Following the much-deserved success of the archive-cleansing blues project, Check Shirt Wizard – Live in ’77 is an unexpected bonus offering. A live album culled from four shows (London, Brighton, Sheffield and Newcastle) in early ’77, supporting the then-new Calling Card album, Check Shirt Wizard is no mere spruced-up bootleg. It was captured by the famed Rolling Stones / Jethro Tull ‘Maison Rouge’ mobile studio, and the results have lain dormant in the Rory archives until now. Newly mixed, and mastered at Abbey Road, this double set captures Rory in full flight before a rabid audience and, as Melody Maker reported of the gig at the time, the set has a power and precision that sees it eclipse the Live In Europe album.
Opening in Brighton, an overwhelming chant of “Rory, Rory!” shows just how popular Rory had become by this point, and his explosive arrival on stage fully justifies the audience’s faith. Do You Read Me, is the opening track and it is delivered with Hendrix flair and indomitable Gallagher soul. As the rhythm section keep things loose and funky, Rory simply rips into his guitar, making it sing to the heavens. He follows it with Moonchild, making you wonder just which subsequent blues-rock outfits haven’t been influenced by the indelible blueprint laid down by Rory and his band and that’s not to mention how fresh and vibrant it all sounds; not like some long-lost artefact, but up there with the best of the bands treading the boards today. The recording location skips around as things progress, not that you’d know it thanks to a diligent mixing job that weaves it all into one, perfect Rory show.
And so it goes. Initially adopting a lighter tone, Bought And Sold takes elements of early Clapton and infuses them with a darker fire, the guitar tone gritty even as the piano helps draw things to a brighter place. It’s a wild-eyed adventure that Rory and his band are on, and the vocals serve predominantly as a bridge to get to the mesmerising lead work, which sees Rory singing along to his own solos as the audience gape in admiration. For most people, a track like Bought And Sold would be an encore, for Rory, it’s just part of the show, and that, alongside the genuine and humble thanks he gives to the audience at its conclusion, helps to explain his enduring legacy. Having unleashed a sonic firestorm, Rory gets the audience singing along to Calling Card, a relaxed, funky track that really swings, allowing the audience a chance to regain their scattered wits. Whilst there’s plenty of virtuoso magic to be found in the track’s expended mid-section, it’s the beat that drives things forward and it’s easy to imagine a dance floor full of swirling figures, assuming of course that there was any room in which to move. Nevertheless, it’s a reminder that, for Rory, it was always the song first and the technicality second, an important distinction that many who have followed in his footsteps have missed.
Rory’s sense of humour emerges on Secret Agent, a sparkling, slide-guitar rampage with elements of James Bond shot through its blistering leads. It’s followed by a sprightly Tattoo’d Lady, although it’s an elegant A Million Miles Away that transports the listener to another place over the course of six glorious minutes, the subtle atmospherics of the organ and creeping bass line capturing the homesickness of a lengthy tour. In contrast, I Take What I Want opens with a James Brown wail and only gets more explosive from there, before Rory leads his band into an appropriately fiery Walk On Hot Coals, the hot-wired riff still capable of eliciting a visceral emotional response some four decades after the fact.
The second disc kicks off in Sheffield with Rory playing the elegant, dusty guitarwork of Out On The Western Plain solo, the opening bars eliciting a huge cheer from the audience. Staying in stripped-down mode, Barley And Grape Rag has the audience clapping along, whilst the short, finger-picking Pistol Slapper Blues is a light-hearted romp that has the assembled throng going crazy. Slide guitar is the order of the day on Too Much Alcohol, the audience (undoubtedly well in their cups by this point), very much on side, whilst Going To My Hometown (tracked at a raucous Hammersmith gig) has a stark beat that sees the band slowly reintroduced, not least because the cheers of the audience are threatening to overwhelm Rory. Once again, one is struck by how lively it all sounds. It’s easy to forget just how beloved Rory was, but these recordings showcase a musician as able to have the audience in a froth playing solo as electric, a rare skill and one that few artists before or since have been able to match.
Following an elegant introductory solo, Edged In Blue picks up the pace nicely, whilst Jack-Knife Beat has a funky strut that is given weight by the roaming basslines and shuffling beat. The lead work here is exemplary as the band expand the song into eight glorious minutes. Cementing the link between rock ‘n’ roll and gasoline guzzling vehicles, Souped-Up Ford is a bristling, wonderfully OTT display of blues-rock pyrotechnics that leaves the listener breathless and, from there, we’re into a home-stretch that threatens to tear the roof off. First up, Bullfrog Blues is full-throttle Rory, who leads his band into an up-tempo take on the track that manages to pay tribute to the William Harris original, whilst simultaneously leaving it gasping in its wake. The crackling, Stones-y Used To Be, released six years previously on Deuce clearly has the audience in raptures, before Country Mile brings the set to a suitably devastating close – surprising when one considers encores are usually reserved for the most familiar tracks in an artist’s set and a reminder that Rory’s fanbase was such that he could play a relatively new song at the set’s end and still have the audience lap it up.
Sequenced as a single gig, blessed with an incredibly strong production job and packing one hell of a punch, Check Shirt Wizard – Live in ’77 is an absolute must for Rory fans and a compelling entry point for the uninitiated wondering what all the fuss was about. There’s so much energy and power in the band’s performance and, when Rory goes it alone at the start of the second disc, the most remarkable aspect is the fact that the energy levels don’t so much dip as soar. An album likely to bring tears to the eyes of those who were there, and a certain sense of envy in those who weren’t, this is an archival treasure that once again reminds the world that there have been few musicians in Rory’s class. A wonderful celebration of a life lived to the full, Check Shirt Wizard is a superlative record of a superlative musician. 9.5
