1965 National
Airline (JB Hutto Model)
A couple of decades before Jack White made the Res-O-Glas-bodied catalogue guitar iconic, Rory was again ahead of the curve, picking up this red-and-white beauty and using it onstage in the 1980s.
Rory playing ‘I Wonder Who’ on the Airline at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1985:
Guitarist Paul Fenton recounted seeing Rory with this guitar in 1982:
“In 1982 my new band “Number One” scored a GREAT gig – we were asked to open for Rory Gallagher (my all-time favorite guitarist, and the reason I got into music as a “profession”) at the great Montreal club, “The Spectrum”…We watched Rory do his LONG soundcheck and when he played his song “Secret Agent” he used a guitar that he had just bought…it was a beautiful, red Airline guitar (known as the “J.B.Hutto” model to collectors)…not only did it look like a million bucks, but it sounded like a million too..I thought to myself that I would have to try and get one for myself” Paul Fenton
