Thin Lizzy - Vagabonds of the Western World
Fronted by the flamboyant Phil Lynott, charismatic frontman, bassist and songwriter, the Irish outfit became a national legend thanks to an atypical brand of hard rock, one that drew on folk and psychedelic sources while feeding on prescient metal instincts. A trajectory that kept climbing until the self-destructive collapse of its leader
by
Mauro Vecchio
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Thin Lizzy are one of my all-time favourite bands. Phil Lynott was a unique singer and songwriter. And that went hand in hand with one of the most original twin lead-guitar sounds ever produced
(Slash)
It was so sad when Sid Vicious died, but I literally lost it when Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy died. I cried. It was just too absurd
The first concert I went to on my own was Rory Gallagher. In the space of just a month in 1973 or '74 I saw him, Thin Lizzy and the Rolling Stones. I wasn't particularly a Gallagher fan, but I thought his playing was fantastic. But Thin Lizzy, now that was truly amazing
Shades of a Blue Orphanage (1949-1967)
An old Jesuit proverb goes roughly like this: "Give me the child for his first seven years and I will give you the man." Philip Parris Lynott is exactly seven years old when he is sent from Moss Side, a neighbourhood about three kilometres south of Manchester, to Crumlin, a suburb south of Dublin. Crumlin, where grandmother Sarah lives, a place shaped by the Irish Catholic Church's diocese, caught between moral rigour and social censure. At 85 Leighlin Road, Frank and Sarah have lived since 1936, after moving out from the old heart of the capital. Living with them is little Philomena, the sixth of nine children, born six years earlier. From childhood, Phyllis - as she's known to her closest friends - nurtures an eccentric, irreverent personality that sits badly with Crumlin's quiet. After repeated escapes to England, at seventeen Philomena boards a ship bound for Liverpool, determined never to turn back.
A lover of music and the good life, Phyllis first meets a very charming character in the centre of Birmingham, during one of those riotous Saturday dances held in various hotels around the city. A rather singular young man, Cecil Joseph Parris, born five years before her in the port city of Georgetown, capital of what, by the late 1940s, is called British Guiana, a colony on the northern coast of South America, between Venezuela and Suriname. A descendant of the millions of African slaves forced through the long sea crossing between the 18th and 19th centuries, Parris's father, Eustace, is fortunate enough to work as a teacher among the wealthier, more educated stratum of the population after the abolition of slavery. Around 1947 he decides to emigrate to New York in search of a new life, but fate has a cruel sense of humour: he fails to realise his ship is actually bound for Liverpool. Cecil is just over twenty when he lands in one of the main ports of the Old Continent.
Nicknamed The Duke, on account of his extreme sense of style and a thin black moustache, Parris doesn't waste much time with Philomena: at just eighteen, the woman is pregnant with a boy, who is born on 20 August 1949 at Hallam Hospital in West Bromwich. Little Philip Parris Lynott is taken to 176 Raddlebarn Road, in the Selly Park area south-west of Birmingham. A large Victorian building that, since 1943, has housed up to fifteen unmarried mothers with support from the Diocesan Rescue Society. The rule is as simple as it is brutal: each mother has three months to decide whether to keep her child or not, otherwise it is placed in the care of more stable families. Introduced three years earlier, the Family Allowances Act provides for a payment of three shillings a week as a form of welfare for mothers in difficulty, but it applies solely and exclusively to second children. Philomena Lynott is excluded from this support, but decides to carry on and make ends meet, moving constantly between the rough neighbourhoods of Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester. Little Philip is often looked after by carers and social workers, while Phyllis works nights, taking whatever work she can find.
The real trouble, however, arrives with the birth of second daughter Jeanette, in a Liverpool hospital in the spring of 1951. Officially the Duke's daughter - in reality the result of a fleeting affair with a mysterious American official visiting Liverpool - Jeanette drops like a bomb into an already critical situation, with Parris having left the city to move to London. In June '52 a third child arrives, James Arthur, the result of a new relationship with another American of African descent named Jimmy Angel. At three, Philip grows very attached to Jimmy, who suddenly decides to go back to the States. Unable to support such a large family, Philomena gives up both Jeanette and James for fostering between 1953 and 1954. The impact on Philip is devastating: at almost seven, he collects nothing but reprimands at Princess Road Junior School in Moss Side, Manchester. "He must be made to form a regular habit of punctuality." When lessons end, no one even comes to pick him up.
Trapped by fears and anxieties over her son's upbringing, Philomena makes her final decision: Philip will surely be better off moving in with grandmother Sarah, in the quiet, strict suburb of Crumlin, in Dublin.
Born north of Dublin in 1898, Sarah Finn is the classic Irish mammy, a rock of stability and security, almost impossible to shake. Unlike her husband Frank Lynott, a taciturn drinker, Philip's grandmother is one of those personalities for whom anything is possible if you want it badly enough. When he arrives in Crumlin in the summer of 1957, young Phil is immediately thrust into a world of hard work, study and a fierce sense of Irishness. Sarah has never approved of her daughter's choices - in fact she doesn't even know she's had two more children - so she is absolutely determined to raise Philip in the most orderly way possible. Despite his dark skin, Philomena's firstborn is accepted by his new family, which withstands the increasingly frequent jibes of the locals: "God bless him and send him back to Africa to whoever will take care of him." When he starts at Scoil Colm Christian Brothers' School (CBS) in August 1957, Phil draws everyone's attention with his strikingly curly hair. Some shout "blackie" at him, others "baluba". Backing him up during the worst clashes is his new little friend Brian Downey, a Dubliner almost two years younger.
While quickly learning to speak perfect Irish, Philip goes through a very tough period in his childhood, terrorised by the Christian Brothers running the CBS, who seem to think they can handle their pupils more or less the way the Nazis handled the Jews. Lynott often comes home bearing bruises and belt marks, but thanks to an increasingly sharp and intuitive character, he soon learns to dodge the worst of it. It's a period dominated by the single-minded thinking of Catholic-rooted Irish nationalism, where the Irish are the good guys and the British are the bad guys. A relentless propaganda drummed in from the earliest school years, which of course leaves no room whatsoever for creativity, poetry or literature. The force of the message is such that, at first, Philip takes an interest in the Church, thinking he might become a priest. That intention soon fades, but what certainly remains is a deep sense of being Irish - all the more so given his African origins - along with a closeness to Catholic and patriotic mythology. He becomes fascinated, in fact, by the so-called Ulster Cycle, the medieval epic saga about the creation of the true Ireland, as well as by comic strips, drawing his first eight-page Superman strip at the age of nine.
It's 1962. In a small flat on Sundrive Road, in Crumlin, two boys of twelve and thirteen are giving private guitar lessons to anyone wanting to learn to play an instrument. These are the early years of the beat boom, and countless teenagers dream of escaping into the music business with visions of grandeur. Frankie Smith and Hugh Feighery are both students at the CBS and, together with friends Danny and Mick, have recently formed a band. They don't have a singer, so they decide to recruit Peter Lynott and "use" Philip to win him over, since Peter happens to be his uncle. Peter has experience in various local bands and agrees, officially forming the Eagles as a five-piece. Leading them is a manager with military manners named Joe Smith, who happens to be Frankie's father. Joe wants the boys playing straight away at cinemas and charity events, immediately trying to find them an identity that will set them apart from the hundreds of boy bands playing Elvis and Beatles covers on the streets of Dublin. Peter steps forward and suggests to Smith that he take on his nephew Philip, who by now has developed a flamboyant look that's potentially perfect for standing out from the crowd. Phil can't do much yet - he can certainly hold a tune, even if he's shy, he loves music deeply, and he's well liked by many, especially the girls. He is, in short, the perfect figure to front the Eagles.
With Philip's arrival, the band decides to change its name to Black Eagles, for reasons both obvious and tied to a shared love of the DC Comics strip Blackhawk. At first the line-up numbers six, with Peter and Phil sharing the stage as co-frontmen. The uncle, however, never fully commits to the cause, and a dispute over earnings soon settles the matter, leaving room for only one Lynott. Between 1963 and 1967, Black Eagles play everywhere, while their one and only frontman grows ever more comfortable with singing and performing, even on the smallest of stages.
The material is of course other people's, ranging from "Blue Suede Shoes" to several songs by the Kinks, plus Yardbirds and Ray Charles. The whole set generally drawn from that era's Top Twenty, as the typical Irish showbands do, playing four to six hours a night, six nights a week. Like human jukeboxes, Black Eagles perform non-stop in the local ballrooms, with a professional edge unheard of among their peers. The band's local fame grows, with gigs spreading to various Irish towns, as audiences grow curious to see this odd singer with the voluminous hair and the magnetic stare in action. Philip throws himself completely into the beat culture of the era, abandoning studies that never interested him much anyway.
1965 sees drummer Brian Downey join Black Eagles, a former schoolmate of Lynott's at Cbs. The son of a musician, Brian starts playing at age 13 in a couple of local bands, Liffey Beats and Mod Con Cave Dwellers. A prodigy, Downey is a quiet, reserved type, and it's said of him that "he's not a drummer, but a musician who plays the drums." During a Black Eagles show at St Paul's Hall, Mod Con open for them. Downey is particularly struck by Lynott's talent, who invites him to try out "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks to reshape his band's rhythm section. Now the undisputed lider maximo of Black Eagles, Philip replaces his friend Feighery with Alan Sinclair on guitar.
Changes don't come only on the musical side: in 1965 he falls for fifteen-year-old Carole Stephen, from the suburb of Drumcondra. The two seem instantly inseparable, and when she comes down with tonsillitis, she receives one of Phil's very first original pieces of writing, while he is meanwhile experimenting with his first vices: drink and cigarettes. His other passion is cinema, which captivates him with its imagery and archetypal characters, especially westerns. He's so taken with the big screen that he drags his bandmates into an amateur film in which he casts himself as director. It's a period rich in stimulation but also family troubles, after the death of his grandfather Frank breaks his heart. Stepping in as the new patriarch is his older uncle Timothy, who forces him to be home by ten or eleven at night, but who also opens the door to a wealth of music on LP, from Mose Allison to the Who. To these are added records Lynott himself buys with the few shillings earned from gigs: Sinatra, the Mothers of Invention, Velvet Underground. Phil is a sponge, soaking up even the most niche styles and genres as the 1960s draw to a close.
Eire (1967-1969)
Late summer, 1967. Phil Lynott gets an unexpected call from Brendan Shiels, known to everyone as Brush, a nod to his thick mop of hair and a pair of striking dark moustaches. Brush has played bass in the Uptown Band, a Dublin group devoted to the flower-power sound, and is an outgoing twenty-two-year-old chasing fame and fortune. The call comes for a very specific reason: his new band, Skid Row, needs a singer, having already recruited Noel Bridgeman on drums and Bernard Cheevers on lead guitar. The fortune Shiels has been chasing knocks on Philip's door at just the right moment, since he happens to be free, Black Eagles having played their final live show in August at the Moran's Hotel in Dublin. Lynott is in the process of putting together a new band called Kama Sutra, influenced by the new American West Coast groups, but it's still just an early idea. In October, Brush takes a bus to show up at the Lynott family's front door, and he doesn't even need to speak to Phil, because the moment he sees his face he knows he's found his man. There isn't even time or appetite for an audition: if he wants it, the job is his. When he turns up for the first rehearsals with Skid Row, he's wearing a flashy hippy outfit, launching into "Hey Joe". Cheevers isn't sold, but for Brush there's no better alternative than this strange, magnetic vocalist, who strongly recalls Jimi Hendrix, who in 1967 has become the new cornerstone for small blues-rock outfits across Ireland and England.
In the heat of the moment, Brush hasn't quite accounted for some rather different musical outlooks. Shiels is a devotee of soul, of blues and what would later be dubbed "classic" rock, while Lynott talks about Paul Simon, Nico and Velvet Underground. Skid Row's first rehearsals take place on O'Connell Street, at the property of Kathleen Quigley, a well-known figure to countless local bands who can practise there for free. By early 1968, after just a few months of rehearsing, Brush's band is already considered the best on the Irish scene. The set list is made up entirely of covers, from the Beatles to the Byrds. Lynott buys himself a Binson Space Echo to craft new vocal effects in the style of the West Coast sound flooding in from across the ocean. Another feature setting the band apart is their use of liquid light shows in the manner of the Grateful Dead and projected film footage for an immersive sound experience, à la Velvet Underground.
While Shiels decides the stylistic direction, Phil mostly handles the more visual side, bringing in the trends of the subculture and a refined artistic flair. Lynott's standing as Skid Row's frontman grows exponentially, drawing attention from across the country. Having finished school, Philip takes his first job to have some personal spending money, a short-lived stint at a local steel foundry. He is in fact allergic to manual labour, wanting instead to make it in music, with money to come only through that one path allowing him to have fun around Grafton Street with his friends while nurturing his artistic talent and a great passion for the opposite sex.
Phil dresses ever more flamboyantly, in women's boots, handmade jewellery and fashionable haircuts. Day and night he's out and about, pint after pint, while by night the action moves to Dublin's many beat clubs, from Number Five to the Club A Go Go.
