Gary Moore: Crossing Genres With A Legendary Master of Guitar

Compositionally and technically skilled guitarist Gary Moore is considered one of the best musicians ever to come out of Great Britain. His career dates back to the 1960's and spans many different musical genres and styles, including hard rock, heavy metal and the Blues, where he was first inspired and has returned most recently. He has been a part of more than a few notable rock bands including Thin Lizzy, Skid Row and Colosseum II. His unique style implements techniques and flavors from many different types of music and makes him one of the most versatile guitarists in music history.

Moore was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on April 4, 1952 and began his life, like so many other musicians of his time, inspired by the music of Elvis Presley and the Beatles. But he truly reveled in the talents of artists such as Eric Clapton, B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix. Being witness to live performances by Jimi Hendrix in his hometown in the 1960's opened his heart to the rich world of the Blues, where he has felt most at home during his career.

Moore has often cited his major musical influence as being Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac. It was Green that discovered Moore as a teen prodigy in the early 1970's while he was playing in his first professional group Skid Row, a local power trio featuring singer Phil Lynott, whom Moore met while he was in Dublin. Green became his mentor after Skid Row opened for Fleetwood Mac and was impressed by the talent of the group, and most particularly by Moore's fiery guitar playing. Moore actually bought his most coveted guitar, a maple 1959 Les Paul Standard from Green.

While Lynott left Skid Row shortly after its inception to form the group Thin Lizzy, Moore stayed, and with the help of Green was able to secure a recording contract with CBS records. Moore cut three albums with the band in the early 1970's, which were popular in Europe, but highly underrated throughout the rest of the world. Moore toured the United States with Skid Row in support of these albums, opening for legends like the Allman Brothers Band before leaving to try to direct his talents towards a solo career, a very short-lived project called The Gary Moore Band. His solo endeavors were waylaid as he was asked to reunite with Phil Lynott to replace guitarist Eric Bell in Thin Lizzy. He was part of this project off and on during the 1970's as he continued to hone his craft and make his sound known throughout the world. He eventually left the band for good in 1979 due to irreconcilable problems that had developed between him and Lynott. The late 70's marked collaboration across many genres, and the guitarist contributed his talents to works by the pariah of the modern-day musical Andrew Lloyd Weber and drummer Cozy Powell's solo release.

It was in 1979 that Gary Moore's solo career truly began with a hit single "Parisienne Walkways," which showcased Moore's technically-astute and soulful Blues-influenced lead guitar playing with Lynott's vocals. The song was on the Top Ten List in the UK in April of that year and his album "Back on the Streets" was critically acclaimed.

The late 1970's and the 1980's marked an exciting period in Moore's development as a guitarist. He experimented with many different genres, including Celtic music in order to find his true voice and produced some of his finest and most thoughtful work during these years. He reunited with Phil Lynott to create "Out in the Fields," a hit single that once again stressed the depth and power of his guitar playing. The Celtic-infused album "Wild Frontier" in 1987 explored a new and personal aspect of his roots, while his 1990, the album "Still Got the Blues" marked his true emergence as a innovator in his field. This groundbreaking album caught the attention of many blues guitar greats that now considered him to be a contemporary, and his next album "After Hours" welcomed legends such as Albert King, BB King and Albert Collins as special guests. In 1994, Moore briefly joined forces with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce to form BBM and record one album before returning to his solo career. Continue >>