A statue honoring the late Irish blues guitarist Rory Gallagher has been unveiled in Belfast, Northern Ireland, outside Ulster Hall, a music venue where he regularly played.
Unfortunately, they got a key detail wrong.
Which seems a little odd when you consider how much Gallagher has been in the press over the past six months. Last July brought news that his family planned to auction off his iconic well-worn Fender Stratocaster. This led to a drive to keep the guitar in Ireland, which gained support from Irish politicians.
Concerned parties sighed a breath of relief after the buyer, who paid $1.16 million for the instrument, donated it to the National Museum of Ireland.
So it seems more than a little odd that Gallagher’s statue shows him with a Fender Telecaster — rather than his unmistakably battered Stratocaster — draped over his shoulders.
Gallagher didn’t play his Strat exclusively, of course. In addition to a 1959 Fender Esquire that Joe Bonamassa took for a test drive prior to the auction, the Irish rocker has graced stages with acoustic guitars, several Les Paul Juniors and even a Gretsch Corvette. But it’s a bit like creating a statue of Slash playing a B.C. Rich Mockingbird: It may be historically accurate, but it doesn’t sit right.
As it turns out, the artists behind its creation — Anto Brennan, Jessica Checkley, and David O’Brien of Bronze Art Ireland — based the sculpture on a classic endearing photo of Gallagher, which had graced the front cover of music magazine Melody Maker in 1972. That image show the guitarist with his arms aloft and a Telecaster dangling at waist level.
Regardless, fans have taken to social media to voice their disappointment.
“Rory owned a Tele. But his… STRAT was his iconic trademark,” one user said, with another adding “No Strat? Not too clever.”
In addition, some have questioned the statue’s likeness to the man it honors. However, Donal Gallagher, Rory’s brother and former manager, has no such concerns.
He was present at its unveiling, and has called it “fitting that the city he loved so much is where his memory will be celebrated for generations to come”.
Gallagher was born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, before his family relocated to Londonderry. He spent his formative years in Cork, where he would later buy his Strat, in 1956.
However, he found his musical freedom in the capital city.
“Growing up, I heard from my dad and Rory how important Belfast was to Rory’s musical genesis,” said his nephew Daniel. “They’d talk about how he played with wonderful Belfast musicians and how they shaped him – and how the city shaped him. It was kind of the first place in Ireland he could really go and play the blues.”
Gallagher already has a statue in Ballyshannon, complete with a Strat, and a replica of his Strat hangs below a street sign in Dublin.
In related news, Joe Bonamassa announced he’ll perform three special Rory Gallagher tribute shows in Cork, Ireland, this July. Bonamassa was the last person to play two of Gallagher’s other six-strings before they to went off to auction.