With his new girlfriend, Carole Stephen, Lynott is always the life of the party, a charismatic figure everyone loves for his wit and humour. Brush, however, is at odds with his lead singer, absolutely refusing to let Carole attend Skid Row shows, seeing her as a needless distraction and a troubled personality, given her frequent jealous outbursts and rows with Phil. In early 1968 Carole drops the bombshell: Phil will become a father before the year is out. And if the sins of the fathers fall upon the children, Lynott loses his head and refuses to take responsibility for the coming child, effectively forcing Carole to withdraw to the home for unmarried mothers known as Manor House, run by the convent of the Sacred Heart Sisters over 60 miles north of Dublin. Less than two days after the birth, Phil Lynott's first child is given up for adoption by Carole, who wants to go back home free of any further anguish. Needless to say, her relationship with the Skid Row singer is over.
Like a young Bowie, Lynott is like a huge sponge soaking up cultural and musical influences amid Dublin's lively social scene. One of the most important encounters of 1968 is with the founding members of the psychedelic band Dr Strangely Strange, Ireland's answer to the Incredible String Band. Living at 55 Lower Mount Street like a commune of musical artists and intellectuals, the Strangely crowd are under the wing of Patricia Mohan, better known as Orphan Annie, a nickname that certainly doesn't go unnoticed by Phil. Mohan's property, aptly named Orphanage, becomes a second home for Lynott and his new friends, a place to talk, drink, sleep.
Meanwhile, Brush has fallen in love at first sight with a very young guitar prodigy named Gary Moore, at the time playing with Method and immediately invited to join Skid Row after a show at the Club A Go Go, replacing Cheevers, who is about to leave the band for a job as an electrician at Guinness. A Belfast native, Moore is welcomed by Lynott like a younger brother, taken around the city's cafés and pubs to be let in on all its electrifying secrets. Gary joins Skid Row just in time to record the band's first single, which also marks the first time Lynott himself sets foot in a real recording studio. The track is called "New Places, Old Face" and is written by Shiels, with a feel similar to certain Stones songs like "Ruby Tuesday", wrapped in a gentle, intimate folk architecture. What looks like a starting point, though, turns out to be an ending, and a rather traumatic one at that.
While Moore will carry on in the band through to its debut album, Lynott says goodbye, at odds with the musical direction Shiels wants to pursue, leaning towards an Experience- and Cream-style power trio. Manager Roy Esmonde himself takes Brush aside after a TV appearance and advises him to drop Lynott, whose voice he considers too flat. Shiels is no longer convinced by his Roger Daltrey-style stage poses either, while it emerges that his tonsils need to come out. Lynott flies to Manchester for the operation, with Skid Row carrying on rehearsing and recording demos without him. Back in Ireland, it's Brush himself who faces the issue head-on and, like a football club manager, tells him it's time to part ways.
Separation, an emotionally loaded concept that sends Lynott off the rails. Consumed by guilt, Shiels offers to teach Phil how to play bass, so he can get straight back on his feet with a new skill as a musician, beyond being a singer deemed "too flat." His friend and betrayer Brush gives him a Fender Jazz as a gift and hosts him five days a week at his house in Cabra West. Lynott is more determined than ever to make him pay for it, musically speaking.
Look what the wind blew in (1969-1970)
Fired by Skid Row, Phil Lynott is disheartened and hardened by yet another rejection early in his life. This is when his first experiments with drugs flooding Dublin's streets begin, from psychedelic-culture acid to new substances that keep him awake and active day and night. The substances help prop up a genuine lack of self-esteem, giving him that couldn't-care-less attitude towards the outside world. He strikes up a friendship with Percy Gibbons and for a moment considers joining his band, the Garden Odyssey Enterprise, who have just released the psychedelic single "Sad And Lonely". Lynott keeps up his regular visits to the property known as Orphanage, where weed and acid flow at a steady pace and hippie-folk music reigns supreme.
In the company of Ireland's most promising poets, Phil chews over notes and words, forging his creative talent as a songwriter. He joins the Tara Telephone collective, just founded by local musicians and poets like Brian Patten and championed by disc-jockey John Peel. In November he's invited to Trinity College, where Tara Telephone has organised a gathering for the Arts Society, and he seizes the chance to perform solo with acoustic guitar and voice, in the vein of that strand between the absurd and the psychedelic that Marc Bolan is bringing to light with Tyrannosaurus Rex. One of his very first compositions is "The Death Of A Faun", inspired by the mythological tales of Oisín and the Fenian Cycle. His fellow artists aren't exactly thrilled. Then he decides that poetry and mythological echoes can coexist with personal emotion and lived experience. Songs like "Dublin" and "Saga Of The Ageing Orphan" are far more distinctive and strike his friend Brian Downey, who senses something powerful taking shape.
Lynott builds up the cult of his own personality, convinced that to break through he has to act like number one. He ramps up his brilliant persona to the extreme, playing the star even over a pint at the pub. In autumn 1969 the time comes to get serious, and so the band Orphanage is founded, influenced by the sound of Dr Strangely Strange and made up of Lynott on vocals, Brian Downey (ex-Black Eagles and Sugar Shack) on drums, Pat Quigley (from Movement) and guitarist Joe Staunton (ex-Macbeth). The idea comes from Philip himself, who naturally puts himself forward as the band's leader and suggests the name to underline being orphaned, both personally and musically. New members join the band along the way, including Terry Woods (later in The Pogues), Gary Moore on guitar, and the members of Dr Strangely Strange themselves. Even the legendary Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains. The repertoire is obviously packed with covers, from Chuck Berry to Bob Dylan, with a very pastoral, folk-leaning approach reminiscent of early Fairport Convention. "A strange band," Quigley will recall, "a mix of rock, early heavy metal and hippie stuff."
Orphanage doesn't last long: they play various Irish cities until the start of 1970 and even record a handful of original tracks like "You Fool, You", a blues standard. It's a far more low-key affair than the activity of Skid Row, who in their three-piece line-up with Moore fly to London to record their first album for Columbia Records. But at twenty, Lynott is growing on stage, playing bass with increasing fluency and honing his much-maligned vocal skills. Everything is now set for the next, decisive step: a new band called Thin Lizzy.
Eric Roben Bell was born on 3 September 1947 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Two years older than Lynott, he's already a seasoned musician. His guitar has already seen service in several bands: Deltons, Shades of Blue and Bluebeats, but above all in Van Morrison's Them, for a brief spell in 1966. A blues devotee and Hendrix fanatic, Bell left Belfast's R&B scene to work in Dublin with John Farrell's showband, the Dreams. It's a choice made more for money than love, since the Dreams manage to land several hits on the Irish Top Twenty between '68 and '69. But success and money aren't everything for Eric, who feels a professional void, given that his role in the Dreams is boxed in. He can't try out distortion, solos or feedback without being told: "Knock it off, Ravi Shankar." Everything in the Dreams is controlled, from personal attitudes to stage clothes - the exact opposite of Lynott's Orphanage. On impulse, Bell decides to use the money he's saved up to leave the band and go looking for a bassist and drummer to form a blues trio. But he finds no takers and starts to panic as the money runs low. Finally, while out searching for bandmates, he runs into a keyboardist named Eric Wrixon, another Belfast lad who shares with Eric a brief stint in Them. Eric has just come back from England, where he played with the Trixons, so he shares a few beers and a tab of acid with Bell before heading to a venue run by a friend who'll let them in for free. Orphanage take the stage and launch into Bob Dylan, with this strange frontman dancing an Egyptian-style dance and a phenomenal drummer behind him. Bell only knows Lynott by name, but he turns up backstage to compliment him and ask if he happens to know any musicians who'd like to join him and Eric to form a power trio. Philip barely has to think it over and convinces Downey, but he sets Bell two conditions: he'll be the bassist, and the band will perform some of his original compositions.
The next day, Philip turns up at Eric Bell's house to let him hear a demo of some songs he's written on acoustic guitar: "Dublin", "Chatting Today" and "Diddy Levine". Eric is impressed and can already picture his guitar weaving electric lines around them. On 1 January 1970, an article in New Spotlight magazine announces that Bell has left the Dreams and formed a nameless band with Eric Wrixon on keyboards, Philip Lynott on bass and vocals, and Brian Downey on drums. The first rehearsals are held in a basement behind the Band Centre Shop, then at the Temple Oak Tennis Club. For now it's just blues jams, but Downey is struck by Bell's technique, while Phil's bass playing is still rough around the edges but already effective. Bound by an unexpected chemistry, the four rehearse relentlessly, even late at night after the last shows Lynott still has to honour with Orphanage, who dissolve without too much friction.
Thin Lizzy's first official performance - the name is made official to the press on 21 February 1970, taken, on Bell's suggestion, from a robot character called Tin Lizzie in The Dandy comic - takes place in the school hall in Cloghran, north of Dublin. More a live run-through than an actual gig, it's almost a way of testing the waters to see what effect it has.
John D'Ardis is a friend of Philip's who has recently opened a small recording studio in Hagan's Court called Trend. Hungry for recognition, he offers Lynott the chance to work for free on Thin Lizzy's earliest tracks in exchange for word-of-mouth promotion. It's the perfect opportunity to record some embryonic acoustic versions, with bongos, flute and piano thrown in. Gary Moore also takes part in the sessions, bringing his guitar into an atmosphere still steeped in pastoral folk and relaxed, poetic rhythms. Yet the choice for the first single, "The Farmer", sounds like it comes from a completely different band: a pleasant country-rock number in perfect The Band style. The chosen B-side is "I Need You", which isn't even a Lizzy song but a track written by D'Ardis in a Blood, Sweat & Tears vein, featuring a soulful vocal from Lynott and overdubbed guitar effects by Bell. "The Farmer" is released on 31 July 1970 on the Emi Ireland label in a run of 500 copies, of which only 283 are sold on the domestic market despite radio promotion. Oddly, the posters plastered illegally around O'Connell Street make no mention of Eric Wrixon, who is almost immediately pushed out of the band, for reasons both financial and personal.
Thin Lizzy become a trio, just as their guitarist originally intended, and they don't let the poor sales of their first single discourage them. They keep relentlessly rehearsing long live jams, chasing a sound that will go on to become legendary.
Saga of the Ageing Orphan (1970–1971)
Despite the poor sales of the single "The Farmer", Thin Lizzy, now in their new three-piece form, begin to build a following. After breaking into the top three of Ireland's best bands according to New Spotlight magazine, by autumn 1970 the venues hosting their live shows are increasingly packed. It's obviously not purely a musical matter, but rather one of stage presence and coolness. While the band's name is still unknown, the local fame of its three members is undeniable by now - never mind that the repertoire is still stuffed with covers: Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, the Rolling Stones, even Martha & The Vandellas. But the covers quickly give way to the first songs written by Lynott, such as "Look What The Wind Blew In". Philip is on cloud nine, living out his dream: a rock band that gives him total room for expression. On top of that, his skill as a bassist has improved considerably, enough to draw comparisons to a relative of Jack Bruce. Taking a cue from various California bands, Lynott suggests to his new bandmates that they move in together, commune-style, at 28 Castle Avenue in Clontarf, south Dublin.
Phil and Eric's new life consists of herbal-tea breakfasts, enormous joints and music playing on constant rotation, of every genre. The duo is soon joined by their respective new girlfriends, among them eighteen-year-old Gale Róisín Barber, who has just fled Belfast to start a more intense, exciting life. The relationship with Gale will last several years, but it will never involve invitations to Lizzy gigs, not even during the sporadic periods when Lynott reunites with Philomena. Before long, the house on Castle Avenue becomes a substitute for the old Orphanage den, an ever-open port of call for friends, musicians and artists. The so-called "Clontarf Cowboys" are a crew of thirty to forty oddball characters who, at regular intervals, cut loose amid epic parties and colossal benders. It's a house of vice, awash in psychoactive substances and every kind of alcoholic drink imaginable. Unfortunately, something worse happens along the way, and it's said that it's at just twenty-one years old that Philip Lynott starts using heroin. The cause can be traced back to his friendship with guitarist Jimmy Faulkner, previously in the Jingle Jangle Band and then alongside local soul singer Ditch Cassidy.
The hippie utopia of Castle Avenue can't last long: more than fifty residents sign a petition hand-delivered to the Lynott household formally demanding they vacate number 28. Philip decides to move into a bedsit with his new girlfriend Gale Barber, before performing on 4 September at Ireland's first major festival, held at Richmond Park, home of football club St Patrick's Athletic. Just the previous weekend had seen the third edition of the Isle of Wight Festival, featuring performances by Jimi Hendrix, The Who and The Doors. The police have therefore kept a close eye on this first edition of the Dublin Open Air Pop Festival, fearing unrest and chaos stirred up by hooligans. Around a thousand people turn up at Richmond Park, prompting Lynott to reflect on Irish society, still light years away from being as modern and genuinely anti-conformist as neighbouring England.
After a strong appearance on the TV show Like Now!, Thin Lizzy meet Brian Tuite, approached by their manager Terry O'Neill, who is looking for a partner to help run the band. Unlike O'Neill, Tuite has real experience, having managed Granny's Intention and personally running the Band Centre music shop. Tuite calls in his partner Peter Bardon, who controls a promotion agency with a strong presence on the Irish showband circuit. Bardon agrees to invest in Lizzy, on condition that O'Neill is pushed out. In autumn 1970, Bardon and Tuite become Thin Lizzy's new managers for a nominal sum of around 200 pounds.
