Wishing Well

Hey Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew has got Gary Moore's cover of Wishing Well spinning right now from that 1982 album Corridors of Power, and if you've been hanging with us for a while you already know this one hits different once the guitar kicks in. Moore took Free's classic and gave it a harder, more muscular edge while keeping that loose, bluesy pocket the original had. The lineup on the record was no joke either: Ian Paice from Deep Purple on the drums, Neil Murray on bass, and Tommy Eyre on keyboards, with Moore handling the vocals and those cutting lead lines himself. It was the first time he carried the lead vocals all the way through a solo album, and you can hear him settling into that role while the band drives the thing forward.

In later interviews Moore talked about pulling Wishing Well back out for shows like Monsters of Rock in 2003. He said he hadn't played it since the eighties, but he chose it because it was simply a great classic song and one of the numbers people knew him for from that hard-rock stretch of his career. He also noted that the lyrics still felt relevant, which gave him a real reason to sing them again instead of just dusting off old material for the sake of it. That tracks with how he always approached covers: half of Still Got the Blues is covers, and he played whatever felt right rather than forcing a setlist. You get the sense he respected the Free original enough to put his own stamp on it without trying to erase what made it work in the first place.

Corridors of Power itself sat in that early-eighties window when Moore was pushing a more straightforward rock sound after the Thin Lizzy years, with some AOR influences mixed in alongside the harder edge. The album didn't explode commercially in the UK the way some later records did, but it marked a clear step where he was writing and singing for himself while still leaning on those strong supporting players. Live versions from the following years show him stretching the song a bit, keeping the drive but letting the guitar speak in the spots where Free had kept things tighter. Fans who caught those shows still talk about how the track held up in a set that also pulled in things like Don't Believe a Word and Shapes of Things.

To get how Moore ended up making records like that, you have to go back to Belfast where he was born in 1952. His dad ran the Queen's Hall ballroom in Holywood and took him along to see the showbands play. When Gary was about six, his father put him up on stage to sing Sugartime with one of those bands. He was terrified at first, but that was the moment the bug hit. A few years later, around age ten, his dad came home one Friday and asked if he wanted to learn guitar. Gary figured he'd tried everything else and wasn't any good at it, so he said yes. His father got him a second-hand Framus acoustic, and even though Gary was left-handed he learned to play it right-handed the regular way. From there he formed his first band, The Beat Boys, covering Beatles songs while he was still in school.

He saw the Beatles themselves in Belfast when he was eleven, jumping up and down in the crowd just to catch a glimpse because he was so short. Those George Harrison solos stuck with him as little compositions inside the songs, and he started chasing that kind of melodic thinking on the guitar. Seeing Jimi Hendrix, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and The Who around the same time turned him toward more expressive, guitar-driven music. By thirteen or so he was playing local gigs, and he crossed paths with Rory Gallagher, who became an early inspiration. In 1968, at sixteen, he moved to Dublin and joined Skid Row with Brush Shiels on bass and a young Phil Lynott on vocals. Lynott didn't last long in that lineup, but the friendship stuck, and Moore ended up sharing a place with him for a stretch. Skid Row got a deal with CBS, put out a couple of albums, and opened for Fleetwood Mac, which is where Peter Green took notice.

Green became a mentor and eventually sold Moore that famous 1959 Gibson Les Paul for a hundred pounds, the one that later got nicknamed Greeny. Moore carried that influence forward even after he left Skid Row in late 1971 and started his own path, eventually circling back to Thin Lizzy a few different times. The early days in Belfast and Dublin shaped everything that followed, from the showband stages to the blues and rock records that came later. You can still hear that foundation in something like Wishing Well, where the feel and the attack sit right alongside the classic British rock he grew up absorbing.

If you want to dig deeper into Moore's story and the records, the official site at gary-moore.com keeps the archive going, and the Instagram account garymooreofficial posts regular photos and clips from across the career. There's also the Facebook page at Gary Moore where fans share live shots and stories, plus the active GARY MOORE FAN CLUB group at facebook.com/groups/382083775331943 that stays busy with discussions and memories. On X you can follow gmooreofficial for the updates that still come through. And of course you're already here at THE ZOO, so stick around while the Zoo Crew keeps the records spinning for the rest of the Zoo Freaks.