I first became aware of Henry McCullough when he played regular gigs in Belfast’s Menagerie Bar back at the turn of the century. I had no idea that the quiet and unassuming man with a ferocious talent for playing guitar had such an illustrious history in the music industry.
Born in Portstewart on the North Coast he like many others served his time in Ireland’s Show Band scene before moving to Belfast, then London to sign with Chas Chandler’s management company. During 1967-68 under Chandler’s guidance, McCullough’s band Éire Apparent toured with Jimi Hendrix, The Animals and Pink Floyd to name but a few.
McCullough made history on the 17th August 1969 when taking to the stage at the Woodstock festival as a member of Joe Cocker’s Grease Band. He became the only Irish man to play the legendary festival.
Further recording sessions followed with Spookey Tooth and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar” Rock Opera. However, McCullough will most likely be best known and remembered by most for his time in Paul McCartney’s Wings.
In his two years with the band, he played solos on ‘Live and let Die’, ‘Hi, Hi, Hi’ and ‘My Love’, which is considered to be ones of the best solos in rock history even today.
Later, he would go on to record with Roy Harper, Marianne Faithfull, Ronnie Lane and Donovan.
The 1980s saw McCullough permanently return to his native Portstewart. From there he continued to play local shows, tour in Europe and release records. ‘Failed Christian’ released in the late 1990s was covered by Nick Lowe on his album ‘Dig My Mood’.
The new century saw McCullough as busy as ever; touring the UK, and Europe and collaborations with The Alarm’s Dave Sharp, Horslips’ Eamon Carr and Paul Doherty from The Vals.
A heart attack in November 2012 lead to the misreporting of McCullough’s death and while he recovered, sadly he was unable to perform again.
Twenty-one years ago on the 14th of June 1995 we said goodbye to another Irish guitarist, Rory Gallagher and today I sadly find myself doing the same thing again. While acknowledging the sadness of the situation I feel very fortunate to have seen Henry play several times and chatted with him a few times. He was a man who despite his rich history and contribution to music never got caught up in any of the nonsense or egomania of it all and managed to stay human. I like to think that he and Rory will be jamming together tonight in the great gig in the sky.