Unlike Peter, who treats it as a purely financial matter, Tuite is genuinely passionate about Lynott and co.'s work, and immediately sets off in search of a record label. As it happens, he's friends with Frank Rodgers, a Dubliner relocated to London to work for Decca. He gets in touch and proposes an audition for soul singer Ditch Cassidy, but here's the stroke of genius: swap out Cassidy's band for Thin Lizzy. "I told the lads, listen: Frank's coming down to hear Ditch, but he's not going anywhere without you lot on board…"
Confirming Tuite's hunch, Frank Rodgers turns up at the Zhivago nightclub and is particularly struck by the trio backing Cassidy, above all the bassist, who has enormous potential. After the audition, at the nearby pub, Rodgers offers Thin Lizzy a contract for a debut album with Decca, while poor Ditch has to settle for a single on the subsidiary label Deram. After listening to the songs written by Lynott, Frank is convinced the potential is strong enough for a debut album and advises Tuite to fly to London to meet Decca's boss, Dick Rowe, famous in music history for having turned down The Beatles. On 12 November 1970, "Tin Lissy" sign a one-year contract with an option to renew for a further two, covering a total of three albums to be produced, immediately securing an advance of 500 pounds plus a further 500 per completed album.
The moment has finally arrived: on 3 January 1971 the band sets sail for London, after playing one last homeland show at the Afton Club in Dundalk. On the ferry to England, Lynott happens to run into disc-jockey John Peel, who learns of the imminent release of Lizzy's debut record and promises to give it proper airplay. Once in London, Lynott and co. check into a guesthouse on Sussex Gardens, very close to the Decca studios in West Hampstead. Recording sessions begin the following day, running up to ten hours a day for a single week, alongside American producer and songwriter Scott English, who has already worked with Jeff Beck and was specifically assigned by Decca. Nicknamed "the referee" by the band themselves, English immediately clashes with Lynott because he wants to turn the bass down: "Tell that fucking Yankee to go to hell," Phil will say to Tuite with the mic still live. The only outside musician involved in the record is Ivor Raymonde - he plays the mellotron part on "Honesty Is No Excuse" - who, by contrast, is struck by Lynott's talent and showers him with compliments: "If he doesn't screw it up, he could write something like 'My Way'."
Thin Lizzy was thus recorded in a context of innocent lightheartedness, drawing on sonic material from the most disparate styles and Lynott's first, still-rough gems, with a disproportionate amount of weed consumed from morning to night. Many of the songs on the record had been road-tested live for a full year before the Decca sessions, the offspring of an early-70s jam-band approach to music. "The Friendly Ranger At Clontarf Castle" builds Lynott's spoken-word vocal over an Eastern-tinged bed of pulsing bass, psychedelic guitar and syncopated drums. There's no ambition here to produce a fully-formed song, just a small three-minute jam that hides, within its fascinating folds, the work of a band that would become legendary. "Honesty Is No Excuse" shifts tone radically, veering towards an orchestral soul-pop driven by that "flat voice" that is starting to take flight. Opened by the acoustic watercolour of Bell's guitar, the lengthy "Diddy Levine" is the first of the musical mini-dramas Lynott wrote to recount his traumatic childhood as an abandoned child. The vocal performance is spine-tingling, while the instruments launch into a small rock opera that, in its central section, bursts into a masterful hard-jam.
The chemistry between the three is genuinely impressive, and Thin Lizzy is probably the only album on which you can hear a completely dispassionate, genuine approach from the band. While Bell has fun hammering the wah-wah on the Hendrix-style space-rock of "Ray-Gun", the trio's ability to play as one still needs a final polish on the exciting yet muddled "Look What The Wind Blew In". Lynott's first direction as a songwriter veers decisively toward an "Astral Weeks"-style dream-rock, as on the brief gem "Eire", which conjures Celtic heroism with a mystical vocal that, in the original plan, was meant to be sung in Irish. While "Return Of The Farmer's Son" returns to the still-muddled jam-band approach between progressive rock and hard sounds, "Clifton Grange Hotel" recalls the past with Philomena in the suburbs over a fascinating psychedelia born of countless West Coast influences. Likewise, "Saga Of The Ageing Orphan" is an intimate folk ballad in the style of Van Morrison, which Lynott gently guides through the unfolding of his troubled adolescence.
Despite having only recently turned twenty, Phil carries himself with a veteran's command, placing on the album that should finally launch his art a melancholy like that of the closing "Remembering Part 1", searching for a happy home and a real father, over Eric Bell's distorted feedback. This is precisely what makes Thin Lizzy a far more important record than it may seem to those who can't glimpse a clear sonic direction.
Whiskey in the Jar (1971–1973)
With a first record deal in their pocket, Thin Lizzy are now considered the best Irish band of the moment. Having finished the first album in early January, Lynott and co. return to Dublin to keep performing through to spring. Phil moves into Brian Tuite's childhood home flat in Donnybrook, but is well aware it will only be for a few months: with Thin Lizzy due out in April 1971, the band will have to relocate permanently to London, however reluctantly. A proud Irishman to the bone, Lynott doesn't want to give in to English power, but he has to in order to properly launch his career, moving in with Gale Barber and Ted Carroll, the former Skid Row manager whom Tuite asks to handle the band's interests in London. Having landed once again in the English capital, Thin Lizzy are met with total indifference, despite being considered in Ireland "the best band of the moment".
The time has thus come to put the pedal down on the red van rented by Tuite and rack up miles across the whole country, never stopping. Lynott, who can't drive, always wants to be up front to reassert his leadership, which he begins exercising with vocals on 23 March 1971 in front of the painfully small crowd at London's Soho Jazz Club. Thin Lizzy become a "trucking band", constantly on the road for the following year and a half, supporting everyone from Faces to David Bowie. Three or even four shows a week, between clubs, pubs, hotels and universities, often unpaid and in front of no more than a hundred people. One evening they even play in a prison chapel, carefully hiding all the weed stashed in the conspicuous red van.
Released at the end of April, Thin Lizzy passes unnoticed by the music press, selling barely 2,500 copies across Europe in six months. The only one to believe in the record is Canadian disc-jockey David Jensen, who puts it into rotation on Radio Luxembourg and names it album of the year. In August the New Day EP is released, made up of four tracks recorded with Nick Tauber at the Broadhurst Gardens studios and put out by Decca as a kind of appendix to Thin Lizzy. The record includes the robust second part of "Remembering", which unwinds between Eastern-tinged guitar lines and a vocal delivery closer to Rod Stewart. The free-jazz-inflected rhythm section of "Old Moon Madness" backs a new lysergic spoken-word piece, while "Things Ain't Workin' Out Down At The Farm" mixes Hendrix-style space-rock with funky-soul rhythms.
New Day takes on particular value thanks to "Dublin", a moving folk-style ballad written by Lynott as a heartfelt tribute to the city that watched him grow up, a luminous acoustic watercolour that helps set apart a band absolutely unwilling to lose its roots, despite the forced exile in the attempt to break through in the cold but lucrative music business.
Phil and Gale move again, to 61 Hillfield Road in the West Hampstead area, after numerous failed attempts due to the colour of his skin and, on top of that, his being Irish. The end of 1971 sees Thin Lizzy playing again back home, followed by a series of English shows on the university circuit.
On 10 March 1972 the second album under contract with Decca is released, Shades Of A Blue Orphanage, whose title blends the names of Bell's and Lynott's previous bands. Recorded in just a few weeks with producer Nick Tauber at the new De Lane Lea studios in the Wembley area, this new Thin Lizzy record has a tougher gestation than the first. Partly because Decca refuses to allocate extra budget for the recording sessions, and above all because Lynott and co. have less road-tested material to work with. The band's financial troubles — aside from Philip, who can at least count on the royalties from his compositions, or failing that on help from his mother Philomena — make it impossible to stop touring, leaving less room for rehearsals. The truth is the band doesn't have a clear idea of its new sonic direction, practically forced to write the album during the very same recording sessions in Wembley.
The result is an album that falls short of the growth expected from Lizzy, starting with the limp folk dance of "Chatting Today", which is nonetheless one of the few tracks Lynott had already written some years earlier. The brief "I Don't Want To Forget How To Jive" is an inexplicable old-school number in which Lynott apes Elvis Presley, while "Call The Police" turns on an interesting riff that dissolves into its own funky groove. The album's opening track, "The Rise And Dear Demise Of The Funky Nomad Tribes", begins with a jungle-like rhythm section, adding prog and funky elements in the most jam-band fashion possible, proof that the album was almost improvised on the spot.
"Buffalo Gal" brings back smoother, more soulful sounds, while "Brought Down" has all the potential to be a great song, but doesn't fully exploit its interplay between acoustic and electric.
The album — which Lynott himself would criticise some years later — is the mirror of a band in trouble, forced by circumstances to slow its pace. "Baby Face", for instance, is comparable to a pounding demo tape with sturdy guitar and bass work amid heavy wails and Latin textures, just as the overly long title track opens with an atmosphere somewhere between folk and hippie psychedelia before adding some extravagant mellotron parts. The album's only real flash of light is "Sarah", a touching ballad of pure, dreamy folk that Lynott wrote in honour of his grandmother. For now, too little to speak of a step forward in Thin Lizzy's career.
Shades Of A Blue Orphanage hits the British market to total indifference. "What the fuck are we doing? — Bell snaps — Nothing's happening." Frustrated, Lynott pushes Ted Carroll to put pressure on Decca, who haven't properly supported the band's first two albums. There's talk of Radio Luxembourg's enthusiasm, but it's clear the two records have no commercial muscle to break through in terms of sales. Coming to Thin Lizzy's rescue are the promoters, who crave Phil's stage presence and book more and more dates around England. In spring 1972 there are even the first shows outside the UK, across the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. It's an endless, continuous tour, where they sleep little, eat even less, but drink and smoke a great deal. 3 June 1972 is a curious date, because Thin Lizzy play twice on the same day, in Peterborough and Liverpool. Even the hyperactive Lynott is rattled: "Christ, how do we get out of this bloody cycle?" "It's simple — his roadie replies — Mate, you need a smash record."
While concert earnings in Europe are still painfully low, back in Ireland the Thin Lizzy name is a must-have for countless clubs, willing to fork out up to £200 a night to have them on stage. When they return home for a tour in July 1972, the local press is in an uproar over a rumoured new single said to upend Irish tradition, while managers Peter Bardon and Brian Tuite are considering dropping management of what looks like a failing band. The two hand over the band's financial reins to Scotsman Chris Morrison and Ted Carroll, who immediately find themselves dealing with three-figure debts. Morrison and Carroll's first move is to go to Decca's offices to try to get out of the contract, since the two albums have flopped and the label itself doesn't seem convinced about properly promoting them. Frank Rodgers won't hear of it: there's another album to produce and the investment has already been made, but it's possible to stop after the next single — if that's another flop, then Thin Lizzy will be released from the deal.
Initially, the band's idea is to record a Lynott song titled "Black Boys On The Corner", influenced by the sound of Isaac Hayes and Philip's first attempt to move beyond his Irish roots to tell the story of his African origins. The band gets together during the few breaks from touring at the Duke of York pub in King's Cross, aiming to come up with the new single Decca has asked for. In a moment of messing around between pints, Lynott picks up a Telecaster at the mic and starts strumming the traditional "Whiskey In The Jar", quickly followed by Bell and Downey. "Whiskey In The Jar" is a tune Phil has known since he was a kid, an Irish standard dating back to the 17th century, almost impossible to avoid for anyone who's ever hung around Grafton Street. "The common people of the British Isles in the seventeenth century admired local outlaws — the celebrated ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax wrote — and in Ireland, or in Scotland, when gentlemen of the road robbed English landowners they were seen as patriots. These sentiments inspired this cheerful ballad." "Whiskey In The Jar" is thus the tale of an outlaw who robbed an Anglo-Irish soldier or official, Captain Farrell, betrayed by a woman he loved named Jenny or Ginny. In fact one of the most performed traditional songs in Irish history — from the Dubliners to the Pogues — "Whiskey In The Jar" is overheard almost in passing by Ted Carroll during rehearsals at the Duke of York. "That sounds like a hit!", he exclaims without giving it much thought. Thin Lizzy aren't convinced, though, since it's a song tightly bound to local tradition, and Lynott, in particular, is aiming to rewrite his Celtic origins rather than slavishly follow in their tracks.
There's a problem: the band doesn't have a B-side ready for the new single, so they agree to include "Whiskey In The Jar", recorded in three sessions at the new Tollington Park Studios. It's a direct capture of the most intense folklore, a version that sounds like it could have come from any busker on Grafton Street. Onto the initial acoustic scaffolding (two guitars) is later added the signature electric part that Bell lifts from the pipes that made the Chieftains famous. The blend of Lynott's heartfelt delivery and Bell's melodic electric guitar lines creates a magic that, at that precise moment, can only make you think you've rubbed the famous lamp. When Decca boss Dick Rowe hears the two new Lizzy tracks, he has no doubt whatsoever: "Whiskey In The Jar" will be the A-side of the new single, no room for argument. The song is trimmed from almost 6 minutes down to the classic radio format of three-and-a-half minutes, cutting mainly Bell's guitar parts and a Lynott chorus. Phil goes along with it, starting to believe the track could be a hit, while Eric harbours more than a few doubts about the direction the band is taking. "Whiskey In The Jar" comes out on 3 November 1972, but nothing happens. A measly fewer than twenty copies sold on the first day.
