A bass player from Deep Purple and Rainbow stood behind the mixing desk in Munich, and the Irish guitarist Rory Gallagher was about to find out whether trusting him was a masterstroke or a mistake. In October 1976, Gallagher released Calling Card, his sixth studio album, and the record carried a question his fans had never heard him ask before: what happens when the man who built his name on raw hard rock lets an outsider reshape the sound?
Roger Glover takes the controls
The outsider was Roger Glover, a producer of a calibre Gallagher had never worked with before. The two had met when Gallagher's band opened for Deep Purple on tour, and by the time Calling Card was recorded in Musicland Studios in Munich, Gallagher had made a conscious decision to step away from the hard rock that had defined him. This was the second of four albums Gallagher would release on Chrysalis Records in the 1970s, and it was the first time he handed the controls to someone with that kind of pedigree.
Glover's touch is all over the record. Calling Card is widely seen as one of Gallagher's most varied albums, moving through blues-rock, hard rock, folk-rock and blues without ever settling in one place for long. The first side runs from the punch of Do You Read Me through the slower Country Mile and Moonchild to the title track and I'll Admit You're Gone. The second side opens with Secret Agent and Jack-Knife Beat, then eases into Edged in Blue and closes with the rowdy Barley and Grape Rag. The lineup was the same quartet that had carried Gallagher through his early Chrysalis years: Gallagher on vocals, guitar and harmonica, Gerry McAvoy on bass, Lou Martin on keyboards and Rod de'Ath on drums. Critics noticed the range. AllMusic later gave the album four and a half stars out of five, and Guitar Player praised its brilliant songs and rock drive.
The cost of the gamble
The gamble paid off on record, but it came at a price. Gallagher co-produced the album with Glover, who later spoke of the loyalty Gallagher's musicians had built through years of club shows and touring. Yet Calling Card was the fifth and final release with drummer Rod de'Ath and keyboardist Lou Martin. After the tour that followed the album, Gallagher reorganised the band and kept only bassist Gerry McAvoy, the man who had anchored the rhythm section through the Munich sessions.
The charts told a mixed story. In 1976 the album reached number 32 on the UK Albums Chart, a solid showing for a guitarist who had always been more of a live hero than a hitmaker. The sleeve, shot by Mick Rock, framed Gallagher as a serious artist at a crossroads, and the nine songs inside were all his own. There were no covers, no borrowed material, just Gallagher writing his way through a moment of transition. The album's afterlife kept growing. The 1999 reissue added remastering, fresh sleeve notes written by Gallagher's brother Donal, along with the extra songs "Rue the Day" and "Public Enemy", the latter an early version of a song that would appear on Top Priority in 1979. A 2012 CD reissue added "Where Was I Going to?", and in 2026 the record topped the UK Jazz & Blues Albums Chart.
The collaboration with Glover turned out to be the only successful experience Gallagher ever had with an outside producer. He tried working with another producer in San Francisco, but scrapped the results and fired most of the band. Those abandoned sessions surfaced much later, but they only underlined what Calling Card had already proved: Gallagher could stretch his sound when the right person was in the room, and the stretch came with consequences he could not undo.
Gallagher could stretch his sound when the right person was in the room, and the stretch came with consequences he could not undo.