Simply said, if there hadn’t been a Gary Moore, there would be no Joe Bonamassa. For me, he wrote the playbook, along with Walter Trout, Rory Gallagher and a few others, for British-style blues-rock guitar from the Seventies, Eighties and beyond.
Moore’s playing revealed his Irish background and musical influences, along with his love of American and British blues traditions. He had a phenomenal tone and touch, often produced with his 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard.
Gary also had a highly expressive finger vibrato and great sense of melody. He was able to weave incredibly huge thematic riffs together to create many great performances, such as Still Got the Blues and Parisienne Walkways.
One of my songs, Is it Safe to Go Home?, is a bit of an homage to Gary. Figure 1 presents a line that I might play over the tune’s chord progression, which is in the key of A minor, with phrases based on the A minor pentatonic scale (A, C, D, E, G) with some additional notes from the A Aeolian mode (A, B, C, D, E, F, G).
Gary would oftentimes play aggressive, speed-driven lines meant to stun an audience. Figure 2 exemplifies this approach and includes some fast trills that move quickly down the neck within the structure of A Dorian (A, B, C, D, E, F#, G).
One of my favorite things about Gary’s playing was the way he would switch from his guitar’s neck pickup to its bridge pickup while holding a bend, adding a huge burst of aggression to the solo.
Figure 3 offers an example of this: playing lines based on G minor pentatonic (G, Bb, C, D, F), I begin on my neck pickup and then switch to my bridge pickup on beat 2, immediately after striking the bend.
Figure 4 offers a longer Moore-style line that is blues-based but expands the harmony with notes from the G harmonic minor scale (G, A, Bb, C, D, Eb, F#). The line begins with a fast ascending phrase then settles into a more melodic and expressive approach.
Even during his time with Thin Lizzy, Moore was an effective singer and guitar player, but it was always about the vibrato. Figure 5 is filled with intensely wide and fast vibratos meant to emulate Gary’s signature touch, with phrases again based around G harmonic minor.
Gary’s approach to soloing was like placing a brick on a car’s gas pedal — the brick would go down, and he would never stop! He had infinite passion and musical ideas, like SRV and Jimi Hendrix.
One of my favorite tracks of Gary's is Too Tired, which he recorded live with two of his heroes, Albert King and Albert Collins. And he showed them no mercy! Figure 6 offers an example of some of the blazing types of runs that Gary could effortlessly tear off.
Gary was also a really nice guy. Sadly, he passed in 2011 at only 58, and I miss him very much.
