Blueprint - RORY GALLAGHER****

Walk On Hot Coals/Daughter Of The Everglades/Banker's Blues/Hands Off/Race The Breeze/The Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son/Unmilitary Two Step/If I Had A Reason

Following personnel changes to his backing band Rory Gallagher released Blueprint his most commercially successful album. It contains rather less blues but more rock than previously plus a soft ballad. (US:147 UK:12)

“Rory does a really good job once again. He changes drummer and brings in a keyboard player and his band sound better and brighter than ever as a result. The interplay between him and the keyboard player is particularly impressive, at times Rory steps back completely and lets him take the spotlight.”

“Rory shows his range on this album. It is mostly blues but he throws in some hard rock and a soft ballad and alongside there is that great guitar. This is a good album but better stuff is coming.”

“A very diverse blues rock set here, from hard rock to soft ballads. Pretty slickly produced, yielding a fairly commercial sound overall. Reasonably consistent too, though probably not his strongest release of this period.”

“Fans of Rory Gallagher will still get enough of the good stuff on this his third studio release. That unmistakable guitar tone and warm voice are still present and accounted for. And enough of the songs retain a little bit of what made the first two post-Taste records keepers. Meaning, Gallagher knows enough to let his axe do most of the talking. But in trying for a fuller overall sound (more piano) a lot of the raw blues feeling, found especially on the self-titled solo debut, has leached away.”

“As great as Rory is as a blues player, he's not even half of that as a rock player. Because this is more of the latter, Blueprint is for the most part bland and uninteresting, both musically and lyrically. On the other hand, when the album is good, it is really good. Banker's Blues being a model example of that, it's a slow acoustic blues tune with piano and harmonica thrown in the mix. The acoustic slide guitar solo on this is one of the high points of the whole album.”

“Rory Gallagher is in top form here. Mind you, it is rare that he isn't. This is the album that started my interest in this artist. From the blistering opener of Walk On Hot Coals, through to If I Had A Reason the whole album displays the breadth and heart Rory was known for.”