''Solo in Soho'' is the debut solo album by Irish rock singer

Philip 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 ba ...

, released while he was still in

Thin Lizzy Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Their music reflects a wide range of influences, including blues, soul music, psychedelic rock and traditional Irish folk music, but is generally classified as hard rock or some ...

. Current and former Lizzy members guested on the album, including

Scott Gorham William Scott Gorham (born March 17, 1951) is an American guitarist and songwriter who is one of the "twin lead guitarists" for the Irish rock band Thin Lizzy. Although not a founding member of Thin Lizzy, he served a continuous membership after ...

, Brian Downey,

Snowy White Terence Charles "Snowy" White (born 3 March 1948, Barnstaple, Devon) is an English guitarist, known for having played with Thin Lizzy (permanent member from 1980 to 1982) and with Pink Floyd (as a backing guitarist; he was first invited to tour ...

, and

Gary Moore Robert William Gary Moore (4 April 19526 February 2011) was a Northern Irish musician. Over the course of his career he played in various groups and performed a range of music including blues, blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal, and jazz ...

. Brian Robertson also contributed to the writing of one of the tracks, "Girls".

Guest musicians

Dire Straits Dire Straits were a British rock band formed in London in 1977 by Mark Knopfler (lead vocals and lead guitar), David Knopfler (rhythm guitar and backing vocals), John Illsley (bass guitar and backing vocals) and Pick Withers (drums and percuss ...

frontman

Mark Knopfler Mark Freuder Knopfler (born 12 August 1949) is a British singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. Born in Scotland and raised in England, he was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits. He pursued a s ...

plays on the single "King's Call", a lament to

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

Huey Lewis Hugh Anthony Cregg III (born July 5, 1950), known professionally as Huey Lewis, is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. Lewis sings lead and plays harmonica for his band, Huey Lewis and the News, in addition to writing or co-writing many o ...

plays harmonica on "Tattoo (Giving It All Up for Love)" and "Ode to a Black Man". Lewis later covered "Tattoo" on the 1982

Huey Lewis and the News Huey Lewis and the News are an American rock band based in San Francisco, California. They had a run of hit singles during the 1980s and early 1990s, eventually achieving 19 top ten singles across the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, Adult Contempora ...

album '' Picture This'', titled "Giving It All Up for Love".

Yellow Pearl

" Yellow Pearl" was released as a single in two remixed versions; the first of these was later used as the theme tune from 1981 until 1986 for the popular

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

TV music programme ''

Top of the Pops ''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British Record chart, music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show ...

''. This version was later included on Lynott's second solo album, ''

The Philip Lynott Album ''The Philip Lynott Album'' is the second and final solo album by Irish rock singer Philip Lynott, released in 1982. Not included on the album was the B-side to the "Together" single, "Somebody Else's Dream" and the B-side to the "Old Town" si ...

''.

Critical reception

Billboard's ''Billboard'' (stylized as ''billboard'') is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style related to the music ...

'' reviewer left positive review on an album by saying that Lynott's "lyrics have special appeal". He resumed: "There is nothing here even vaguely similar to the dramatic rock energy of "

The Boys Are Back in Town "The Boys Are Back in Town" is a song by Irish hard rock band Thin Lizzy. The song was originally released in 1976 as the first single from their album '' Jailbreak''. It is considered by ''Rolling Stone'' to be the band's best song, placing it ...

" yet this is a bold and interesting batch of tunes aided by uncluttered arrangements and sound playing".

Track listing

All songs by

, except where noted. ;Side one # "Dear Miss Lonely Hearts" (Lynott,

Jimmy Bain James Stewart Bain (19 December 1947 – 23 January 2016) was a Scottish musician, best known for playing bass guitar in the bands Rainbow and Dio. He also worked with Kate Bush and Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott, co-writing on his solo alb ...

) – 4:11 # "King's Call" – 3:40 # "A Child's Lullaby" – 2:43 # "Tattoo (Giving It All Up for Love)" – 3:21 # "Solo in Soho" – 4:15 ;Side two #

"Girls" (Lynott, Bain, Brian Robertson) – 4:00 # " Yellow Pearl" (Lynott,

Midge Ure James Ure (born 10 October 1953) is a Scottish musician, singer-songwriter and record producer. His stage name, Midge, is a phonetic reversal of Jim, the diminutive form of his actual name. Ure enjoyed particular success in the 1970s and 1980s ...

) – 4:06 # "Ode to a Black Man" – 4:06 # "Jamaican Rum" – 2:43 # "Talk in 79" – 3:00

Singles

* "Dear Miss Lonely Hearts" / "Solo in Soho" – 7" / 12" (1980) * "King's Call" / "Ode to a Black Man" – 7" (1980) * "Yellow Pearl" / "Girls" – 7" / 12" (1981)

Personnel

–

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

, string machine,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

–

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

s (tracks 1, 4, 8) *

– guitars (tracks 1, 5) *

–

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

(track 2) *

– guitar (track 9) *Jerome Rimson – bass guitar (track 5) *

–

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

(tracks 4, 8) *

Fiachra Trench Fiachra Terence Wilbrah Trench (born 7 September 1941, in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish musician and composer from Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland. Trench first studied Chemistry at Trinity College, Dublin, before moving on to t ...

– string and brass arrangements (tracks 3, 4) *

–

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, Minimoog, string machine (track 6) *

Billy Currie William Lee Currie (born 1 April 1950Ultravox.org.uk
) is a ...

–

ARP synthesizer ARP Instruments, Inc. was a Lexington, Massachusetts manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, founded by Alan Robert Pearlman in 1969. It created a popular and commercially successful range of synthesizers throughout the 1970s before de ...

(track 7) *

– ARP synthesizer, Minimoog, string machine (track 7) * Brian Downey – drums, percussion (track 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9) * Bob Benberg – drums, percussion (track 6) *

Mark Nauseef Mark Nauseef (born June 11, 1953), in Cortland, New York, is a drummer and percussionist who has enjoyed a varied career, ranging from rock music during the 1970s with his time as a member of the Ian Gillan Band and, temporarily with Thin Li ...

- drums, percussion (tracks 8, 10) *Tony Charles –

steel drums The steelpan (also known as a pan, steel drum, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steelband or steel orchestra) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists. Descriptio ...

(track 9) *Andy Duncan – percussion (tracks 3 and 5) *Julia –

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

(track 5) *Lena – backing vocals (track 6, 7) *Sophie, Margi, Silver, Christine – backing vocals (track 6)

Production

*Kit Woolven – producer,

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

Tony Visconti Anthony Edward Visconti (born April 24, 1944) is an American record producer, musician and singer. Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of performers. His first hit single was T. Rex's " Ride a White Swan" in 1970, the first of man ...

, "Flash" Gordon Fordyce, Will Reid-Dick – engineers *Ian Cooper – mastering *Chris O'Donnell – art direction *Linda Sutton, Roger Cooper – artwork and design * John Swannell – photography

Charts

Album

Singles

References

{{Authority control 1980 debut albums Mercury Records albums Vertigo Records albums Warner Records albums Phil Lynott albums