Shadowplays: How close are you to reissuing the Taste material?
Daniel Gallagher: I’ve been chasing Universal (Polydor) to try and re-ignite the interest in a comprehensive Taste release with the albums re-mastered + bonus material. As I’m sure you’re bored of hearing I am trying everything to get the Isle Of Wight film made, Murray Lerner and I have come up with a concept for how we’d like to present it and have got very close to a workable fee for the DVD to be made. It’s only being held up by confirmation from a label that they want to finance and release it.
Shadowplays: That sounds very encouraging! For many of us, Taste at the Isle of Wight is the Holy Grail of Rory video and we’ve been clamoring for it for years. Murray has done numerous individual “Isle of Wight” documentaries including: Hendrix, Tull, and The Who, and most recently the Moody Blues and Leonard Cohen. How’s the quality of the Rory stuff? How much footage does he have? (I hear 7 tracks)
Rory Gallagher, Isle of Wight 1970
Daniel Gallagher: From what I’ve seen the Taste footage is great, Murray made an edit in 1995 so I’m sure the footage can be further enhanced since then as well. I don’t think he has the full hour and half set that Taste played on film but the edit I’ve seen has 7 tracks (you have good sources) but I’m hoping we can find more footage as he has a lot of tapes to go through.