Rory Gallagher's official website states:

Rory’s Stratocaster was modified extensively over the years. In an attempt to make a comprehensive and intelligible list of all the changes, we’ll deal with each mod separately, and try to follow a chronological line of approach where possible.

Pickups in Rory’s Strat

Rory’s Strat, of course, was shipped from the factory with three single-coil pickups. On average, a pickup that came from Fender factory in 1961 measured 6.19 kOhms. Fender used a .0029″ diameter wire, and hand-wound the magnets for a total of 8119 turns (again, on average). This is all based on Seymour Duncan’s extensive research (available at Vintage Fender Guitar Pickup Spec Info) and should serve as something to aim at if you’re in the market for a vintage sounding pickup.

These original pickups remained in Rory’s Stratocaster until early to mid-1970s. Around that time, two of the pickups were damaged due to moisture, while the third one, the one in the middle position, remained functional.

"I sweat a lot when I play and over the years the body’s absorbed a lot of moisture. I’ve often thought that it’s come to the end of its life. Recently two pickups packed up together, they just cut out when I was playing. I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to get new pick-ups to sound the same, but fortunately, they matched perfectly."

-International Musician and Recording World, April 1975

Changes over the years would include the pick-ups — the treble and bass pick-ups blew within a week of each other, so the middle pick-up is the only original one.

The Guitar Collectors No.1, Rory Gallagher by Eamonn Percival, April 1977

In the interviews Rory, unfortunately, does not mention which particular model of pickups he ended up replacing the originals with. He did, however, most likely use stock Fender pickups from around that time period.

Interesting to note here is that from around 1975, the plastic cover on the bridge pickup seemed to have been brand new – while the other two were already yellow-ish and aged, the bridge pickup cover was clear white. So for one reason or another, the neck pickup didn’t get a new cover while the bridge pickup did – even though they both died at the same time.

Photo source: Youtube/Rory Gallagher – Karussell Special Volkshaus (Zurich-Suiza) – 1980

The pickups remained in this configuration (at least based on photographic evidence; they could’ve been changed/rewound, but we wouldn’t know about it) until around July 1982. At that time, the bridge pickup was again changed, but this time it styled a black plastic cover. The photo below, showing the new bridge pickup, was taken at the Hot Press Music Festival at Punchestown Racecourse, Kildare, on July 18, 1982. The same configuration can also be seen on the footage from the Rockpalast gig, filmed at Loreley, Germany, on August 28, 1982.

Rory Gallagher in acton at the Hot Press Music Festival at Punchestown Racecourse, Kildare, 18/07/1982

-(Part of the Independent Newspapers Ireland/NLI Collection). (Photo by Independent News and Media/Getty Images)

This new pickup could’ve been the same one that was fitted on the Fender Lead Series guitars from 1979 to 1981. This is mostly based on a quote from Rory – where he stated that he installed a Fender Hot X100 in the bridge at some point, but since there’s no such thing as a “Hot X100”, it is likely that he was referring to the Fender Lead II X1 pickup – and from the fact that these pickups were most often shipped with black plastic covers.

"With the Strat, I changed the lead pick-up for one of Fender’s hot x100 jobs, and I’ve tried the Fat Strat (referring to DiMarzio FS-1) pick-up as well, but I always come back to the original."

-February 1985 issue of Guitarist Magazine

However, it is also possible that this black pickup was taken directly from Rory’s 1979 Anniversary Stratocaster, which did indeed have black pickup covers. It is of course also possible that the black pickup was something completely different.

From this point on, the saga about the pickups becomes even more based on pure guesswork. The black bridge pickup was gone by 1984 (see footage at Ulster Hall Belfast, on January 4, 1984), and this means that either only the cover was changed, or that the old pickup altogether was gone and replaced with a different one. Furthermore, over the years, Rory would continually state that he has done numerous changes to the pickups, but not until years late would we get a glimpse of the actual pickups inside Rory’s Stratocaster.

"The pickups have all been rewound or replaced you can’t expect them to go on forever, but they try!"

-Rory Gallagher’s Stratocaster – Vintage Classic

Sometime in the early to mid-2000s, Kent Armstrong was contacted by Rory’s brother Donal and nephew Daniel about recreating the pickups in Rory’s 1961 Fender Stratocaster. Kent opened the guitar, inspected the pickups, and concluded that two of them were stock Fenders, and the third was a Fat Strat pickup from DiMarzio.

"His most famous 1961 Strat had two mid-70s Fender pickups in it and an early DiMarzio FS-1 in the bridge."

-ToneQuest Report July-August 2013 p.24

Photo of the inside of Rory’s Stratocaster. Source: Rory Gallagher Signature Pickups by Kent Armstrong (thanks to Daniel G.)

However, one thing that is important to mention, the pickup in the bridge could possibly be a Fender X-1 (thanks Ingemar). Rory did state in the past that he preferred it over the FS-1 (see the quote a few paragraphs above), and if you look at that pickup, you’ll notice a yellow wire soldiered to it. To our knowledge, DiMarzio FS-1 pickups had no yellow wires, even the early models, while Fender’s X-1 did indeed have one.

For comparison, this is a Fender X-1 pickup, showing a yellow and a black wire going through the hole on the bobbin. This is how the pickup would’ve looked if it was kept stock.

-Photo credit: Coveyj/Wikipedia

The other explanation could be that the person who installed the pickup simply snapped the original wires, and soldered new ones onto it, one of which was incidentally yellow. This does seem more likely because originally, the wires would be soldered on top of the bobbin and then pushed through the hole to the bottom, while on Rory’s Strat, they were soldered directly on the bottom. Also, both the neck and the middle pickup have wires that are not original to them.

Another clue pointing towards this being DiMarzio FS-1 as opposed to Fender X-1 is that the pickup on Rory’s Strat had staggered poles, while at least to our knowledge, X-1s that were fitted on Lead II models had flat poles.

Photo of Rory’s 1961 Fender Stratocaster, showing staggered poles on the pickup.

-Credit: Pat Graham.

The reason for pointing all this out is that if this is indeed correct, it would mean that even though Rory stated that he tried the FS-1, but ended up going back to a Fender pickup – sometime between 1985 and 1996, he changed his mind about the DiMarzio FS-1, and about using Fender factory pickups exclusively.

Moving on from that, and regarding the neck and the middle pickups – the dates that Kent gave upon inspection do match the time period when the original pickups went bad, so it is possible that the middle and neck pickups are the same ones he had ever since the original went bad, circa 1975. It is of course also possible that the pickups were changed several times, and it has been said by Rory that they’ve all been re-wound, so even if they are the original Fender, their sound has been somewhat altered.

The neck pickup specifically, seems to have a plastic bobbin, with protruding screw holes. To our knowledge, these were fitted on the 70s Reissue Strats – on both the American Vintage and the Classic Series models made in Mexico. If you happen to know anything more about these, please be sure to leave a comment below.

About the middle pickup – it is interesting that even though the original 1961 middle pickup was fully functional in the 70s when Rory replaced the two that failed, he did eventually get rid of that one too. The reason could be the same as with the others (pickup going bad at some point), or Rory simply wanted to experiment with the sound. The pickup that is seen on the photograph of Rory’s Strat linked a few paragraphs above appears to be a standard grey-bottom 70s Fender single-coil.