinist Roberto Manes and photographer Bob Hewitt, – into a book.
With Rory’s brother Donal, who was also his manager, and nephew Daniel providing Rayne and Lauren with anecdotes and quotes via email and fact-checking the text along the way, this tome promises to be one of the most important studies of the magnificent musician’s story.