But once again it's the "bloody circuit" of live shows that saves Lizzy, out on the road for a month with Suzi Quatro supporting one of the UK's hottest bands, Slade. Starting from Newcastle City Hall, the tour lets the band play big venues in front of thousands of people. "Everyone was interested in Slade — Eric Bell would say — nobody gave a damn about us".
The Newcastle date gets off to a disastrous start: the rowdy crowd hurls racist abuse at Lynott while objects fly onto the stage. Lynott freezes, unsure how to respond to such a situation. After just three songs the band retreats to the dressing room in a catatonic state, chased down by Chas Chandler, Slade's manager. "What the hell was that! — Chandler yells — You're here to warm up the crowd, not put them to sleep. If you don't pull yourselves together you're off the tour!". Lynott is terrified, because Chandler is one of his role models and has just screamed in his face that his band is rubbish. The following day, Lizzy have to play a solo gig ahead of the next date supporting Slade, and they take the opportunity to radically overhaul their live sound. With a more aggressive approach, both musically and in terms of stage presence, Lynott and co. manage to finish the tour with Quatro and Slade, though it's no easy ride and they certainly don't make much of an impression. But the tour is a godsend, because Phil truly understands what isn't working — a real turning point for Thin Lizzy.
Determined to radically change the band's sound, Lynott starts studying figures of the calibre of David Bowie and Rod Stewart, true masters at the art of setting a crowd alight. Live audiences want to see charisma — quality performances alone aren't enough. Phil studies the poses of the comic-book characters he loves, tries holding the bass between his legs and pointing it at the audience. He practises for hours in front of the mirror, trying to transform himself from a shy, intellectual frontman into a wild rocker. He thinks back to what Suzi Quatro told him on the last tour — that he isn't a real bassist, just a frustrated guitarist. Indeed, playing bass doesn't satisfy his need to stand out, which is why he decides to start using a pick instead of his fingers, for a more rhythmic, direct sound.
At the end of the tour with Slade, Thin Lizzy celebrate the new year in Ireland, where "Whiskey In The Jar" unsurprisingly stays at number one on the singles chart for 17 consecutive weeks. In London, after a slow start, the track gets airplay on Radio 1 and Decca suddenly finds demand outstripping available copies. On 11 February 1973 the song reaches number 6 on the UK chart, spending 11 weeks in the Top 40, and even climbs to number seven in the German market. In a whirlwind, the band appears on various TV shows across France, Spain and Holland, and is interviewed in London by the prestigious New Musical Express. Phil is over the moon, finally reaping the rewards of so much hard work, thanks to a single that came about almost by accident and wasn't even particularly wanted.
The Rocker (1973-1974)
Given the huge success of "Whiskey In The Jar", Carroll and Morrison immediately show up at Decca's offices to renegotiate the contract. The offer on the table is a mere six-month extension, covering the release of a third album, with a £10,000 advance from the single's royalties and another £5,000 to promote the next studio record. Thin Lizzy now get to play bigger venues, but old problems resurface: aside from "Whiskey In The Jar", the crowd doesn't seem too excited by the rest of the live set. Lynott admits to the press that his band doesn't want to come across as one of those acts devoted to folk and Irish tradition for drunks. Paradoxically, the very song that pulls Lizzy out of obscurity is the same one that threatens to trap them in a cage of stout and green mountains. While many ask the band to revive classics like "Danny Boy", Lynott deliberately sets his sights on something radically different for the new single. "Randolph's Tango" is a mini-film set to music, blending romantic atmospheres and Latin rhythms, telling the story of a señorita and her ranchero — a track so wildly different from its predecessor that it seems more like sheer provocation than an actual change of sonic direction. Something that exists only in Lynott's mind, as he tries to escape that damned single that "will follow him for the rest of his life", rewarded only by the most die-hard fans in Ireland.
In the spring of 1973 it's time for a new Irish tour, praised by the trade press for its unexpected rhythmic dynamism and for Lynott's stronger stage presence. Back in London, Thin Lizzy regroup at Tollington Park Studios with renewed motivation, determined to smash it with the third album owed to Decca. When Eric Bell's guitar kicks in with the opening riff of "The Rocker", it's like a Copernican revolution in the band's sound, which veers towards a harder rock'n'roll, with Lynott now snarling tales of street kids, girls and pub brawls. Bell's solo in the middle section of the track is fire burning on the altar of Hendrix-style wah-wah, exactly the kind of sound needed to hit the mark.
"The Rocker" is the anthem on which Vagabonds Of The Western World rests, released on 21 September 1973 with a striking cover painted by friend Jim Fitzpatrick. Opened by the thrilling electric-blues groove of "Mama Nature Said", Thin Lizzy's third album represents, for better or worse, a quantum leap, thanks to more confident, gutsy vocal performances and more direct sonic structures. Riding dark opening bass lines, "Gonna Creep Up On You" evokes Sabbath-like atmospheres, driven by sensual vocals and Bell's spacey guitar.
While the new Lizzy record marks an initial break with the past, tracks like "The Hero And The Madman" are still steeped in a progressive flavour, with Lynott searching for his true rock opera. The title track, for instance, revisits Celtic tradition while updating it with psych-space-rock atmospheres. "Slow Blues" opens with orchestral fanfare before settling slightly into a more conventional funk-inflected soul-blues. Then comes "Little Girl In Bloom", surely one of the album's high points, telling the moving story of a young woman and her baby. There's clear growth in Lynott's songwriting (as well as in his bass playing), supported by fine overlapping effects and Bell's poignant electric solo. Though still anchored in clear psychedelic references, the closing "A Song For While I'm Away" is another touching, almost crooner-like performance from Phil, carrying a warm, enveloping orchestral ballad.
Vagabonds Of The Western World fails to break through commercially, but it's a vivid musical testament to an artist with no intention of giving up, torn between old sonic residue and tough new rock edges.
After the release of the third album, Ritchie Blackmore — who was a big fan of the single "The Rocker" — invites Lynott to join his new band following the breakup of Deep Purple. Temporarily named Baby Face, the new group includes the trusty drummer Ian Paice and former Free singer Paul Rodgers. Blackmore is unaware that just the year before, Thin Lizzy had accepted a juicy £1,000 offer from music promoter Leo Müller to shut themselves away at De Lane Lea Studios and record five Deep Purple covers. Lynott, however, had told Müller he absolutely did not want to sing, having singer Benny White stand in for him to complete the album "Funky Junction Play A Tribute To Deep Purple", on which the name Thin Lizzy appears nowhere at all. Intrigued by Blackmore's offer, Lynott agrees to try recording something as a trio, since Rodgers never shows up at the studio, already on the verge of forming his new band, Bad Company. It's unclear how many songs, or which ones, are attempted, because the project collapses in record time, forcing Chris Morrison to issue a press statement confirming that Thin Lizzy are not about to break up and that Lynott is fully committed to the band.
In autumn 1973 the group goes back on the road across the UK and Germany, including a session on John Peel's radio show. Phil's hunger for success keeps growing — another hit needs to be produced as soon as possible. But while Lynott wants to become a global star, Eric Bell grows ever more unhappy with the new sonic direction, forced to mime during their appearance on Top of the Pops. Bell's problems aren't just artistic: his girlfriend has just left him, moving to Canada with their young son, while an acid trip has left him paranoid and suicidal. Things come to a head during the German dates in November, when Bell physically clashes with Lynott after hurling several glasses full of brandy to the floor. On another night he climbs onto the stage of a local band that had refused to let him play with them, attacking the amplifiers before being chased off by security. The truth, as Bell sees it, is that Phil couldn't care less about his personal troubles, entirely focused on the need to become famous.
The tour continues in Ireland in December 1973. At Queen's University Belfast, on New Year's Eve, Eric Bell suffers a nervous breakdown on stage after a massive drinking session during the soundcheck. With the added complication of his own family being in the audience, the guitarist snaps and walks off: "I'm out, good luck, see you later". Lynott and Downey are forced to finish the gig with just bass, vocals and drums.
"That's it, as far as I'm concerned he's out". These are Lynott's blunt words to the Lizzy entourage in the days that follow, after Bell has repeatedly been begged to get back on that stage. "Nervous exhaustion" is the official line chosen to explain the guitarist's departure to a curious press after the explosive Belfast show. Philip is thus forced to start 1974 without his essential guitarist. At first there's despondency, so much so that Lynott and Downey even consider going back to Ireland to start a new project under a different name.
To avoid cancelling the rest of the Irish tour, Lynott calls his friend Gary Moore to temporarily replace Bell, since the Belfast-born musician is good enough to slot in without needing much rehearsal at all. With Moore, they keep playing live through the first quarter of '74, before recording the exotic "Sitamoia", a reworking of the traditional "Si Do Mhaimeo", a superb blend of African tribal rhythms and Irish jigs. Moore contributes his funky guitar, sped up into rock'n'roll territory on the following Decca single "Little Darling", released in spring to officially kick off a new sonic cycle of hard-rock-flavoured wah-wah, touches of glam and killer choruses. The quick recording sessions with Gary Moore wrap up with "Still In Love With You", a nocturnal ballad blending blues and soul in which the Northern Irish guitarist's playing is far more distinctive.
Lizzy's management is strongly inclined to keep Moore on permanently, convinced they can take on the world with three musicians of enormous talent. But Gary has a very particular character: nicknamed the loner, he doesn't want to commit fully to Lynott's band. There's also another factor not to be underestimated: Phil and Gary's personalities are both highly particular, chock-full of demons, and liable to clash at any moment. Suspicion and jealousy lead Moore to announce his immediate departure from the band in April 1974, after several live dates and three recorded tracks. Gary wants to go it alone – he'll join Jon Hiseman to form Colosseum II – while songs like "Still In Love With You" are exactly the kind of sound Ted Carroll is shopping around to the major record labels. Ahead of the German tour set to start in May, Lynott decides to hire not one but two guitarists, John Cann from Atomic Rooster and Andy Gee, whom he'd met at a party a few months earlier. It's an experiment that proves a failure almost immediately, to the point that Downey suggests to Phil that they give up and go home. Several dates are consequently cancelled, while Brian has it in mind to talk to Carroll and tell him he's out of the band. The manager insists, tells Downey that if he leaves it's all over, and urges him to be patient and rebuild the group together. Lynott in fact has it in mind to replace Cann and Gee while keeping the twin-guitar setup, which would give Lizzy a completely different sonic identity. The idea that will prove to be the winning one is to abandon the rhythm-guitar/lead-guitar structure in favour of two lead guitarists who would split duties, trading off solos but working in unison as a single entity.
Aware that this framework could transform Thin Lizzy, Lynott and Downey set auditions in motion at the Iroko Country Club in Haverstock Hill. The first to be chosen is Brian Robertson, barely eighteen years old, from Glasgow. The son of a jazz musician, Robertson is a young prodigy, able to read music and also play piano and drums. He had been in Dream Police and had also played in a jam with Downey after a Lizzy show at the University of Glasgow with Gary Moore on guitar. Robertson is joined by Scott Gorham, a Californian from Glendale who had long been active in the garage band scene and had a few prior convictions for possession of hard drugs. Determined to turn his life around, he moved to the UK at 22, but things didn't improve, forcing him to play in pubs to make a living. With his visa about to expire, Gorham is invited by his friend Ruan O'Lochlainn to attend Thin Lizzy's auditions at the Iroko Country Club. Scott has absolutely no idea who Thin Lizzy are, but he rushes to the auditions and is bowled over by Phil's stage presence and the skill of the two Brians. His style leans less towards the virtuosic than Robertson's, but that's exactly what Lynott is looking for in his new twin-lead-guitar approach. It's the first cry of Thin Lizzy's second life.
The Boys are Back in Town (1974–1976)
The new Thin Lizzy line-up's first outing is at the Lafayette club in Wolverhampton in July 1974. The crowd is still small, but it serves as a live dress rehearsal before heading off to Ireland, a kind of homecoming baptism for a band that now includes a young Scot and a Californian. In Dublin, Lynott's first book is presented, "Songs For While I'm Away", which includes the lyrics of more than twenty songs and an unreleased musical poem titled "A Holy Encounter". During the Irish tour comes news that shakes everyone: Ted Carroll steps down as manager in favour of Chris O'Donnell, wanting to focus on the commercial side of his Rock On. His last gift to Lynott and co. is a new record deal, after several rejections (Polygram, CBS) and a renewal offer from Decca for a laughably small amount.
Carroll has in fact got in touch with Nigel Grainge, the boss of Phonogram and a regular customer at his record shop. Grainge has already heard Lizzy, captivated by their latest ballad "Still In Love With You" and especially by the guitarist's solo. Of course nobody has told him that the guitarist in question has actually already left, which leads Nigel to bet on Lizzy anyway. The band is in debt up to its neck when it shows up on 9 July 1974 at the Marquee in London for the decisive audition for Phonogram, which puts a two-album studio deal on the table. Lynott can barely contain his excitement; after splitting from Gale Barber he decides to recreate the creative atmosphere of Orphanage within a new property (or commune) called Welbeck Mansions.
