Phil Lynott

Philip Parris Lynott (, ; 20 August 1949 – 4 January 1986) was an Irish singer, bassist, and songwriter. His most commercially successful group was Thin Lizzy, of which he was a founding member, the principal songwriter, lead vocalist and bassist. He was known for his distinctive plectrum-based style on the bass, and for his imaginative lyrical contributions including working class tales and numerous characters drawn from personal influences and Celtic culture.

Lynott was born in the West Midlands of England, but grew up in Dublin with his grandparents. He remained close to his mother, Philomena, throughout his life. He fronted several bands as a lead vocalist, including Skid Row alongside Gary Moore, before learning the bass guitar and forming Thin Lizzy in 1969. After initial success with "Whiskey in the Jar", the band had several hits in the mid-1970s such as "The Boys Are Back in Town", " Jailbreak" and "Waiting for an Alibi", and became a popular live attraction combining Lynott's vocal and songwriting skills with dual lead guitars. Towards the end of the 1970s, Lynott embarked upon a solo career, published two books of poetry, and after Thin Lizzy disbanded, he assembled and fronted the band Grand Slam.

In the 1980s, Lynott increasingly suffered drug-related problems, particularly an addiction to heroin. In 1985, he had a final chart success with Moore, " Out in the Fields", followed by the minor hit "Nineteen", before his death in 1986. He remains a popular figure in the rock world, and in 2005, a statue in his memory was erected in Dublin.

Early life

Phil Lynott was born in Hallam Hospital in West Bromwich, England, and christened at St Edward's Church, Selly Park, Birmingham. His mother, Philomena Lynott, was born in Dublin and his father, Cecil Parris, was from Georgetown, British Guiana. Philomena met Parris, who had moved to England to seek work, in Birmingham in 1948 and they were in a relationship for a few months, until Parris was transferred to London. Shortly afterwards, Philomena found she was pregnant and, after Lynott was born, she moved with her baby to a home for unmarried mothers in Selly Park, where he was baptised on 4 September. Philomena subsequently moved to Manchester but stayed in touch with Parris who helped pay towards his son's support. She subsequently had two other children who were given up for adoption. Though he suffered no serious racism, Lynott felt different from his school-mates and was more self-conscious.

Lynott first attended school in Moss Side, Manchester. In 1957, due to accounts of racism and Lynott being mixed race, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents, Frank and Sarah Lynott, in Crumlin, Dublin. The move was important as the presence of Frank gave him a father figure for the first time in his life. His mother stayed in Manchester and remained close to her son. She later took over the management of the Clifton Grange Hotel in Whalley Range with her partner, Dennis Keeley. The hotel, nicknamed "The Biz", became popular with showbusiness entertainers, and was later referred to in a song on Thin Lizzy's debut album. Lynott had a happy childhood growing up in Dublin and was a popular character at school.

Career

Early years

Lynott was introduced to music through his uncle Timothy's record collection, and became influenced by Motown and The Mamas & the Papas. He joined his first band, the Black Eagles in 1965 as a lead singer, playing popular covers in local clubs around Dublin. He attended the Christian Brothers School in Crumlin, where he became friends with Brian Downey, who was later persuaded to join the band from the Liffey Beats. The group fell apart due to the lack of interest of manager Joe Smith, particularly after the departure of his two sons, guitarists Danny and Frankie.

Lynott then left the family home and moved into a flat in Clontarf, where he briefly joined the group Kama Sutra. It was in this band that he learned his frontman skills, and worked out how to interact with an audience. In early 1968, he teamed up with bassist Brendan 'Brush' Shiels to form Skid Row. Downey was not interested in Shiels' request to be the drummer, so the job went to Noel Bridgeman. The band signed a deal with Ted Carroll, who would later go on to manage Thin Lizzy, and played a variety of covers including "Eight Miles High", "Hey Jude" and several numbers by Jimi Hendrix. Because Lynott did not play an instrument at this point in his career, he instead manipulated his voice through an echo box during instrumental sections. He took to smearing boot polish under his eyes on stage to draw attention to himself, which he would continue to do throughout Lizzy's career later on, and regularly performed a mock fight with Shiels onstage to attract the crowd. In mid-1968, guitarist Bernard Cheevers quit to work full-time at the Guinness factory in Dublin, and was replaced by Belfast-born guitarist Gary Moore.

