Gary Moore - The Prophet (2001)

Album: Back to the Blues
Release date: March 12, 2001

Gary Moore - guitar, vocals
Vic Martin - keyboards
Pete Rees - bass
Darrin Mooney - drums

Robert William Gary Moore (4 April 1952 – 6 February 2011) was a Northern Irish musician. Over the course of his career he played in various groups and performed a range of music including blues, blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal, and jazz fusion.

Influenced by Peter Green and Eric Clapton, Moore began his career in the late 1960s when he joined Skid Row, with whom he released two albums. After Moore left the group he joined Thin Lizzy, featuring his former Skid Row bandmate and frequent collaborator Phil Lynott. Moore began his solo career in the 1970s and achieved major success with 1979's "Parisienne Walkways", which is considered his signature song. During the 1980s, Moore transitioned into playing hard rock and heavy metal with varying degrees of international success. In 1990, he returned to his roots with Still Got the Blues, which became the most successful album of his career. Moore continued to release new music throughout his later career, collaborating with other artists from time to time. Moore died on 6 February 2011 from a heart attack while on holiday in Spain.

Moore was often described as a virtuoso and has been cited as an influence by many other guitar players. He was voted as one of the greatest guitarists of all time on respective lists by Total Guitar and Louder. Irish singer-songwriter Bob Geldof said that "without question, [Moore] was one of the great Irish bluesmen". For most of his career, Moore was heavily associated with Peter Green's famed 1959 Gibson Les Paul guitar. Later he was honoured by Gibson and Fender with several signature model guitars.
In the mid-1970s, Moore was involved in a bar fight which left him with facial scars. According to Eric Bell, Moore was with his girlfriend at Dingwalls when two men "started mouthing about Gary's girlfriend [...] what they'd like to do to her". After Moore confronted them about it, one of the men smashed a bottle on the bar and slashed Moore's face with it. This had a profound effect on him. Bell said, "It did change him. A lot of that pent-up anger and emotion would come out in his playing. And it came out in other ways too. It must be a hard thing to come back from something like that." During the 1980s, he would hide his scars in photographs and videos by looking down or being framed from a distance.

Moore was married to his first wife Kerry from 1985 to 1993.They had two sons, Jack (who would also go on to become a musician) and Gus, before divorcing. Moore later had a daughter, Lily (who also embarked on a career in music[80]), during a relationship with Jo Rendle. Moore also had a daughter named Saoirse from another relationship. At the time of his death, Moore was in a relationship.

During the early hours of 6 February 2011, Moore died of a heart attack in his sleep at the age of 58. At the time, he was on holiday with his girlfriend at the Kempinski Hotel in Estepona, Spain. His death was confirmed by Thin Lizzy's manager Adam Parsons. The Daily Telegraph reported that his heart attack was brought on by a high level of alcohol in his body: 380 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. According to music journalist Mick Wall, Moore had developed a serious drinking problem during the last years of his life.[66]

Moore was buried in a private ceremony at St Margaret's Churchyard in Rottingdean on the south coast of England, with only family and close friends in attendance. His eldest son Jack and his uncle Cliff performed the Irish ballad "Danny Boy" at his funeral. This was reported in The Belfast Telegraph as "a flawless tribute at which some mourners in the church wept openly"