the first time, and the Irish guitarist became an influence that Johnny still recognises today. “He scared the life out of me,” Johnny said. “He was so intense – I couldn’t believe it. I can remember staying off school for a few days… trying to play along with his records.”
Johnny remembers that, after endless attempts, the day after seeing Rory live he finally cracked the Gallagher code and turned a corner in his own playing. “I sussed it out,” said Johnny. “And the penny just dropped… ‘I can play!’” Rod Stewart and his careering guitarist Ronnie Wood became major influences. The one thing that Johnny did that really expanded his knowledge of music and developed his own fluency and playing was to go out and source the people who had influenced these bands in the first place. The influence of Bo Diddley is heard throughout Johnny’s career. He first heard it in the disco funk of Hamilton Bohannon, whose ‘Disco Stomp’ was a firm favourite, but traced the influence back to its original source. Television’s Richard Hell had a clear effect on Johnny, but at the same time he was helplessly drawn to melodic old hats like Simon and Garfunkel.
Simultaneously, there was a huge cross-cultural process in progress. The Beatles had taken American pop music and sold it back to the States in a different guise. By the early Seventies, American bands were coming over to the UK to find their market. Most British kids had Americana about them at every turn. Bolan and Bowie were very ‘English’ in their original concepts, but washed with American input, so that while Ziggy stood heroically on the rain-washed streets off the back of London’s Regent Street, by the time of Aladdin Sane , Bowie was dissecting New York and Hollywood too. Bolan dipped into the American Riff Songbook on regular occasions to colour his psychedelic boogie. Gary Glitter could only have been born of a generation raised on holidays at Butlins or Pontins, but US bands like Sparks came over to the UK and found their most receptive markets.
In the mid-Seventies you could choose to take the ideologicalline, or accept that everything was there for you. While Maher didn’t follow everything that appeared on Top Of The Pops he was not prepared to discard Motown, Phil Spector and The Ronettes – his next love – for the sake of The Clash. “I felt [punk] was definitely for the generation before me,” Johnny was to say many years later in a published conversation with Matt Johnson on The The’s website. “One of the things about punk in the UK was that, as I remember, it was very political… as if lines were drawn.” If you were on the right side of the ideological line then you were in, but waver across that line at your peril. “To me that seemed to hang over our generation like an albatross,” said Marr. If joining the club meant ignoring so many other great artists and bands, then Johnny was not interested.
* * *
Of all the kids whose interest turned to playing music rather than just listening to it, Maher was quickest among his peer group to learn the practical elements of guitar. Chord structures and progressions, picking techniques and fingering came easily to him, naturally, almost as though there was a predetermined route for him to follow. “By the time I was ten or eleven,” he told Guitar Player in 1990, “I started to buy T. Rex records.” ‘Jeepster’’s Howlin’ Wolf riff was the first Johnny had learned, later back-tracking (as he put it) into Motown. “I’d try to cover the strings, piano and everything with my right hand, trying to play the whole record on six strings.” This orchestral approach to the guitar mirrored that of impeccable Canadian guitarist Joni Mitchell, who herself has spoken at length of trying to cover an entire orchestra’s sound across the six simplestrings of the basic guitar. “That’s one reason why I am so chordally oriented,” Johnny went on to explain. “Why key
Johnny remembers that, after endless attempts, the day after seeing Rory live he finally cracked the Gallagher code and turned a corner in his own playing. “I sussed it out,” said Johnny. “And the penny just dropped… ‘I can play!’” Rod Stewart and his careering guitarist Ronnie Wood became major influences. The one thing that Johnny did that really expanded his knowledge of music and developed his own fluency and playing was to go out and source the people who had influenced these bands in the first place. The influence of Bo Diddley is heard throughout Johnny’s career. He first heard it in the disco funk of Hamilton Bohannon, whose ‘Disco Stomp’ was a firm favourite, but traced the influence back to its original source. Television’s Richard Hell had a clear effect on Johnny, but at the same time he was helplessly drawn to melodic old hats like Simon and Garfunkel.
Simultaneously, there was a huge cross-cultural process in progress. The Beatles had taken American pop music and sold it back to the States in a different guise. By the early Seventies, American bands were coming over to the UK to find their market. Most British kids had Americana about them at every turn. Bolan and Bowie were very ‘English’ in their original concepts, but washed with American input, so that while Ziggy stood heroically on the rain-washed streets off the back of London’s Regent Street, by the time of Aladdin Sane , Bowie was dissecting New York and Hollywood too. Bolan dipped into the American Riff Songbook on regular occasions to colour his psychedelic boogie. Gary Glitter could only have been born of a generation raised on holidays at Butlins or Pontins, but US bands like Sparks came over to the UK and found their most receptive markets.
In the mid-Seventies you could choose to take the ideologicalline, or accept that everything was there for you. While Maher didn’t follow everything that appeared on Top Of The Pops he was not prepared to discard Motown, Phil Spector and The Ronettes – his next love – for the sake of The Clash. “I felt [punk] was definitely for the generation before me,” Johnny was to say many years later in a published conversation with Matt Johnson on The The’s website. “One of the things about punk in the UK was that, as I remember, it was very political… as if lines were drawn.” If you were on the right side of the ideological line then you were in, but waver across that line at your peril. “To me that seemed to hang over our generation like an albatross,” said Marr. If joining the club meant ignoring so many other great artists and bands, then Johnny was not interested.
* * *
Of all the kids whose interest turned to playing music rather than just listening to it, Maher was quickest among his peer group to learn the practical elements of guitar. Chord structures and progressions, picking techniques and fingering came easily to him, naturally, almost as though there was a predetermined route for him to follow. “By the time I was ten or eleven,” he told Guitar Player in 1990, “I started to buy T. Rex records.” ‘Jeepster’’s Howlin’ Wolf riff was the first Johnny had learned, later back-tracking (as he put it) into Motown. “I’d try to cover the strings, piano and everything with my right hand, trying to play the whole record on six strings.” This orchestral approach to the guitar mirrored that of impeccable Canadian guitarist Joni Mitchell, who herself has spoken at length of trying to cover an entire orchestra’s sound across the six simplestrings of the basic guitar. “That’s one reason why I am so chordally oriented,” Johnny went on to explain. “Why key
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