There are tribute albums and there are acts of devotion. The Spirit of Rory Live from Cork is the second kind. Joe Bonamassa — five-time Grammy-nominated blues guitarist, holder of 30 Billboard Blues Chart number ones, and one of the most tireless recording and performing artists of his generation — has announced a live album and film that captures what happened when he stood in Rory Gallagher’s city, played Gallagher’s music to Gallagher’s people, and tried to do justice to a guitarist he has revered since childhood. The result, due June 19 via his own J&R Adventures imprint, is the kind of project that could only come from someone who genuinely meant every note of it.
“I never had the honor to meet him, but his music and musicianship loom large in my life,” Bonamassa writes in a personal foreword accompanying the release. “From my first time hearing Irish Tour ’74, I was captivated by the sheer intensity of the man and the ferocity of his approach to the electric blues.”
That introduction happened early and close to home. “I remember that voice and a singular guitar tone slicing through the walls of my bedroom at a very young age,” Bonamassa recalls. “My father, who exposed me to so many of the great guitarists of his era, was quick to encourage me to listen to Rory and glean what I could.” That is not a musician describing an influence. That is a man describing a formative experience — the kind that shapes not just what you play, but why you play it.
What eventually became The Spirit of Rory Live from Cork did not start as a grand plan. It started with a phone call from the Gallagher family and a request that initially terrified Bonamassa more than it excited him. “All these many years later I was asked by Rory’s family to consider performing some of his material and paying tribute to him at a venue in Cork,” he writes. “The very thought frightened me. Yes, I was scared to even attempt it — but at the same time so honoured that his family felt that I might be up to the task.”
Rather than approach the material with reinvention or reinterpretation, Bonamassa made a deliberate and humble choice: “I felt the very best I could hope for was to approach his catalog with humility and reverence.” That restraint — from a guitarist capable of extraordinary technical fireworks — is what makes the project meaningful. This was never about Bonamassa. It was always about Gallagher.
In 2024, Bonamassa traveled to Cork to announce the tribute with a small introductory performance for Rory’s family, local friends, and members of the press. The response was immediate and emotional. What began as a single concert soon expanded into a three-night stand. “After the announcement, one show turned into three sold-out shows,” Bonamassa writes. “I felt that my reputation was on the line with the Irish — but what a response!”
By the time the band returned to Cork in 2025 to record the performances that would become the album, the atmosphere had reached something approaching the sacred. “This was Rory’s town, and Rory’s people. We weren’t going to let them down,” Bonamassa says. “The crowds on those three nights were rowdy, raucous — and Cork did their favourite son proud.”
The album features 14 hand-picked songs spanning the breadth of Gallagher’s catalog, including “Bullfrog Blues,” “A Million Miles Away,” “Bad Penny,” “Calling Card,” “Tattoo’d Lady,” and “I Fall Apart.” Each song was chosen to reflect a different dimension of who Gallagher was as an artist — the raw Chicago blues obsessive, the Celtic folk storyteller, the stadium-caliber rocker who somehow never lost his bar-band authenticity.
One moment carries particular weight above the rest. During the Cork run, Bonamassa performed “As the Crow Flies” on Gallagher’s own 1930 National Triolian resonator guitar — an instrument loaned by the Cork Public Museum specifically for the occasion. To play a dead man’s guitar, in his hometown, in front of people who grew up hearing that guitar on the radio — that is not a performance detail. That is something else entirely. It was a tangible connection to an artist whose presence still looms large over the city and over generations of guitar players who followed him.
The DVD and Blu-ray editions of the release expand the story significantly, adding bonus material that includes a feature called The Inspiration of Rory — a conversation with Brian May and Slash about Gallagher’s influence — alongside additional footage including Rory’s Acoustic Guitar and a segment called Ballycotton: A Million Miles Away. The involvement of May and Slash is telling. Gallagher’s reach extended far beyond the blues world — he was an influence on guitarists across every corner of rock, and the testimony of two of the instrument’s most celebrated figures adds a layer of broader context to what Bonamassa has built here.
Rory Gallagher died in June 1995 at the age of 47, following complications from a liver transplant. He left behind a body of work — including Irish Tour ’74, Tattoo, Calling Card, and Photo-Finish — that has only grown in stature in the three decades since his death. He never had a manager. He rarely raised his ticket prices. He played everywhere and for everyone, from clubs to festivals to wherever the music took him. His 1964 Fender Stratocaster, its sunburst finish worn down to bare wood from decades of use, became one of rock’s most iconic images — the guitar of a man who played until there was nothing left.
“What you hear on these recordings is our best effort to pay tribute to Rory Gallagher — a man I never met, but admire so deeply,” Bonamassa writes. “His music is part of me and I’m grateful that we were able to contribute in some small way to his ongoing legacy.”
The Spirit of Rory Live from Cork is available for pre-order now on digital, CD/DVD, CD/Blu-ray, and Double 180 Gram Red Marble Vinyl. It releases June 19, 2026.
TRACKLIST:
Cradle Rock, Walk On Hot Coals, Tattoo’d Lady, I Wonder Who, Calling Card, Who’s That Coming?, Messin’ With The Kid, Bullfrog Blues, Treat Her Right, Bad Penny, I Fall Apart, A Million Miles Away, As The Crow Flies, Back On My Stompin’ Ground
