Gary Moore Biography

Moore grew up on Castleview Road opposite Stormont Parliament Buildings, off the Upper Newtownards Road in east Belfast, as one of five children of Bobby, a promoter, and Winnie, a housewife. He left the city as a teenager, because of troubles in his family – his parents parted a year later – just as The Troubles were starting in Northern Ireland.^[2]

Moore picked up a battered acoustic guitar at the age of ten. He started performing at a young age, making his live debut in a school band, during the intermission of one of his father’s promoted shows. Before getting his first quality guitar (a Fender Telecaster) at the age of 14, and learning to play the right-handed instrument in the standard way, despite being left-handed.

In 1968, after performing with a number of Belfast-based bands, Gary Moore, at the age of 16, was “headhunted” as the replacement guitarist in the Dublin-based band Skid Row and he moved to Dublin. Moore’s greatest influence in the early days was English guitarist Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac who was a mentor to Moore when performing in Dublin.

Other early musical influences were artists such as Albert King, Elvis Presley, The Shadows, Buddy Guy and The Beatles. Later, having seen Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in his home town of Belfast, his own style was developing into a blues-rock sound that would be the dominant form of his career in music.

Read more about Jimi here: Wikipedia