Deuce Expanded

The landmark second album from Irish guitarist Rory Gallagher

Here’s another opportunity to give thanks for the (no doubt) overworked sound engineers who toiled at the BBC and European state radio operations in the 1960s and ‘70.

It’s a 4-CD expanded edition of Irish guitarist and singer Rory Gallagher’s blistering second album Deuce, which was released six months after his 1971 debut and is the work generally credited with establishing Gallagher as a blues-rock powerhouse.

Artists like Gallagher made the rounds in those days. It was part of the job — they were expected to make guest appearances on rock-oriented radio shows (John Peel et al) and, as their profiles grew, often were featured in live performances on radio soundstages. These live sets, frequently included on latter-day anthologies and Expanded Editions, have become part of the historical record of popular music, providing insight into the performance tactics of bands like Cream, the Beatles, Yes and others during various early peaks — when they were making totemic studio albums but were not yet documenting every tour stop.

The 4-disc Deuce package offers lots of revealing alternate takes and demos, but the highlights are two radio performances: Six songs from a 1972 BBC Radio In Concert appearance that has been released previously, and seven from one Gallagher and his trio did for Radio Bremen in December 1971 that is appearing for the first time.

Both demonstrate how authoritative Gallagher could be in appetizer-sized one-chorus solos and longer instrumental passages like the guitar-and-harmonica unisons on the stompy and challengingly slow blues “I Could’ve Had Religion.” There are also several acoustic selections — to hear how locked Gallagher could be just keeping time, check out the Radio Bremen versions of “Don’t Know Where I’m Going” and “Pistol Slapper Blues.” And when you do, spare a thought for the assistant engineer who placed the microphones to maximize the intimacy, and everyone else involved in the capture. We’re in their debt.

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