In search of a new group identity following the addition of the second guitarist, Thin Lizzy get together with American producer Ron Nevison – who had already worked with Bad Company and The Who – to record the new album Nightlife, released on Vertigo Records (Phonogram) on 8 November 1974. Opened in electro-acoustic fashion by the power-folk of "She Knows", the record falls well short of the expectations of Nigel Grainge's label, who immediately points out the alarming lack of a decent single. Aside from the already-mentioned "Still In Love With You", recorded with Gary Moore's unmistakable touch, the album is indeed short on notable ideas. The title track, for instance, is a slowed-down soul-blues number with jazzy shadings, in stark contrast with the menacing black panther seemingly threatening the post-apocalyptic metropolis depicted on the cover.
The effect of the two guitars on the sound is evident, making it fuller and more layered. The riff of "It's Only Money" veers towards Zeppelin-esque hard rock, with Robertson's guitar taking flight on the solo and showing real guitar-hero potential. The classical piano of "Frankie Carroll" brings Lynott's songwriting back towards a Beatles-ish sentimentality, while the nocturnal bass of "Showdown" introduces an overly contrived urban ballad, lacking in ambition. It's this lack of spark that worries Grainge, on an album that's generally mediocre. The catchy interlude "Banshee" opens into "Philomena", a martial percussion piece dedicated to the figure of the mother. Lynott's vocal abilities are now almost at their interpretive peak, accompanied by a guitar in the style of an Irish jig. "Sha La La" again hammers away with hard rock force, with a furious wah-wah signing off on the near future. All things considered, the few hard-hitting tracks are the best things on a confused record, which closes with yet another orchestral soul-blues ballad, "Dear Heart".
Nightlife, likely held back by an overly pompous production, is not rewarded by the public, selling a measly ten thousand copies. As usual, Lynott and co. are rescued by their first US tour, alongside Bachman-Turner Overdrive, riding high on the irresistible hit "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet". Together with Bob Seger, Lizzy land in the States in March 1975, where they play venues holding tens of thousands of people. The situation is rather paradoxical: a band that has barely sold a single record performs in American stadiums while keeping up the swagger of a live-circuit superstar.
Lynott is thrilled by the American experience, which lasts about a month and a half into the spring of 1975. When he returns to perform in the UK, between April and May, still with BTO, he surprises everyone with an even more brazen, masculine attitude.
The prelude to Lizzy's definitive transformation into a hard-rock band is the following album Fighting, released in September and produced by Lynott alone, who now seems finally aware of the direction to pursue, confident in how to make the best use of having two such different yet utterly complementary guitarists.
Opened by the ringing riff of "Rosalie", a fired-up rock'n'roll version of the Seger song, Fighting is the first record in which a new direction in Lizzy's sound becomes clear. The twin-guitar interplay starts bearing fruit on songs like "For Those Who Love To Live", where the solos trade off with renewed drive. The Gorham-Robertson pairing finds its finest expression in the martial drive of the prog-tinged hard rocker "Suicide".
While Lynott's vocals take a slightly less central role, wah-wah textures begin branching out around the heart of the sound, effectively turning Thin Lizzy into a band of enormous potential. Even the more melodic numbers like "Wild One" now have a new power, having shed the folk urges or certain orchestral excesses in favour of a sound that's far more blatantly seventies. "Fighting My Way Back" is a delight for lovers of BTO-style hits, launched at supersonic speed amid revving guitars.
There's thus a clear sense that Lizzy have finally squared the circle, as "King's Vengeance" slows into a power-ballad in the style of The Who. While nocturnal melodies like "Spirit Slips Away" still carry some of Nightlife's flaws – as does "Silver Dollar", which returns to a blues scale that's pleasant but hardly original – tracks like "Freedom Song" make it clear to the listener that there's no turning back now: those two guitarists together will set things ablaze like the Allman Brothers. Lynott's theatrical, dramatic vocals take care of the rest, as on the close of "Ballad Of The Hard Man", pure hard-rock virility about to launch Thin Lizzy into the stratosphere of the heaviest sound.
Despite the general enthusiasm for the new sound, Fighting doesn't sell as hoped, around twenty thousand copies in the UK, where it nonetheless manages to reach number 60 on the albums chart. Word, however, spreads once again through the live circuit. In September Lizzy set off on a new UK tour, playing ever-larger venues. The audience now sees Lynott as a leader, a frontman to be cheered on. They're now headliners, with people actually paying to see them, unlike the dismal nights opening for Slade. The ritual involves an opening call, like a rallying cry: "Are you out there?", with the bass emerging out of the darkness of the halls. In December they play Dublin's National Stadium, selling out all 2,500 available tickets. The respect and fame earned live, however, don't translate into critical acclaim or commercial success: on record, Thin Lizzy are still that Irish band that put out a version of a well-known pub traditional.
"The Boys Are Back In Town" is the summation of the life on the road led by Lynott and his companions, drinking and smoking, brawling in clubs and hotel rooms. Lizzy's macho culture – they still ban girlfriends and wives from joining the tours – is thus recounted by Phil through the lens of a hypothetical Friday night, the romantic scenario of a rocker's existence hoping to die before growing old. "It was our game, we had to stand up and defend it", in Gorham's words years later. Influenced by American culture, the song has explosive power, capturing Lynott's storytelling skills in a Celtic-flavoured mythologising of the rough-and-tumble life on the street. Opened by a guitar blast, "The Boys Are Back In Town" pairs a killer chorus with the rawness of a hard-rock riff, while retaining an approach familiar to street-level punk bands and certain garage anthems. It is, to all intents and purposes, what's called an anthem, too big to fail.
The recording of "The Boys Are Back In Town" is the prelude to the March 1976 release of Jailbreak, an album described as "very collaborative" by producer John Alcock, who had been following Lizzy live for some time. Lynott's ego opens up to input from the other band members, who had gathered at Ramport Studios in London since January. It is, in effect, the third (and probably last) attempt for Phonogram, after renegotiating the original deal with Nigel Grainge. Philip is fully aware that it's make or break, that he simply cannot afford another flop. Ramport Studios are generally used by The Who, in an area of London with few distractions. Lizzy manage to finish the record in three weeks, while Lynott rolls joints and brings in pint after pint of beer. Already working with Daltrey and Townshend, Alcock is the perfect producer to bring out Thin Lizzy's new sound, who have by now found their own esoteric alchemy after years of trying.
It kicks off with the killer riff of the title track, which struts lazily through the story of Lynott's gang, now the leader of a bona fide hard rock outfit. Downey's elegant, marching drumbeat is backed by a collective effort between guitars, bass and voice worthy of a great band. “Angel From The Coast” swerves into a sparkling funk-and-roll, telling the tale of a seductive woman in a kind of noir set to wild African rhythms. The album continues with the horns and keyboards of “Running Back”, a pop twist written by Lynott to exorcise the end of his relationship with Gale Barber. Probably one of the most accessible songs in the Lizzy catalogue, the track is strongly marked by the work of session man Tim Hinkley, and less so by that of Robertson, who refuses to work on his guitar part due to the growing tension with Phil. The romance continues with “Romeo And The Lonely Girl”, led by Lynott's theatrical vocal delivery and underpinned by a funky-rock bed over which the fantastic central solo unfolds.
The album picks back up with “Warriors”, a rebel song celebrating music's damned heroes, built on heavy-metal foundations and a frenzied wah-wah. Lynott certainly doesn't have the vocal power of a Robert Plant, but he delivers distinctive performances for a “tough” band, above all in the nocturnal epic narration of the anthem “The Boys Are Back In Town”. Another softer moment is the electro-acoustic ballad “Fight Or Fall”, a sort of call to arms for all black brothers set to a sound very close to certain country-rock numbers by Eagles and The Band. The following “Cowboy Song”, which tells of life on the road free of ties with the serenity of an American street rock'n'roll, seems to come straight out of the Eagles' playbook. The finale arrives with fireworks, fired off by the martial rhythm of “Emerald”, which brings Celtic epic back to life exactly as Lynott always dreamed it – modernized in a hard and heavy key, leaving behind the traditional atmospheres of the publicans.
Jailbreak is thus the manifesto album of Lynott's sonic vis and his Thin Lizzy, a rock'n'roll act of rebellion centered on the figure of a young man railing against oppression, caught between new contemporary influences and the spirits of the Irish isle.
Jailbreak is released while Lizzy are on tour in the UK, supported by Graham Parker and his band The Rumours. This time the commercial impact is explosive, with the record already hitting the UK Top Ten by April. In spring they head off to the United States to play alongside bands like Aerosmith and Rush, while the new record climbs swiftly toward the American Top Twenty. In particular, the single “The Boys Are Back In Town” blows up American radio, reaching number 12 by the end of July, with critics comparing Lynott to “the future of rock'n'roll”, Bruce Springsteen. The US tour is extended to ride the wave of success, alongside Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. Lynott is poised to soar toward sonic Olympus, but just before the Columbus, Ohio date he's diagnosed with a form of hepatitis. Phil hasn't been well for several weeks, he's exhausted and sweating profusely. The doctor orders him to stop, right at the peak of it all. The infection was likely contracted from a dirty needle, since his drug habits have expanded beyond the classic marijuana joints. The public is of course told that the hepatitis came from too much work touring the world, which is why the second leg of the American tour is cancelled. Lynott flies to Manchester to be hospitalized, while the rest of the band is quarantined by Ritchie Blackmore, who has already caught the illness and is particularly paranoid. To prevent further problems, doctors order Phil to stop drinking and taking drugs.
Apart from the occasional glass of champagne, Lynott toes the line, seizing the chance to change his lifestyle. But the negative effects on Thin Lizzy are devastating, because that golden moment offered by the States had to be seized on the fly, to avoid being instantly forgotten. Luckily, by the time they return home the single “The Boys Are Back In Town” has already exploded, thanks to airplay on Top of The Pops and the BBC. Demand (and above all fees) keeps growing exponentially, especially for a big show at the Hammersmith Odeon in London that Lynott absolutely refuses to miss, even though recovery from hepatitis takes about a year. His health is still quite frail, his immune system weakened, but Phil won't give up. He can't, not now.
Are you Ready? (1976-1978)
In August 1976 Thin Lizzy reconvene at Ramport Studios in London to record the follow-up to the successful Jailbreak, after renegotiating their contract with Phonogram for an advance of 750,000 dollars per album. The problem is that Lynott, weakened by illness, only has three or four songs ready, good at best for an EP. But the record industry is a greedy beast, wanting an album to ride the wave of international success. When sessions for Johnny The Fox begin, it's producer John Alcock who suggests slowing the pace, opposed by Lynott, who wants to keep going joint after joint. Alcock isn't satisfied with what Phil has brought in, suggesting he throw in a few covers, but Lynott won't budge. The situation grows increasingly untenable, especially due to the mounting incompatibility with Brian Robertson, who averages a bottle of Johnnie Walker a day and is constantly aggressive.
During the recording sessions, Lynott brings in a blues ballad titled “Don't Believe A Word” which Robertson objects to. The guitarist rewrites the music, turning it into its definitive shuffle version with his heavy riff, nursing a burning resentment when it's later Lynott who collects the publishing royalties. Conceived as a sort of concept album, Johnny The Fox fails to match the unleashed rebellious force of Jailbreak, though it keeps the hard & heavy approach in tracks like “Johnny” and especially “Rocky”, which sets Lynott's dark side to music in a not-so-veiled dig at his guitarist Brian Robertson – an alcoholic, yes, but capable of pulling off a monumental guitar performance. The mystical spoken word that opens “Fool's Gold” returns to Irish roots, before launching the track into the most blatant of all blatant American car-radio power sounds.
The attempt to replicate Jailbreak partly succeeds, because the melodic structure over the rhythmic roughness is excellent, what's missing is that touch of fire that made the previous record great. Lynott and Robertson briefly make peace on the charming country-rock hyper-ballad “Borderline”, while “Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed” swerves into an irresistible funky groove straight out of the American black ghetto. The album does suffer from a few flat stretches though, for instance the melodic pop of “Old Flame”, which drifts into orchestral territory on “Sweet Marie”. The martial tribalism of “Boogie Woogie Dance” is a fun filler, while the epic “Massacre” – with an imposing drum performance from Brian Downey – is a kind of sequel to “Emerald”, this time set in 19th-century America.
