Gary Moore didn’t set out to become a blues guitarist. In the late 1980s, he was still operating inside the hard rock machinery that had defined much of his career. But a shift was already forming that would take him toward his solo breakthrough album, Still Got the Blues and, eventually, toward a very different legacy.
The idea, Moore recalled in a 2003 interview with this writer, didn’t arrive as a grand revelation. It came instead through a series of small, repeated suggestions from an unlikely source: bass guitarist Bob Daisley.
It was Daisley who had already helped shape another major career turn with his support for Randy Rhoads as Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist in 1980. In 1986, after joining Thin Lizzy very briefly, Daisley was working alongside Moore and continuing to make similar kinds of quiet interventions.
“Every time I was in the dressing room,” Moore recalled, “I’d be on my own playing some blues and Bob Daisley would come in and go, ‘You know, you should make a blues album, as it would probably be the biggest thing you ever did.’
“We both laughed when he said that. But it turned out that he was right.”
Moore didn’t act on the advice immediately. The idea lingered while he continued moving through the rock circuit.
“Eventually I thought, ‘I’d love to make a blues album, but I don’t think the record company would wear it,’” he said. “That was one of those occasions where I was getting really sick of the whole rock metal scene, and I just had to get away from it.”
When he finally did make the move, the response from Virgin Records was unexpectedly receptive.
“They were right behind it when they heard what I was trying to do because it wasn’t straight blues,” Moore said. “They heard a couple of songs and went, ‘Yeah, that could be good.’”
What became Still Got the Blues was recorded quickly, often in loose, exploratory sessions with a wide cast of collaborators. Daisley was involved, along with Ozzy keyboardist Don Airey, Rolling Stones pianist Nicky Hopkins and former Thin Lizzy drummer Brian Downey. Blues legends Albert King and Albert Collins also appeared, and George Harrison contributed to the session outtake “That Kind of Woman.”
“The tracks ‘Still Got the Blues’ and ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ were actually done the same day while we were just trying out the studio room.”
— Gary Moore
“We went in and made the album and it didn’t take too long,” Moore said. “The tracks ‘Still Got the Blues’ and ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ were actually done the same day while we were just trying out the studio room.
“And then we got Albert King to come over and play with me, and as Albert Collins was in town too, someone got him to come down, and it all just worked out really great.”
Released March 26, 1990, the album enjoyed slow and steady growth as it climbed the charts to its peak at number 83 in February 1991.
“The plan was to do a three-week tour, but six months later we were still touring,” Moore said. “It just got bigger and bigger.”
For Moore, part of the record’s impact came from its spontaneity.
“I did ‘Still Got the Blues’ in one take,” he said. “Those moments usually happen because you’re relaxed, or it’s the end of the day, or you’re just trying out the studio. You’re not even aware it’s going to be a master recording. You just play without caring — and you’re lucky if you can capture that.”
I was just so pleased that you could do something exactly how you wanted and people would like it at the same time. That gave me a lot of faith in music again.”
— Gary Moore
The experience also reshaped how he viewed his own career trajectory, proving that stylistic risk could pay off commercially as well as artistically.
There were moments, too, that crystallized what the record had achieved in real time.
“There was one night during the Still Got the Blues tour when I was playing the Hammersmith Odeon and I looked across the stage toward the end of the show and there’s Albert King standing there, and next to him is Albert Collins too,” Moore recalled. “That was a pretty special night.”
Still, Moore remained slightly conflicted in hindsight.
“I was very proud of it at the time, though I’m not too sure about some of it now,” he said. “But at the time I was just so pleased that you could do something exactly how you wanted and people would like it at the same time. That gave me a lot of faith in music again.”
Years later, Moore extended that blues thread further with Blues for Greeny, a tribute to Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green and to Greeny, the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard Green had once owned and passed on to him — an electric guitar that would become central to Moore’s sound for decades.
Moore first encountered Green during a difficult period in the guitarist’s life, shortly after his departure from Fleetwood Mac.
He said, ‘Just sell your guitar and whatever you get for it, give me that — it’ll be like swapping guitars.’ “He just wanted it to have a good home.”
— Gary Moore
“Peter was going through this very strange thing at the time where he had just left Fleetwood Mac and wanted to get rid of all his material possessions,” Moore said. “He came to me because he wasn’t playing at the time and said, ‘Do you want to borrow my guitar for a while?’ And I said, ‘Oh please, that’d be great.’”
What began as a loan quickly became something more permanent.
“We had become friends, so I went down to his parents’ house to pick up the guitar,” he said. “A few days later he called me up and said, ‘Do you want to buy it?’ I thought he was joking. I said, ‘Sure, but I can’t afford it.’ He said, ‘Just sell your guitar and whatever you get for it, give me that — it’ll be like swapping guitars.’”
Moore sold his Gibson SG for around £150, passing most of the money to Green, who kept only a portion. Green’s motivation, Moore later reflected, was not financial.
“He just wanted it to have a good home,” Moore said.
Moore would later be forced to sell the guitar in 2006 due to financial pressures, and it was eventually acquired by Metallica’s Kirk Hammett in 2014.
Although Moore is often credited with helping inspire Peter Green’s return to music in the 1990s, he downplayed that role.
I did it because I loved his music and as a way of thanking him for all those years of great music.”
— Gary Moore
“People say that, but I don’t agree with that,” he said. “Peter had come to one of my Blues for Greeny shows, and it was nerve-wracking because I hadn’t played for a while and we were being filmed as well. And Peter sat on my side of the stage. It was really strange.”
Moore instead credited guitarist Nigel Watson and the Peter Green Splinter Group for Green’s renewed activity.
“So it was around the same time as my Blues for Greeny, but I don’t know how much influence I really had,” he said. “I did it because I loved his music and as a way of thanking him for all those years of great music.”
In the end, Moore’s blues identity is often traced to Peter Green through the guitar, the tribute record, and the mythology that followed.
But in Moore’s own telling, the first nudge came much earlier, and far more quietly: not from legend or legacy but from Bob Daisley, who simply suggested a different path — and happened to be right.