Despite increased success, and the release of a single, "New Faces, Old Places", Shiels became concerned about Lynott's tendency to sing off-key. He then discovered that the problem was with Lynott's tonsils; he subsequently took a leave of absence from the band. By the time he had recovered, Shiels had decided to take over singing lead and reduce the band to a three-piece. Feeling guilty of having effectively sacked one of his best friends, he taught Lynott how to play bass, figuring it would be easier to learn than a six-string guitar, and sold him a Fender Jazz Bass he had bought from Robert Ballagh for £36, and started giving him lessons.

Lynott and Downey quickly put together a new band called Orphanage, with guitarist Joe Staunton and bassist Pat Quigley, playing a mixture of original material alongside covers of Bob Dylan, Free and Jeff Beck. Still learning the bass, Lynott restricted himself to occasional rhythm guitar alongside singing lead.

At the end of 2006, a number of Skid Row and Orphanage demo tapes featuring Lynott were discovered. These were his earliest recordings and had been presumed lost for decades.

Thin Lizzy

Towards the end of 1969, Lynott and Downey were introduced to guitarist Eric Bell via founding member of Them, keyboardist Eric Wrixon (Bell had played in a later line-up of Them). Deciding that Bell was a better guitarist, and with Lynott now confident enough to play bass himself, the four formed Thin Lizzy. The name came from the character "Tin Lizzie" in the comic ''The Dandy'', which in turn came from the nickname for the Ford Model T car. The H was deliberately added to mimic the way the word "thin" is pronounced in a Dublin accent. Lynott later discovered the saying attributed to Henry Ford, "Any colour you like as long as it's black," which he felt was appropriate for him. Wrixon was felt by the others to be surplus to requirements and left after the release of the band's first single, "The Farmer", in July 1970.

During the band's early years – and despite being the singer, bassist and chief songwriter – Lynott was still fairly reserved and introverted on stage, and would stand to one side while the spotlight concentrated on Bell, who was initially regarded as the group's leader. During the recording of the band's second album, ''Shades of a Blue Orphanage'' (1972), Lynott very nearly left Thin Lizzy to form a new band with Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Paice, called Baby Face. "Ritchie turned up in the studio one day to jam," recalled Downey. "I was asked to play drums to Phil and Ritchie jamming… Me and Eric looked at each other like, 'Well, that's the end of the band then.' It lasted a week, then Phil came back as if nothing had happened. He wanted to be the leader of his own band, not the singer in someone else's." Due to being in dire financial straits Lizzy did, however, soon record an album of Deep Purple covers under the name Funky Junction. Lynott did not sing on the album as he felt his voice was not in the same style as Ian Gillan.

Towards the end of 1972, Thin Lizzy got their first major break in the UK by supporting Slade, then nearing the height of their commercial success. Inspired by Noddy Holder's top hat with mirrors, Lynott decided to attach a mirror to his bass, which he carried over to subsequent tours. On the opening night of the tour, an altercation broke out between Lynott and Slade's manager Chas Chandler, who chastised Lynott's lack of stage presence and interaction with the audience and threatened to throw Lizzy off the tour unless things improved immediately. Lynott subsequently developed the onstage rapport and stage presence that would become familiar over the remainder of the decade.

Thin Lizzy's first top-ten hit was in 1973, with a rock version of the traditional Irish song "Whiskey in the Jar", featuring a cover by Irish artist and friend Jim Fitzpatrick.* However, follow-up singles failed to chart and, after the departure of Bell, quickly followed by Moore replacing him and, briefly, Downey, Thin Lizzy were near collapse by mid-1974. It was not until the recruitment of guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson and the release of '' Jailbreak'' in 1976 that Thin Lizzy became international superstars on the strength of the album's biggest hit, "The Boys Are Back in Town". The song reached the top 10 in the UK, was No. 1 in Ireland and a hit in the US and Canada. However, while touring with Rainbow, Lynott contracted hepatitis and the band had to cancel touring.

Lynott befriended Huey Lewis while Lewis's band, Clover, was supporting them on tour. Lewis was impressed with Lynott's frontman abilities and was inspired to perform better, eventually achieving commercial success in the 1980s. Lynott's songs, including "Cowboy Song" and "Massacre", were particularly influenced by the band's US touring. He had a particular affinity for Los Angeles.

