THE FIRST recording by Irish guitar legend Rory Gallagher may have been uncovered in an archive in Cork that was collected by the late manager of Gallagher’s first band, The Fontana Showband.
Music fan Tim O’Leary said yesterday that he was given the archive by Sarah Prendergast, whose husband, Philip, was the first manager of The Fontana Showband, which Gallagher joined in 1963.
“Sarah was moving house two years ago and gave me this archive – there’s a five-track reel-to-reel recording made at Kingsway Studios in London in 1964, and Rory sings lead on two of the songs.”
Gallagher sings solo on a song called Slowdown “and I reckon that is his first ever recording”, Mr O’Leary said.
“He later recorded it again in 1982 – the arrangement and the voice is the same but it’s 18 years later and you can hear how he has developed as a guitarist.”
The second song Gallagher sings is a version of My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean, which was a standard at the time, recorded by many bands in Ireland and the UK – including The Beatles, who backed Tony Sheridan on a version entitled My Bonnie.
Mr O’Leary, who revealed details of the archive on the Neil Prendeville show on Cork 96FM, said it also had 30 photographs of The Fontana, which also included brothers Bernie and Oliver Tobin, and John Lehane, Eamon O’Sullivan and Declan O’Keeffe.
“The photographs were taken by an official photographer – some in studios and some rehearsing, but they also include what I reckon is Rory’s first passport photograph,” said Mr O’Leary.
“He was about 15 or 16 when The Fontana went on tour in the UK and Spain, and Sarah told me how Philip had to bring Rory into Woolworths in Patrick Street in Cork to get photographs taken for his passport.”
