Thin Lizzy

It was in 1969 in Dublin that Phil Lynott (song/bass) and Brian Downey (battery), childhood friends who then played together in a band called Orphanage, were approached by Eric Wrixon (claviers) and Eric Bell (guitare), two former members of Them, one of Van Morisson's bands. Eric Wrixon left the band the following year, and it was in the form of a trio that they released their first three albums: Thin Lizzy (1971), Shades Of A Blue Orphanage (1972) and Vagabonds of the Western World (1973). In 1972, to accompany their English tour, they recorded and released their version of a traditional Irish song Whiskey in the Jar , which remained at the top of the charts in Ireland for 17 weeks. Then it's Eric Bell's turn to leave the band. After several changes to the position of guitarist (including Gary Moore's first visit to the band), the line-up stabilized with the arrival of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson. The style of the band is refined, incorporating more and more Celtic influences and sliding from rock to hard-rock. The contribution of the two new guitarists is enormous, reinventing and developing on the albums Fighting and Jailbreak one of the most representative gimmicks of the metal: the solo with two harmonized guitars. Following the commercial success of the album Jailbreak and its single The Boys Are Back In Town, Thin Lizzy followed the same year with the album Johnny the Fox which will also hit with the single Don的t Believe A Word. In 1976, their English tour was sold-out, but the band was forced to cancel a tour in the USA following the injury of Brian Robertson. However, they quickly recruited Gary Moore to replace him and Thin Lizzy finally left for the first part of Queen's US tour. Robertson eventually left the band in 1978 and Gary Moore took his place permanently. That same year the band started working on its new album: Black Rose – A Rock Legend was released in 1979, one of the most memorable songs of which was Roisin Dubh, sung in Gaelic. Following growing conflicts, Gary Moore was ejected from the band on a US tour. Thin Lizzy recruited Midge Ure and Dave Flett as guitarists, becoming one of the very first bands with three guitarists in rock history. At the end of the tour, the band recruited Darren Wharton to play keyboards and John Sykes as a new guitarist. The band released the album Chinatown in 1980 and the album Renegade in 1981: that year, Thin Lizzy was the lead poster of the first festival in Slane, and will have, among other things, U2 as the first part! Due to disappointing sales for the album Renegade, the band decided to coincide the release of Thunder and Lightning (their latest studio album) with a farewell tour: the highlight of this tour, the concert at Hammersmith Odeon, where the band was joined on stage by several former guitarists (Gary Moore, Eric Bell, Brian Robertson). Thin Lizzy will give his last concert on English soil at the Reading Festival on August 28, 1983, and his latest concert at the Monsters Of Rock in Nuremberg on September 4. After the separation of Thin Lizzy , Phil Lynott set up a new band, Grand Slam , and released 2 singles with Gary Moore : Out in the Fields and Nineteen. He died on 4 January 1986. Following his death, Thin Lizzy's former members gave several concerts in tribute to his late leader in 1986, 1991, 1993 and 1994. Then, starting in 1996, under the impulse of John Sykes, the band reshaped for good with Scott Gorham, Darren Wharton and Brian Downey, but without releasing any new album. John Sikes played the role of singer in addition to guitar, and Marco Mendoza became the new bass player. The line-up will continue to evolve over the years until John Sykes left in 2009. In 2010, Thin Lizzy released the cover with a new singer, Ricky Warwick (The Almighty) and went back on tour. At the end of 2012, while Scott Gorham announced that it was time for Thin Lizzy to release a new album, members of the band quickly decided that it would also require a new name for this band: Black Star Riders had just been born, on Thin Lizzy's ashes.
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