Rory with John Martyn

[RobertaSparrow]

I've seen bits and pieces of the retelling of this incident, but not a complete telling of the tale.

It was a show in Edinburgh, Rory on stage with Jack Bruce, John Martyn, and other notables. There was some sort of tension apparent between Rory and John Martyn. I saw a brief paragraph on it recently elsewhere on the web, and here is a website that alludes to it:

http://www.johnmartyn.com/obituaries/jo ... 48-2009-3/

"John Martyn played a set at a rather bizarre concert in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, for famine relief. I saw him in a nearby pub beforehand and he was, as they say, “steamin'”. You can just see in this photograph that there is blood on his face, presumably from an argument with a door frame or his manager. Whatever it was, he was very angry.

For some reason, he seemed to have issues with Rory Gallagher that night. I can’t imagine why, since Rory always came across as a true gentleman. I’m afraid John Martyn slipped a little in my ratings after this. Ah, the demon drink. Aside from that, he was still a great songwriter and innovative musician."

Can anyone shed some light on this bit of Rory history?

[Jay Jay]

"John Martyn played a set at a rather bizarre concert in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, for famine relief. I saw him in a nearby pub beforehand and he was, as they say, “steamin'”. You can just see in this photograph that there is blood on his face, presumably from an argument with a door frame or his manager. Whatever it was, he was very angry.

For some reason, he seemed to have issues with Rory Gallagher that night. I can’t imagine why, since Rory always came across as a true gentleman. I’m afraid John Martyn slipped a little in my ratings after this. Ah, the demon drink. Aside from that, he was still a great songwriter and innovative musician."

Yes Cynthia, I remember our good Rory friend Dino McGartland (Stagestruck Fanzine) telling us about John's terrible performance on stage with all these other musical legends. Obviously he was out of his head with "Too Much Alcohol " that night and was all out of time and " Lost at Sea ". Which no doubt frustrated Rory as a true pro.