I never heard of Rory. Wow! This angel-faced Irish kid singing like a deep old Delta bluesman, with a singing, talking blues guitar.
Here’s link to (audio only) earlier version of “I Wonder Who,” part of a 1974 Irish tour.
About Lloyd Kahn
Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the
Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include
Shelter,
Shelter II (1978),
Home Work (2004),
Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008),
Tiny Homes (2012), and
Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:
wow!! just downloaded BBC Sessions from Amazon. Great recommendation!
I was raised on Rory. My father played his albums every Sunday morning while us kids jumped around the room trying to strike a balance between exuberance and bumping the needle out of the groove. I've listened to his music all my life and it still excites me. My Father sat his school exams with Rory and last weekend attended a funeral where the deceased was buried in a plot right next to Rory's final resting place.
Many, many fans of Rory have stories that tie them personally to the man. The vast majority of these stories are of a shy, humble and very generous man who loved music and had no interest in stardom. Had he promoted himself more he would undoubtedly have been more wealthy and more famous. But that was not his thing.
Anonymous–wonderful! How can it be I never heard of him? I just ordered my first vinyl album in decades — the 1974 Irish tour, with this great version of "I Wonder Who." I remember thinking back in the '60s that the British Isles no longer had an empire, but had these white kids who'd picked up on the power of Delta and Chicago blues, and were ruling a good part of the world with wonderful music. They were authentic!