Biography

Gary Moore

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Born
April 4, 1952 · Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
Died
February 6, 2011 · Estepona, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain (heart failure in his sleep)
Birth name
Robert William Gary Moore
Nickname
- Gazza
Height
5′ 7″ (1.70 m)

A brilliant blues and rock guitarist and successful singer-songwriter, Gary Moore has nevertheless always been rather underrated, especially in the United States, where he was never a major artist and rarely gets ranked highly in the usual "best guitarist" lists. He was born and raised in Belfast and played in the line-ups of several local bands during his teenage years, before moving to Dublin, Ireland, after being asked to join Skid Row. Moore later played with Phil Lynott in Thin Lizzy and joined the British jazz-rock band Colosseum II. He also had a successful solo career with eleven UK Top 40 single releases, which included the top ten songs "Parisienne Walkways" and "Out in the Fields" (a collaboration with Lynott), and he peaked in popularity with his best-selling album "Still Got the Blues" in 1990, which was on the UK album chart for 26 weeks.

Moore tragically died aged just 58 in 2011. He was never one of the biggest rock stars in the world but he was revered by many British and Irish guitarists and guitar fans, frequently written about in the British guitar press and magazines such as Classic Rock, and left a tremendous legacy of music ranging from blues to hard rock to ballads.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

He was one of the most respected blues and hard rock guitar players of all time.
Moore left an estate worth more than £2 million following his death. He was laid to rest in a small village graveyard outside Brighton, England, where he had lived for many years.
Eric Clapton recorded a version of "Still Got the Blues" as a tribute to him following his death.
Gary Moore recorded an album of blues music, as a tribute to one of his guitar idols Peter Green.
In July 2001, he was voted Northern Ireland's greatest guitarist in the Total Guitar Magazine's poll of the best 12 British guitarists.

[in 2004) All the players I looked up to - Beck (Jeff Beck), Clapton (Eric Clapton), Hendrix (Jimi Hendrix), Peter Green - had a unique voice on the guitar. You don't really hear that now in pop music.
I don't want to show off as much as before. You realize you don't have to play so many notes - Albert King taught me that, about leaving space, and it really hit home. The blues is a minimalist thing - it's like sculpting, you chip away everything you don't need until you are left with the best bits.
I fooled myself for a while. I got to the end of the '80s and got sucked in to the whole fastest gun in the west thing. But it was a good grounding for me. Then, once I got a certain amount of success, I got to feel free to do what I want. People like Jeff Beck were not afraid to try new things.

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