Despite the difficulties during recording, Johnny The Fox remains a good record, released in mid-October and able to keep attention on the band high after Jailbreak. The album reaches number 11 on the sales charts and the single “Don't Believe A Word” lands at number 12 in the UK in early 1977. The British tour that wraps up at year's end is a run of sold-out triumphs, leading numerous music critics to call them one of the most important bands in the world. The group's live dimension is now fully established after years of honing their craft, a mix of theatre, recklessness and rhythmic power. Everything is set for them to headline shows in America, but yet another mishap occurs: Brian Robertson – who swears he'd only had a couple of whiskeys – badly cuts his hand defending a friend in a pub brawl, leaving him unable to play for around seven months. Lynott is furious because the tour has to be scrapped, a preview of his guitarist's departure, which will be announced in March 1977. But karma gives Phil back what Robertson took from him, because Queen invite Thin Lizzy to open for their new American tour, offering them the chance to still perform in front of thousands of people. Gary Moore is called back in to replace Robertson, again on the condition that it's only temporary. Even Freddie Mercury is left stunned when he sees the thunderous applause for Lizzy, so much so that he's furious at how rapturously they're received. Critics in the States are lukewarm toward Johnny The Fox, however, judging it more an EP than a true album. The same goes for audiences in cities like New York, where the band delivers two underwhelming shows, leading Warner Brothers to turn up its nose at the idea of giving them a massive push in the American market.
While things move slowly in the United States, in the UK the band is poised for a breakthrough. Recorded for tax reasons at Toronto Sound Studios with new super-producer Tony Visconti (Bowie, Bolan), Bad Reputation is released on September 2, 1977, reaching number 4 on the UK charts, Lizzy's best-ever placement. The choice of Visconti comes from Lynott – now free of the cumbersome Robertson – determined to push the sound past its limits in search of a new direction. Bowie himself is puzzled by his producer's choice to work with a band he considers second-rate, but Visconti is fascinated by Lynott. Recording sessions begin as a trio, with Gorham alone handling the guitar parts. It's Gorham himself who convinces Lynott to call back a recovered Robertson to work on at least a few tracks – three, to be precise. It's a limbo situation, because the album cover only features Lynott, Downey and Gorham, while Robertson records his parts and retreats to the dressing room to drink. Publicly, his departure is first announced, then it's stated that he's back in the band. Recovered from hepatitis, Lynott goes back to abusing drugs and alcohol, letting it flow freely during the Canadian sessions. Visconti loses his temper and threatens to walk away from the group, but manager O'Donnell points out how well the record is coming together, especially the new single. The sinuous bassline that opens “Dancing In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In It's Spotlight)” is jaw-dropping, ahead of its funk-soul groove enriched by the horns of John Helliwell (Supertramp) and Gorham's solo.
Despite the friction with the band's habits, Visconti manages to turn the Lizzy sound into something more contemporary, bringing his magic touch to the production. Lynott's bass takes on new shades on the bright “Soutbound” and on “Dear Lord”, one of the new elegant outfits worn by the band, caught between nocturnal soul-tinged melodies and cleverly toned-down hard riffs. Visconti's work is key to giving new life to the evocative power of Lynott's singing, without stripping too much of the martial approach, as in the epic “Soldier Of Fortune” or in the relentless heavy-metal rhythm of the title track. It's a sound that in some ways opens up the great season of heavy music in the UK, launched at full throttle on the following “Opium Trail”, a track ironically aimed against drugs, by Lynott's own admission.
The band's metamorphosis continues with the story of death and violence “Killer Without A Cause”, opened by the riff and recited like a pagan rosary over acoustic interludes in a Who-like style between guitar and harmonica. And the most striking thing about Bad Reputation is that the sudden inclusion of melodic funk-soul numbers like “Downtown Sundown” doesn't clash at all – if anything, it lends extra shine to the gentler soul of the Lizzy sound.
Right after the release of Bad Reputation the band goes back on tour in the United States, again with Parker. Cocaine abuse – now joined by tranquilizers – becomes uncontrollable, leaving Lynott increasingly irritable and out of sorts. He does, however, find new love in eighteen-year-old Caroline Crowther, daughter of TV presenter Leslie Crowther. Phil is determined to record a new album with Tony Visconti, but the producer is busy with David Bowie in spring 1978. The idea then becomes to release a live album first, handing over a batch of live tapes to Visconti himself, in particular those from the successful Hammersmith Odeon show in November 1976, during the Johnny The Fox tour. The goal is to put together a double album, which turns into a nightmare for the producer, because of the tapes supplied by Lizzy, which run at completely different speeds. It takes over 30 hours of listening in search of the best performances, also drawing from the 1977 Toronto show during the Bad Reputation tour.
The band is obsessive with Visconti in pursuit of absolute perfection for Live And Dangerous, released in 1978, after mixing and overdubs were completed at Des Dames Studio in Paris. In the end, the production work drags on so long that it keeps Tony away from Bowie anyway, buried in the task of turning a simple live record into a masterpiece that will perhaps remain even closer to music fans' hearts than Jailbreak. Greeted by the crowd chanting “Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy” in unison, the four launch into a blistering version of “Jailbreak”, with Lynott's commanding bass leading like a shaman on stage. From the very first minutes, Visconti's painstaking work to capture a band at the peak of its sonic power is obvious. From the devastating martial epic of “Emerald” to the rock'n'roll of “Rosalie” (Seger), the record finally does justice to the grueling work carried out by Lizzy over four years of non-stop performing, with Lynott leading the crowd's handclapping with an aura worthy of totems like Mercury.
Kneeling with his bass on the iconic cover, Phil completes his metamorphosis from shy folk storyteller into rockstar, leading Lizzy through legendary rides that forged the new wave of British metal, like the new martial epic “Massacre”. But the greatness of the double album doesn't rest solely on its heavier numbers, enriched as it is by the over-seven-minute version of “Still In Love With You”, the pristine funk of “Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed” and the new hit “Dancing In The Moonlight”. On the killer beat of “The Boys Are Back In Town” the crowd goes wild, swept along by the hulking riffs of “Warrior” and “Are You Ready”, one of the unreleased songs reserved only for live shows.
The finale is pure sacred rock fire, riding the wah-wah storm of "Sha La La" – complete with drum acrobatics from Downey – and Huey Lewis's blues harmonica on the extended version of "Baby Drives Me Crazy". Whatever controversy would later arise over the amount of overdubbing Visconti brought to the mix – the band always maintained their sound was entirely true to life – Live And Dangerous is one of the greatest live albums of the '70s: when Lynott kicks off "The Rocker", closes his eyes and lets himself believe he's finally made it, legend is born.
Live And Dangerous tears up the UK charts, reaching number two, outdone only by the unbeatable "Grease" soundtrack. The live version of "Rosalie" cracks the Top Twenty singles chart, while the album goes on to sell more than half a million copies in the UK. A summer tour is organised in support of the album, with Lizzy mostly playing material from two years earlier, aside from "Bad Reputation". The band seems unable to stop, afraid of losing the wave of success they're riding, pushing Lynott to work relentlessly despite his deteriorating health.
The Live And Dangerous tour wraps up in absolute triumph in front of twelve thousand people at London's Empire Pool. On 7 July 1978, during a show on the Spanish island of Ibiza, yet another outburst of aggressive behaviour from Brian Robertson gets the guitarist kicked out of the band for good. Gary Moore returns, nominally meant to stay on as a second guitarist alongside Gorham, as Lizzy prepare to set off on an American tour in August 1978. But there's a major problem: Brian Downey is exhausted, can barely stand the constant drug abuse any longer, and wants to focus on fishing and, above all, his family. The drummer can't see the point of continuing to play songs from two years earlier, and tells Lynott he wants to retreat to his cottage in Cork to recharge. Philip is furious and sees the decision as a betrayal, threatening to throw Brian out of the band permanently. American tours seem to be cursed for Thin Lizzy, but Lynott quickly recruits a replacement, Mark Nauseef from Ian Gillan's band. After the American tour comes the band's first trip to Australia and Japan, where a massive free concert is staged at the foot of the Sydney Opera House, recorded live by local broadcaster Seven Network and later circulated on various bootlegs.
Got to give it up (1978-1980)
Worn down by the workload following the huge success of 1977-78, Phil Lynott starts hanging around with various figures from the new English punk scene, from Bob Geldof to Sid Vicious. The Lizzy frontman enjoys playing with them – an instant group with the fittingly nasty name Greedy Bastards is put together – but not all these relationships turn out well. His connection with Johnny Thunders (Heartbreakers, New York Dolls) proves especially dangerous, when Thunders invites him to play bass on his solo record, "So Alone". Thunders has been pumped full of drugs for years, hooked on heroin, which has already caused him plenty of behavioural and professional problems. When Thunders heads back to the States for a tour supporting Blue Öyster Cult, Lynott spends several nights with Vicious and Willy DeVille, roaming the seediest neighbourhoods to score hard drugs to inject. All this while, on 19 December 1978, his daughter Sarah Philomena is born within the walls of Dublin's National Maternity Hospital.
Phil is over the moon, and is already working on a song for her to include on the new album with Visconti, recorded at the end of the year between Good Earth Studios in London and Pathé Marconi in Paris, with Gary Moore on guitar in place of Brian Robertson. But the person who walks into the studio to produce Black Rose: A Rock Legend is no longer quite the same Phil Lynott. Pumped full of alcohol and drugs, with delusions of grandeur growing by the day, the Thin Lizzy frontman is already planning a solo career, having struck a deal for a debut album, which pushes his band to work even harder to record more and more songs. The album itself features some radical shifts, since the tropical ballad "Sarah" (written by Moore) features Nauseef on drums and Huey Lewis on harmonica, while the heavy-pop "With Love" has Scotsman Jimmy Bain on bass. The band's work on the new record becomes so fragmented that Moore ends up stamping his unmistakable guitar style on the martial "Do Anything You Want To".
Lynott seems to be out of sync, often absent from the studio, yet the final result comes together perfectly, rescued by a broader stylistic variety thanks to the presence of more musicians during recording. As the heavy-blues grooves of "Got To Give It Up" roll on, something close to an apocalyptic prophecy unfolds, with Lynott recording between joints and brandy while Visconti is already contemplating leaving. His voice has grown more nasal from substance abuse, but his ability to carry a great song remains intact, as proven on the hard-rock gallop of "Toughest Street In Town". Moore's guitar work on Black Rose has never been more direct or raw, immersing himself fully in the Lizzy style with the skill of a longtime band veteran, as heard on the funky "S & M" or amid the breakneck pop hooks of "Waiting For An Alibi".
There's not a moment's let-up, with the souped-up rock'n'roll of "Get Out Of Here" (co-written by Lynott with Midge Ure) and, to close things out, the epic tour de force of "Róisín Dubh (Black Rose): A Rock Legend", a mini-suite reworking several Irish classics – "Danny Boy" and "Shenandoah" chief among them – amid hard-rock guitar flashes and old-world folk jigs. Despite a band already beginning to fall apart and a drug situation spiralling out of control, Black Rose: A Rock Legend is a fresh, direct record that once again delivers huge numbers.
Released on 14 April 1979, the album matches the success of Live And Dangerous, reaching number two in the UK, driven by the new singles "Waiting For An Alibi" and "Do Anything You Want To", both of which once again crack the Top Twenty on British soil. A new American tour follows, the latest one plagued by at least one serious problem: after the show on 4 July at Oakland Stadium in San Diego, Gary Moore vanishes. Just like Eric Bell before him, the Belfast guitarist walks out on Lizzy mid-tour, later publicly declaring that the band is no longer fit to play live. A musician of the very highest standards – and a solitary character – Gary Moore has had enough of the band's questionable behaviour, betraying his friend Lynott, who won't speak to him again for at least four years. Already unconvinced, Warner Brothers has grown tired of pouring money and time into Lizzy, whose American tours keep running at a loss. The release of Black Rose is also delayed, because Lynott wants to change a few details on the cover artwork.
For four dates the band performs as a trio, before calling in Midge Ure, who is forced to learn Robertson and Moore's parts in just a few days. It's a surprising choice on Lynott's part, given that Ure has just joined Ultravox, moving from a post-punk framework into electronic rhythms. In September, once the band is back in Japan, Ure switches to keyboards following the arrival of new guitarist Dave Flett from Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Midge himself is taken aback by the decision to add keyboards and synthesizers to Lizzy's live sound, but Lynott seems suddenly gripped by a deep-seated fear of fading into rock obscurity.
In truth, his thoughts are increasingly turning toward a solo career, toward his debut album, which is about to go into the recording studio. Lynott has already spent a couple of weeks in Nassau with Gorham, Nauseef and producer Kit Woolven, and is now ready to work with Midge Ure on the single "Yellow Pearl", which opens with electronic textures in a Berlin-era Bowie style. With Downey on drum machine and a cascade of futuristic notes from Minimoog and synthesizers, the single throws listeners used to the Lizzy sound for a loop, though it wins over part of the critics, who warm to the album Solo In Soho, released, again on Vertigo Records, in April 1980.
The truth is that, freed from the band's sonic constraints, Lynott is able to explore his many different musical influences, from the orchestral pop-ballad "A Child's Lullaby" to the funky beat of "Talk in '79". Lynott, always a sponge for styles and genres, veers toward the Dire Straits sound in collaboration with Mark Knopfler on the elegant "King's Call", before swerving into power-pop on the album's other single, "Dear Miss Lonely Heart". The result is a pleasant record, ranging from the throbbing bass of "Tattoo (Giving It All Up For Love)" to the reggae rhythms of the title track.
In effect, Solo In Soho is a partially successful attempt to break free of Thin Lizzy and cement his own rock-star aura, one clearly built on mastering a range of genres, even if one of its most powerful moments is the altogether more comfortable boogie-blues of "Ode To A Black Man". Lynott tries to establish himself as a powerful Black songwriter, but the constant blending of styles, at a time dominated by early post-punk, fails to win over listeners, who let the album sink without a trace from the charts within a few months.
