No. 2: “Still got the blues” by Gary Moore
I never quite noticed how expressive this cover was before now. When I went looking for another album sleeve to examine for this series, I came across this one, and it surprised me, as I never rated the album that highly, and was somewhat disappointed with it when I bought it, mostly because of the amount of covers on it. But looking at the sleeve, there's a wealth of information there, and it's extremely clever, in that it depicts the life of a blues guitarist in just two pictures.
Due to the restriction on the amount of images allowed per post, I will be stepping away from the practice I followed on the first in this series, that is, cutting up the album cover by enlarging sections of it and posting them as single images. This process led to my having to split my original review in half, which was something of a pain in the arm, so this time what I'm doing is marking points on the sleeve which I want to talk about, and relating them to a key below. The original pictures should be large enough that you can see what I'm talking about, hopefully, without too much squinting.
This album depicts two ages, the blues guitarist as a kid on the front, with him all grown up on the back. It's really clever; if you examine it in depth you can see the differences and the similarities between the world of the boy and that of the man.
1. The guitar. Obviously it's not an expensive one, as it doesn't even have a case (that we can see), and no kid ot this age would have been able to buy, or have bought for him, any sort of really decent guitar, but it's where the dreams of the boy are kindled, where he decides very quickly what he wants to do with his life, and it's the start of a love affair with music that will last to the end of his days.
2. And on the wall, there's his inspiration, one of his heroes: a poster of Jimi Hendrix. Could a guitar player HAVE a better role model?
3. Another poster, another hero. Someone on a motorbike –- possibly Brando? Hard to make out, even on full zoom, but certainly someone the boy admires, and perhaps aspires to emulate.
4. The old “box” record player, on which no doubt the lad has heard his first rock'n'roll songs.
5. Some old vinyl records on the floor, no doubt he's learning the songs from them. They're a little hard to see, but I'm pretty sure I see “Black rose” by Thin Lizzy and a BB King record.
6. Anyone who's ever played or learned guitar knows there's only one name in amps: if you're serious, you gotta have a Marshall!
7. Some more records on the bed, presumably the ones he is currently learning. I can see one by John Mayall...
And on the reverse of the sleeve, the artist all grown up. Everything is different, yet in some ways a lot is still the same...
8. The guitar is obviously a much better, more expensive make.
9. He is now in a hotel room, rather than in his bedroom. It also looks, from the neon sign outside, of which we can only see a few letters, that it's an American hotel.
10. There's a phone in the room, naturally, but back when he was a kid no parent would a) allow and b) be able to afford a telephone in a child's bedroom. This was long before mobile phones existed, and we had to make do with the landline In fact, they weren't called landlines, as there was nothing to distinguish them from. What's that you say? What were they called? Telephones.
11. He can now obviously afford, and needs, a case for his expensive guitar. In the case we can see some cassette tapes (see my guide to twentieth century musical technology, a few posts back), which may be recorded by him, his own music, or just tapes of albums he owns. They could also be demo tapes he's touting around the record labels. The hotel room is not fabulous, so perhaps he hasn't quite made it yet.
12. The staple of the rock star on the road: the good old American hamburger! Food of the gods, indeed.
13. A nice glitzy lamp is in his room, whereas when he was a kid there was none.
14. In a clever nod back to his childhood, the bedside table has a radio and alarm clock built in.
15. Some thing never change. He may have a better guitar, but there's still no substitute for quality. There's the Marshall amp, even now!
16. The records on the floor have now been replaced by CDs, as time moves on, but I think I can still see a BB King recording there...
17. And that CD on the bed that he's looking towards looks to be that man, John Mayall again.
18. Now that he's all grown-up, what else would the bluesman slake his thirst with, but a can of beer?
19. And just like his younger self, he's still sitting on the bed in a bedroom, playing the guitar.
So the two pictures show a “before and after” snapshot of a boy who has grown to be a man, and though much has changed, some things never do. The basics are the same --- guy listening to the music he loves, and grew up on, and playing, or learning to play it, alone in a room, away from others. The life of a blues guitarist can be lonely, indeed. But he's happy doing what he loves.
“Still got the blues”, then, could have two meanings. It could be that he's still not happy, but it could also mean that, whatever else I lose in this life, one thing I will always have is the music I grew up listening to and loved, and still do today. As another famous blues guitar player, also sadly no longer with us, once wrote: “Toothbrush, a guitar, got no tail to drag.” With Gary Moore now tragically taken from us, perhaps we can find solace in the expectation that there must be one hell of a jam session going on somewhere right now, as these two kindred souls meet.