Having finally achieved mainstream success, Thin Lizzy embarked on several consecutive world tours. The band built on ''Jailbreak''s success with the release of a string of hit albums, including ''Johnny the Fox'' (1976), '' Bad Reputation'' (1977), '' Black Rose: A Rock Legend'' (1979), and the live album ''Live and Dangerous'' (1978), which features Lynott in the foreground on the cover. However, the band was suffering from personnel changes, with Robertson being replaced temporarily by Moore in 1976, and then permanently the following year, partly due to a personal clash with Lynott.

By the early 1980s, Thin Lizzy were starting to struggle commercially, and Lynott started showing symptoms of drug abuse, including regular asthma attacks. After the resignation of longtime manager Chris O'Donnell, and with Gorham wanting to quit, Lynott decided to disband Thin Lizzy in 1983. He had started to use heroin by this stage in his career, and it affected the band's shows in Japan when he was unable to obtain any. He managed to pick himself up for the band's show at the Reading Festival and their last gig (with Lynott as frontman) in Nuremberg on 4 September.

Later years

In 1978, Lynott began to work on projects outside of Thin Lizzy. He was featured in ''Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds'', singing and speaking the role of Parson Nathaniel on "The Spirit of Man". He performed sessions for a number of artists, including singing backing vocals with Bob Geldof on Blast Furnace and the Heatwaves' "Blue Wave" EP.

Lynott took a keen interest in the emergence of punk rock in the late 1970s, and subsequently became friends with various members of the Sex Pistols, The Damned and Geldof's band The Boomtown Rats. This led to him forming an ''ad-hoc'' band known as "The Greedies" (originally "The Greedy Bastards", but edited for public politeness). The band started playing shows in London during Lizzy's downtime in 1978, playing a mixture of popular Lizzy tracks and Pistols songs recorded after John Lydon's departure. In 1979, The Greedies recorded a Christmas single, "A Merry Jingle", featuring other members of Thin Lizzy as well as the Pistols' Steve Jones and Paul Cook. The previous year, he had performed alongside Jones and Cook on Johnny Thunders' debut solo album '' So Alone''. Lynott became friends with Midge Ure of the Rich Kids, who deputised for Thin Lizzy during 1979 shortly after joining Ultravox. Lynott persuaded Thin Lizzy's management to sign Ultravox.

In 1980, though Thin Lizzy were still enjoying considerable success, Lynott launched a solo career with the album, ''Solo in Soho'': this was a Top 30 UK album and yielded two hit singles that year, "Dear Miss Lonelyhearts" and "King's Call". The latter was a tribute to Elvis Presley, and featured Mark Knopfler on guitar. His second solo venture, '' The Philip Lynott Album'' (1982) was a chart flop, despite the presence of the single "Old Town". The song " Yellow Pearl" (1982), was a No. 14 hit in the UK and became the theme tune to ''Top of the Pops''.

In 1983, following the disbanding of Thin Lizzy, Lynott recorded a rock'n'roll medley single, "We Are the Boys (Who Make All the Noise)" with Roy Wood, Chas Hodges and John Coghlan. Lynott regularly collaborated with former bandmate Moore on tracks including the singles "Parisienne Walkways" (a No. 8 UK hit in 1979) and " Out in the Fields" (a No. 5 UK hit in 1985, his highest-charting single). In 1984, he formed a new band, Grand Slam, with Doish Nagle, Laurence Archer, Robbie Brennan and Mark Stanway. The band toured The Marquee and other clubs, but suffered from being labelled a poor version of Thin Lizzy owing to the inclusion of two lead guitar players, and split up at the end of the year due to a lack of money and Lynott's increasing addiction to heroin.

During 1983–1985, Lynott co-wrote songs with British R&B artist Junior Giscombe, although nothing was officially released and most remain as demos. However, one song, "The Lady Loves to Dance", was mastered with producer Tony Visconti and nearly released before being pulled by the record company, Phonogram. Lynott was particularly upset about not being asked to participate in Live Aid, which had been organised by his two friends, Geldof and Ure, the latter of whom had briefly stood in as a guitarist for Thin Lizzy. Geldof later said this was because the Band Aid Trust could only accommodate commercially successful artists selling millions of albums, which neither Lynott nor Thin Lizzy had done. In 1984, Lynott appeared as team captain (against Alvin Stardust) on the 1980s BBC
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