Lynott doesn't take kindly to some of the harsh criticism levelled at Solo In Soho, which points out that the record feels out of step with the times immediately following bands like Sex Pistols and Clash. His debut solo effort brought out Phil's softer, more romantic side, now happily married with a second child on the way – the exact opposite of the scandalous rocker in Lizzy who won over fans of harder music. Lynott appears to be going through a wonderful period in his personal life, as he decides to return to Dublin for the birth of Cathleen Elizabeth in July 1980. He reconnects with his old Orphanage bandmate Terry Woods to produce a new country single, Jimmy Driftwood's "Tennessee Stud". He becomes friends with the traditional folk band Clann Éadair, with whom he enjoys playing and trying out new songs in a small Irish fishing village, pint after pint.
The idyll of this new life is shattered by his return to the stage with Thin Lizzy, without Midge Ure, who has decided to join Ultravox, now signed under the same managers as Lynott. Phil doesn't take this well at all, and orders Morrison to quit the new band to focus solely and exclusively on him and his bandmates. Young Darren Wharton from Manchester is brought in on keyboards, a choice that fails to convince management and even Scott Gorham himself, who generally doesn't see the point of the role in the line-up. Following Moore's departure, second guitar duties fall to another friend, Terence Charles "Snowy" White, who had previously worked with Peter Green and Pink Floyd. The band gets to work at the usual Good Earth Studio in London with Visconti's right-hand man, Kit Woolven, to deliver Chinatown in October 1980.
One of the most emblematic tracks on the new album is the single "Killer On The Loose", which brings back that heavy sound in a desperate attempt to keep the band afloat after the explosion of British metal that Lizzy themselves had helped trigger. While Lynott prowls menacingly among the prostitutes in the video – it's the year serial killer Peter Sutcliffe racks up thirteen victims – the hard-rock barrage no longer has its old effectiveness, remaining a mere imitation of something that never really belonged to the band in the first place. In "Sugar Blues", for instance, punk speed fuses with hard-blues, but the listener is left with a nagging sense of déjà-vu, of sheer tedium.
Lynott no longer hides his heroin use, which has become extremely frequent, taking an obvious toll on his songwriting verve, hitting a low point on Chinatown. The addition of Snowy White, more a session man than a guitar hero, brings no innovation to Lizzy's sound, certainly nothing on the level of Moore on Black Rose. While the album's more power-pop tracks ("We Will Be Strong" and especially "Sweetheart") are convincing in attitude and execution, numbers like the title track come with rather poor songwriting and banal riffs to boot. Confirming this is friend Jim Fitzpatrick – once again the author of the album's cover art – who gave Lynott a copy of the book "The Cowboys" as a source of inspiration for the track "Genocide (The Killing Of The Buffalo)". All the makings of a new "Emerald" are there, but Fitzpatrick would later recount the song's utter lack of sense in the lyrics, buried under the usual martial hard-and-heavy rhythms. Aside from the rock'n'roll of "Having A Good Time", side two of Chinatown does nothing to stop Thin Lizzy sinking into pointless musical layers, as in the pompous ballad "Didn't I" or the umpteenth hard riff-fest of closer "Hey You".
Trouble Boys (1980-1983)
After the release of Chinatown, a new tour kicks off with support from the Irish band Lookalikes, fronted by Lynott's new friend Sean O'Connor. By now Phil is sleeping barely a couple of hours a night, snorting cocaine whenever he can. Lizzy's shows at the end of 1980 fail to impress industry insiders, who describe performances that are always the same, perfunctorily put together just to get through the motions. The Los Angeles date in December will be their last in the United States, where they still have a hardcore fanbase, but records simply aren't selling, while the costs of staging concerts keep rising. The following year, the Milton Keynes Bowl show sees a filthy drunk Lynott play to just ten thousand people, while the Slane Castle date marks the moment U2 definitively overtake them as Ireland's biggest band.
The already precarious situation comes crashing down with the release of the disastrous Renegade, produced first with Woolven and then with Chris Tsangarides, coming out in November 1981. Starting with the apocalyptic synth-prog keyboards of "Angel Of Death", the album desperately tries to find a new direction for the band's sound, only to drown in a dangerous mediocrity both in songwriting and performance. Lizzy's vibrant power is smothered under new arrangements caught between the usual hard rock and ever more bloated keyboards, as on the pointlessly long title track. On tracks like "The Pressure Will Blow", Gorham's once-glorious guitar work is undercut by a Lynott in terrible shape, worn down by drugs.
Not even the single "Hollywood (Down On Your Luck)" manages to save the record, which doesn't even crack the UK top 40, something that hasn't happened since Fighting. Equally unpresentable is the mix of calypso and Spanish guitars on "Mexican Blood", further proof of the general confusion caused by Lynott's total loss of direction.
Despite their internal troubles, Lizzy go back on tour at the end of 1981 and for most of 1982. Snowy White's tenure is by now a lost cause, and it's clear he can't replace Robertson or Moore. The bigger problem lies in the live introduction of synthesizers, which radically transform the band's sound. Downey suffers a serious injury and has to temporarily hand over to Nauseef, while Gorham is pushed out during the tour, unable to play due to his abuse of alcohol and drugs.
Lynott is by now on the edge of the abyss: waiting to appear on the TV show The Late Late Show, he can't stop his nose from bleeding, forced to stuff pieces of toilet paper up his nostrils to stem the flow. In this state of advanced ruin, Lynott goes back into the studio to work with Woolven on his second solo record, titled The Philip Lynott Album. Where the previous Solo In Soho showed real vitality in mixing different genres and styles, The Philip Lynott Album is a total disaster, mirroring its author's confused state of mind.
Opening with the minimal electronics of "Fatalistic Attitude", the album quickly swerves into dancefloor funk ("The Man's A Fool"), then into some country-tinged romanticism ("Old Town") and soul ("Growing Up"). That the Lizzy frontman no longer has a shred of an idea is obvious from the inclusion of a full-throttle remix of the earlier single "Yellow Pearl", followed by the typically eighties rhythms of "Together". The album finds a brief spark thanks to a new contribution from Mark Knopfler on "Ode To Liberty (The Protest Song)", but it's decidedly too little to rescue it from sonic oblivion.
The release of Lynott's second solo album is followed by a European tour with his new band, Soul Band, featuring Nauseef on drums and, mysteriously, Jimmy Bain on keyboards. On 28 January 1983, Thin Lizzy return to TV to present the new single "Cold Sweat", a heavy-metal storm co-written with new guitarist John Sykes, formerly of Tygers of Pan Tang. Just 23 years old, Sykes is brought into Lizzy to replace the departed Snowy White, before the band shut themselves away at Pete Townshend's Boathouse Studios to record Thunder And Lightning with Tsangarides. It's publicly announced that this will be Lizzy's last album, the band once again in financial trouble after their last UK tour sold barely half its tickets. Lynott's decision to call it quits is met with a sigh of relief from Downey, as well as from Gorham, who is in the midst of a long rehab process.
The album is of course followed by a farewell tour, essential for patching up the band's disastrous finances, which by now include over half a million pounds in debts to the taxman and suppliers, after squandering a fortune on drugs, alcohol and nightclubs. In truth, Lynott has no intention of abandoning Thin Lizzy for good, but the farewell tour is shaping up to be a sellout, and for now that's enough. The first date is 9 February 1983 in Scarborough, a long run through the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Germany and then Japan. Ticket sales are strong, and the crowds turn out warmly to bid the band farewell. Lizzy's management rides the wave and keeps adding dates, hoping to recoup at least part of the money needed to settle up with the tax office.
On 4 March 1983, during the UK leg, the new album Thunder And Lightning is released and climbs to number four in the charts, more due to circumstance than actual quality. The record's best moments are undoubtedly the evocative nocturnal ballad "The Sun Goes Down" and the ferocious "Cold Sweat", which flexes the muscle of the new guitar line-up with Sykes, capable of refreshing the band's sound while still keeping a heavy-metal framework very much in line with the new British invasion of hard rock. Sykes's arrival in Lizzy is crucial in producing one last record that is at least decent, managing to win over hardcore metal fans and thus push it towards the top of the UK charts. From the title track to closer "Heart Attack", the new guitarist's contribution at least points in one clear direction: a very direct, hyper-fast heavy metal. The album's dark side, however, lies in its exhausting repetitiveness, with tracks that all sound alike, from the martial "This Is The One" to the melodic "Someday She Is Going To Hit Back". The partial redemption earned by Thunder And Lightning lies in its fresher, less muddled approach, the final legacy Thin Lizzy leave to the British-metal scene that was born and grew, in part, thanks to Philip Lynott's disintegrating band.
The farewell tour of early 1983 is recorded for release as a new live double album, Life, published at the end of the year after a very long production process overseen by Lynott himself. The selection draws on several dates at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, featuring a number of tracks from the band's last questionable albums – Thunder And Lightning, Renegade, Holy War – while of course leaving ample room for classics from the previous decade. Unlike the immense work Visconti put into Live And Dangerous, Life reflects in full the band's actual state, which even live can no longer summon the old unstoppable energy. Just compare the two different-era versions of "Jailbreak" to hear the difference, with Sykes's new metal-edged style taking charge to salvage what can be saved.
The double album does however offer some significant moments, chiefly a (prophetically) heartfelt version of "Got To Give It Up" and a still-powerful "Emerald". Lizzy's farewell tour is also an occasion to bring back several former bandmates on stage, from Gary Moore to Brian Robertson, right through to Eric Bell. The guitar orgy reaches its peak on closer "The Rocker", Lynott's swan song alongside the many musicians who contributed to his tragic greatness.
Angel of Death (1983–1986)
In the summer of 1983, a new Philip Lynott Band tour kicks off, a total of 13 dates in Sweden with Downey, Sykes, Mark Stanway (Magnum) and Doish Nagle (Bogey Boys). The setlist naturally includes several Lizzy songs, including "Sarah", which had never been played live with the band before. On 28 August, the very last English show with his old bandmates takes place at the Reading Festival, closing with the nearly nine minutes of "Still In Love With You", the singer in tears by the end of the show. In September the band plays in Germany at the Monsters of Rock Festival, with Brian Robertson watching from the side of the stage with his new band, Motörhead. Lynott, Downey and Gorham say their goodbyes at the airport, telling each other it's truly over. "Ok, lads, see you soon. Take care, bye." After almost 13 years of relentless activity, Thin Lizzy are officially no more.
Phil decides to move back to Ireland with his family, but his marriage falls apart, while Dublin and its surroundings are by now flooded with heroin. In 1984 Caroline takes the two girls and boards a ferry to Bath, to reunite with her family. The affair ends up in the British tabloids, piling further existential weight onto Lynott. Divorce proceedings begin, with the possibility of seeing his daughters only under supervision. Given Phil's psycho-physical condition, the situation very quickly becomes untenable. The only lifeline is music: at the end of 1983 he calls Brian Downey back, proposing they form a new band, but the drummer tells him it's really too soon, that he wants to enjoy time with his family. Lynott's insistence leads to the birth of Grand Slam, with Downey, Sykes - immediately replaced by Laurence Archer of Wild Horses after Sykes joined Whitesnake - and Mark Stanway. The four meet up in Howth to start rehearsing, in March 1984, but Lynott can't keep his drug habits in check and decent songs are very few. There's a small Irish tour to organize, but Downey is against Phil's idea of padding it out with Lizzy songs. The two part ways again after the tour is cancelled.
Naturally Lynott has no intention of giving up, and calls in drummer Robbie Brennan, another character devoted to heroin. Spring 1984 brings a handful of Irish dates in which Downey's fears materialize, because Grand Slam isn't really a band at all. It's just Lizzy covers, old Lynott solo material, even versions of Procol Harum and Bob Dylan, even the much-reviled "Whiskey In The Jar". Lynott's voice is reduced to the bare minimum, giving the few spectators a tragic sense of absolute decline. Phil still shouts "Are you out there?", but sometimes in front of barely thirty stunned people. Despite the glaring embarrassment, Grand Slam record several tracks, right up to autumn 1984, when Lynott manages to quit heroin for a few months, announcing his new life on the morning show Good Morning Britain. Some claim it's more of a strategic move to attract promoters and record labels, since his newfound sobriety lasts very briefly. Phil returns to the studio in London to record, while continuing to tour England after cutting almost all the Lizzy songs from the setlist. But neither audiences nor industry insiders are at all charmed by this faded copy of the glorious Irish band. The labels won't take the risk, the United States is a mirage: Grand Slam's adventure that never really began ends on 4 December 1984 at the Marquee Club in London.
After the resounding failure of Grand Slam, Lynott glumly returns to his Kew Road flat, picking up his unhealthy habits again. At the start of 1985 he's invited to California by his friend Huey Lewis, who with The News has stormed the American charts with his third album "Sports". Lynott wants to take up the offer to sing on three tracks, but the Irish embassy refuses to issue him yet another visa, because of his drug problems. He manages to reach the Record Plant Studios in time to record the single "Still Alive", which reproduces Lizzy's twin-guitar sound within Lewis's pop-soul style. The declared goal is to give the world back the rocker figure, but the sessions don't go well and force Lynott back to London empty-handed, despite mild interest from Polydor Records, who offered him a single with an option for a new solo album. The hard work bears no fruit, because the tracks, though varied, are all of poor quality.
