Gary Moore
Back to the Blues

The temporary flirtation with grooves and electronic atmospheres comes to an end after a couple of albums and, with the new century, on his thirteenth solo work, Moore returns... to his wife, that is, to the blues. His own brand, robust and resonant, piercing and combative, occasionally calm and reflective when the melancholy moon catches him.

“Enough of the Blues” kicks off in an archaic acoustic style with the dobro. But it only lasts thirty seconds before the Fender comes in barking: perfect, you feel right at home, his home.

“You Upset Me Baby” is a B.B. King cover, complete with the essential horn section, perfect for marking the stop-and-go groove of the song. You can just picture the artist wielding the same Gibson 335 as his Blues Boy King dad—that’s the one on the album cover, in short.

“Cold Black Night”: terrifying, cosmic force. Stratocaster brutally battered.

“Stormy Monday” is a famous slow blues by T. Bone Walker, a perfect arena to show off those killer, massively wide, devastating vibratos.

“Ain’t Got You” by Calvin Carter is a classic shuffle known for its legendary “hook” of stop and big harmonica riff, here replaced by our man’s guitar.

“Picture of the Moon”: halfway through the album arrives the classic underwear-melting slow number, even though he’s actually singing about being left alone. And he gets all melancholy, with nothing left but a moon in a photograph... The yellowed ’59 Les Paul shines as usual, in the hands of its most worthy player.

“Looking Back”: this one’s by Johnny “Guitar“ Watson and it’s a short, quick, and rhythmic rock’n’roll.

“The Prophet” is slow again but different, because it’s instrumental and very bluesy. The Irish legend literally speaks to us in the most piercing and melancholy way achievable on an electric guitar. An indescribable masterpiece, mirroring an unstable and somber soul. The never-ending ending, crafted by deftly working the volume knob, is harrowing.

“How Many Lies” is a textbook boogie blues, but brilliant. The guitar has a “thin” timbre; must be a Telecaster. The master overuses it for a good six minutes, to our delight.

“Drowning in Tears”: Moore’s melancholy once again in a never-ending final number, but you drink it down in one gulp. He weeps, bowed, and his guitar weeps with him. He must have been left by many (an impossible character, Glenn Hughes says... yet he’s a good one!). I think women left him just to have songs like these dedicated to them—these are unattainable nirvanas of pleasure and admiration for those who understand. In some places he plays four notes a minute, tops, plucking and then letting each ring out for ages in every way imaginable, the amp returning the harmonics each time differently—may it too be blessed. You just can’t get it... the quality! The sensibility! The heart! The communication... A gem! The biggest gem of the record. With the final pluck of the string, he lets the sound linger for a whole minute, as if delivering a speech. What a thing.

The song fades away agonizingly slow, and with it the album, but he’s still there, brushing a few strings, shredded. How I wish I could have been there that evening, that night, in the control room, to watch—besides just listen to—him play this farewell to some girl of his, in such a sublime fashion!