Photo-Finish
| Photo-Finish | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Rory Gallagher | ||||
| Released | 1 October 1978 | |||
| Recorded | July - August 1978 Dierks Studios, Cologne, Germany |
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| Genre | ||||
| Length | 44:14 | |||
| Label | Chrysalis Records | |||
| Producer | Rory Gallagher & Alan O'Duffy | |||
| Rory Gallagher chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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Photo-Finish is the ninth album by Irish musician Rory Gallagher, released in 1978. It marked a turning point in Gallagher's career. Most of the songs on Photo-Finish were initially recorded on what was to be an earlier album called Torch but Gallagher was unhappy with the recordings. He fired the drummer and keyboardist from his current band and replaced only the drummer changing the band to a power trio as his original bands had been.
The album name reflects the fact that the finished product was delivered to the record company just at the deadline. The album came after a two-year period without an album release, due to Gallagher's decision to scrap the earlier version of the album and the need to recover from an accident to his thumb. Gallagher originally recorded many of the songs that would end up on Photo-Finish in San Francisco. Rather than producing the album himself as he usually did he worked with Elliot Mazer, a successful producer who had previously produced hits for Neil Young. At the last minute — the initial copies of the album had been pressed— Gallagher decided to simply scrap the Mazer produced album. In an interview Gallagher stated:
"it wasn't because of the material or the musicians or anything like that. It was a song thing that I didn't think on the technical side everything worked. So I scrapped the thing"
Immediately after scrapping the album Gallagher injured his thumb — catching it in the door of a cab. He left San Francisco and went to a studio in Germany to rework the album. He also reworked his band changing drummers and dropping the keyboardist to return to the power trio format of Taste and his original solo band. Photo Finish is the result of those German studio sessions. The original versions of the songs as recorded with the group including a keyboardist were posthumously released as disc one of the album Notes From San Francisco.
One song from the album that Gallagher would often perform live was "The Last of the Independents". Like other Gallagher songs (e.g. "Philby" and "Continental Op") the song was inspired by Gallagher's love of hardboiled fiction and film noir. When an interviewer asked him "What about “The Last of the Independents” in some ways it talks about yourself. Did you have that in mind when you wrote that song?" Gallagher replied:
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Wikipedia