In spring 1985 he goes back to working with Gary Moore, four years after being betrayed in the middle of Lizzy's American tour. The two record "Out In The Fields", released in June to solid commercial success, which isn't exploited by Lynott's longtime management, who agreed to a one-shot payment of five thousand pounds. Chosen as the B-side is "Military Man", one of the last gems written by Lynott in a rare moment of inspiration, enriched by Moore's guitar, which first veers into hyper-fast metal before slowing into a superb soul-blues solo.
Transfigured, pale, always with sunglasses firmly placed on his face to avoid human contact. Lynott officially becomes a ghost from late 1985 onward, by now resigned to abandoning the world of music. He withdraws more and more often to his flat on Kew Road, where he accepts frequent visits from friends - especially Jimmy Bain, who doesn't like getting high alone - but more readily those of his dealers. His friend Fitzpatrick finds him in terrible condition, amid filth and mysterious girls either convulsing or, worse, overdosing. There seems to be nothing left to do: Lynott the poet, the rocker, no longer exists, now there's only Phil the addict, who struggles to get out of bed. He disappears from the music scene entirely, when he's excluded by his friends Geldof and Ure from Live Aid in summer 1985.
While in Spain reuniting with his family, Lynott is approached by Irish promoter Maurice Boland, who offers him a night at his venue, Disco Cuba. Phil accepts poor financial terms just to get Lizzy back together, but the musicians taking the stage will be Sean O'Connor and Justin Clayton, a guitarist already working with Julian Lennon. In front of 700 people, Phil takes the stage at three in the morning for an hour of Lizzy songs, sung and played in a thoroughly improvised fashion. It's the last, deeply sad performance of one of the most distinctive performers in the history of music, although there will be two more appearances in England with Gary Moore, to whom he will confess his intention to quit alcohol and drugs.
On 6 November 1985 his first and only single for Polydor comes out, "Nineteen", which is torn apart by critics for yet another power-metal riff devoid of ideas. Lynott's main idea remains that of reforming Lizzy, but Brian Downey tells him he'll first have to lose weight and stop the substance abuse. Gorham suggests he try a new neuro-electric therapy, successfully used to treat addictive personalities such as Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. In December the situation collapses, Lynott overdoses and is rushed to the Salisbury General Infirmary in a coma, where he remains for eleven days between total unconsciousness and rare moments of lucidity. At his bedside are his mother Philomena and his closest friends, coming and going. He dies on 4 January 1986, after the collapse of several organs and an immune system by now destroyed.
Even though Irish funerals are known for their melancholy cheerfulness, the first funeral rite for Philip Lynott on 9 January 1986 is harrowing. At the ceremony held two days later, the cream of Irish music is present, from Bob Geldof to U2. Clann Éadair, the young Irish band Lynott admired in the later part of his career, perform two songs. His closest friends gather at the pub to drink to his memory, devastated by grief. Lynott's figure is so important in Irish tradition that he'll be the only one to boast a bronze statue, erected on Harry Street in 2005, alongside giants of culture such as James Joyce.
If only he had known. I don't think he ever understood how much he was loved
Dedication (1986-present)
In May 1986 Thin Lizzy reform in an expanded lineup - with Gary Moore, Bob Geldof and Bob Daisley on bass - to perform at Self Aid in Dublin. The following year the Vibe for Philo is organized, a tribute concert promoted by Irish DJ Smiley Bolger on the anniversary of Lynott's death. The group gets together in the studio for the first time in autumn 1990, to work on an unreleased demo tape of Phil's, "Guiding Light", written with guitarist Laurence Archer during the Grand Slam period. This leads to the release of the single "Dedication", which blends the usual heavy-metal rhythms with a more melodic, pop-flavoured approach. The track reaches number two in Ireland, pulling the compilation Dedication: The Very Best Of Thin Lizzy into the UK Top Ten in February 1991.
Robertson and Downey invite vocalist Bobby Tench to join the group for a series of Irish shows called "An Evening With Thin Lizzy", while independent label Windsong presses a live recording from 1983 made at the BBC's mobile studios. Titled BBC Radio One Live In Concert, the record documents the Reading Festival show, at the end of the band's farewell tour. Opened by the inevitable "Jailbreak", the Reading setlist includes the soul-blues gem "A Night In The Life Of A Blues Singer", the medley "Rosalie/Dancing In The Moonlight/The Cowgirl Song" and the touching, over nine-minute closer "Still In Love With You", with Lynott ending in tears over what should be the band's last ever performance. These are the only plausible reasons to buy the record, since otherwise the material and the quality of the performance are very similar to the double album Life.
Decidedly more interesting is the recovery of the Peel Sessions, fifteen tracks released by Strange Fruit in 1994, the result of a series of BBC Radio 1 recordings made for broadcast on the famous DJ's programme. The years covered run from 1972 to 1977, from an intense version of "Whiskey In The Jar" to the later hit "Dancing In The Moonlight". The record is far more valuable than the previous two for rediscovering Lizzy's seventies repertoire, when the band had the raw, direct sound of "Rosalie", able to move effortlessly from the boogie-blues of "Suicide" to hard-rock anthems like "Emerald". After Life and Bbc Radio One, the difference in Lynott's voice is of course glaringly obvious, between the country-rock gallop of "The Cowboy Song" and the furious rock'n'roll of "Little Darling". Another honourable mention goes to the live rendition of the psych-rock jig "Vagabond Of The Western World" and the touching, minimal ballad "Little Girl In Bloom".
In summer 1994 Downey and co. organize a tribute concert in Wolverhampton, making the unusual decision to hire several local cover bands. Following on from this, John Sykes takes charge of a new project with Gorham, Downey and bassist Marco Mendoza (Blue Murder) to tour Europe in tribute to Lynott, also taking part in the 1996 edition of the Vibe for Philo, which has by now become an annual event held on 4 January. What seems like a simple one-off celebration instead turns into a sort of second life for Thin Lizzy, who return to action - not without criticism for the use of the name - with Darren Wharton on keyboards and Sykes himself taking on all the lead vocal duties. To calm the controversy, the new Thin Lizzy swear the songs will always be the same ones, with no intention of recording new studio material.
In 1997 Brian Downey's departure is finalized, replaced by Tommy Aldridge, who immediately sets off on tour through various European cities. The many shows played between 1998 and 1999 are recorded for release as the live album One Night Only, published in 2000. With the last remaining member of the original Lizzy lineup gone, Sykes takes centre stage with the same approach as the last album, Thunder And Lightning. From "Cold Sweat" to "Jailbreak", Lynott's songs are emptied of meaning and reworked in a metal key amid flashy runs, technical flourishes and martial drum rhythms. Even though there's an attempt to faithfully recreate the structure of Lizzy's live shows - for instance inserting "Are You Ready?" midway through the concert - the final effect is that of a tribute band made up of extremely high-calibre musicians.
Ahead of a US tour through small clubs, the new Thin Lizzy lineup loses Wharton and then, temporarily, both Mendoza and Gorham, the latter busy with his new band 21 Guns. The number of shows drops noticeably through the end of 2003, while the record industry turns its attention to enshrining Lynott's name with the massive four-disc box set Vagabonds Kings Warriors Angels, divided by era starting from the folk single "The Farmer" (1970). The box set is the long-awaited manna for the band's fans, who can trace across roughly 80 tracks every sonic evolution of Lizzy, from the early years of psych, folk and blues through to the final metal riffs. The standout gems on the second disc of the massive compilation are "Cruising In The Lizzymobile" (where you can hear The Band's influence on their country-rock style) and the reggae experiment "Half Castle". The third disc brings out the wild live version of the rock'n'roll stomper "Me And The Boys" and the hard-rock cut "Just The Two Of Us", B-side of the single "Do Anything You Want To". The fourth disc closes with the psych-rock of "Song For Jimi" and the studio version of "A Night In The Life Of A Blues Singer", a song that appeared repeatedly in live setlists.
In 2004 there's still room for the Thin Lizzy name, but only on the live circuit, with the addition of bassist Randy Gregg and drummer Michael Lee. Sykes and Gorham tour North America with Deep Purple, keeping the promise to remain nothing more than a tribute band — one that Lynott himself would have approved of — so as not to let so many years of sacrifice and wonderful songs fade into oblivion. This live work of historical reclamation is backed on record by the double Greatest Hits, which includes live versions of "Cowboy Song" and "The Boys Are Back In Town" recorded at the Sydney Opera House (1979).
In 2008 a new live album titled UK Tour '75 is released, capturing the Derby setlist from November 21, 1975, recorded while promoting the album Fighting. The release is approved by the original Lizzy members themselves, who handle its remastering directly. A detail for pure aficionados: on this version of "Cowboy Song" Lynott can be heard talking to the crowd about a new song called "Derby Blues". For new listeners, the album is a unique chance to discover one of the finest bands around in the mid-1970s music scene.
While preparations are underway for a tour with Ac/Dc, returning drummer Tommy Aldridge suffers a serious accident that leaves him unable to play, prompting new leader Sykes to jump ship. Gorham announces the project is on temporary hiatus, cancelling all 2009 dates. The new lineup is announced in May 2010, featuring the unexpected return of Downey on drums, Darren Wharton on keyboards, Vivian Campbell (Def Leppard) on guitar, and singer Ricky Warwick from the Almighty.
This new incarnation of Lizzy returns to the road at the start of 2011, following the release of the short live album Still Dangerous, recorded live and direct on October 20 and 21, 1977 at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia. The album draws in both fans and critics because it settles the old dispute over Visconti's heavy-handed studio manipulation of Live And Dangerous, showcasing the full sonic power of the Irish band with no overdubs added in the studio.
In the summer of 2011, Damon Johnson, from Alice Cooper's band, joins the group in place of Campbell, setting off on tour with Judas Priest. During the Gorham-Warwick era, talk begins of a bold new album of original material, now that the band has a stable lineup of trusted musicians at its disposal. Lizzy reconvene in the studio in mid-2012, but it's announced that any resulting new album will not carry the band's name, out of respect for Lynott. With a record done "in the Lizzy style", the band tells the press that live shows will be put on hold at the end of 2012. The chosen name is Black Star Riders, from which both Downey and Wharton depart to focus on other projects.
Thin Lizzy return to the stage in 2016, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the release of Jailbreak and the thirtieth anniversary of Lynott's death. For the occasion, the lineup consists of Gorham, Warwick, Johnson and Wharton, joined by Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee. Shows nonetheless become increasingly sparse, eventually turning into one-off events in the following years. Gorham, who leaves Black Star Riders just as they're about to promote their new album, promises to bring the Thin Lizzy name back on tour after 2020. But always and only to honor once again the legendary name of Philip Parris Lynott.
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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.
Thin Lizzy on OndaRock
Discography
| THIN LIZZY | ||
| Thin Lizzy (Decca, 1971) | ||
| New Day Ep (Decca, 1971) | ||
| Shades Of A Blue Orphanage (Decca, 1972) | ||
| Vagabonds Of The Western World (Decca, 1973) | ||
| Nightlife (Vertigo Records, 1974) | ||
| Fighting (Vertigo Records, 1975) | ||
| Jailbreak (Vertigo Records, 1976) |  |
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| Remembering – Part 1 (Decca, 1976) | ||
| Johnny The Fox (Vertigo Records, 1976) | ||
| Bad Reputation (Vertigo Records, 1977) | |
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| Live And Dangerous (Vertigo Records, 1978) | |
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| Black Rose: A Rock Legend (Vertigo Records, 1979) | |
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| The Continuing Saga Of The Ageing Orphans (Decca, 1979) | ||
| Chinatown (Vertigo Records, 1980) | ||
| Renegade (Vertigo Records, 1981) | ||
| The Adventures Of Thin Lizzy (Vertigo Records, 1981) | ||
| Thunder And Lightning (Vertigo Records, 1983) | ||
| Life (Vertigo Records, 1983) | ||
| Dedication: The Very Best Of Thin Lizzy (Vertigo Records, 1991) | ||
| Bbc Radio One Live In Concert (Windsong, 1992) | ||
| The Peel Sessions (Strange Fruit, 1994) | |
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| Wild One: The Very Best Of Thin Lizzy (Vertigo Records, 1996) | ||
| Whiskey In The Jar (Universal, 1996) | ||
| One Night Only (Cmc International, 2000) | ||
| Vagabonds Kings Warriors Angels (Vertigo Records, 2001) | ||
| Greatest Hits (Universal, 2004) | ||
| The Definitive Collection (Mercury, 2006) | ||
| Uk Tour '75 (Mlp, 2008) | |
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| Still Dangerous (Vh1 Classic, 2009) | ||
| PHIL LYNOTT | ||
| Solo In Soho (Vertigo Records, 1980) | |
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| The Phil Lynott Album (Vertigo Records, 1982) | ||
| Live In Sweden 1983 (Zoom Club Records, 2001) | ||
| Yellow Pearl (Spectrum, 2010) |
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