The story of Thin Lizzy

A boy from Crumlin

The story of Thin Lizzy is really the story of Philip Parris Lynott. He was born on the twentieth of August 1949 at Hallam Hospital in West Bromwich, in the English Midlands. His mother Philomena was a young Dublin woman working in England. His father, Cecil Parris, came from Georgetown in what is now Guyana, and the relationship did not last. A single mother with a mixed race baby faced real prejudice in those years. After some early schooling in Manchester, Philip was sent to live with his grandparents, Sarah and Frank, on Leighlin Road in Crumlin, a working class estate in Dublin. Philomena stayed in England, but she and her son remained close for the rest of his life.[1] [2] [3]

In Crumlin he was usually the only Black child around, and he knew he was different. His drummer and lifelong friend Brian Downey later said Phil stood out in a school of fifteen hundred boys, but that he would stand up to anyone who abused him. Music came through his uncles' record collections, full of Motown, soul and British beat groups. Downey, a couple of years younger, first saw him singing with a local band called the Black Eagles and was bowled over by his stage presence. The next day Brian told him so in the school playground. Phil asked if he played in a band, and soon Downey's group was opening for the Black Eagles, and later joining them.[1] [2] [3]

In 1967 Phil joined Skid Row, a bold psychedelic blues band led by bassist Brendan Brush Shiels. They brought echo chambers, liquid light shows and smoke bombs to Dublin's little clubs. Phil did not yet play an instrument, so he twisted his voice through an echo box and smeared boot polish under his eyes to grab attention. In 1968 a sixteen year old guitar prodigy from Belfast called Gary Moore joined the band, and he and Phil shared a bedsit in Ballsbridge. But Shiels grew worried that Phil was singing off key. The cause turned out to be his tonsils, and while Phil was recovering from an operation, Shiels decided to take over the vocals himself and turn Skid Row into a trio.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Feeling guilty about pushing out a good friend, Shiels did something that changed rock history. He taught Phil to play bass guitar, reasoning that four strings would be easier to learn than six, and sold him a Fender bass. Phil and Brian Downey then put together a new group called Orphanage, playing their own songs alongside covers of Bob Dylan, Free and Jeff Beck. Phil was still finding his way on the instrument and mostly sang. The name Orphanage said a lot about him. Friends and biographers have described how the absent father haunted him, and how he filled the gap with heroes from Westerns, comics and Irish legend. Those lone heroes would stride through his songs for the rest of his life.[1] [2] [3]

The birth of Thin Lizzy

In December 1969 two Belfast musicians, guitarist Eric Bell and organist Eric Wrixon, bumped into each other in a Dublin pub. Both had played in Them, Van Morrison's old band, and both were sick of the showband circuit. They went to the Countdown Club to see Orphanage, and Bell was especially impressed by Downey's drumming. During a break he asked Phil and Brian if they would form a band with him. Downey was cautious, but they agreed that night, on two conditions. Phil would play bass as well as sing, and the band would play Phil's own songs. The following week Phil played Bell some home recordings, and Bell said later that he knew right away his guitar would fit them.[1] [2] [3]

The name came from Eric Bell. He suggested Tin Lizzie, a robot character in the Dandy comic, itself named after the old Ford Model T. The band laughed at first, but nothing better came along. Then they added an h, as a joke about the Dublin accent, where thin comes out sounding like tin. It did not always work. Some early gigs were advertised as Tin Lizzy, and Decca's paperwork and even the first album sleeve got the name wrong. The name was announced to the press on the eighteenth of February 1970, and the first gig was at a school hall in Cloghran, near Dublin Airport, that same month, although sources disagree on the exact night.[1] [2] [3] [4]

In July 1970 the band released a single, The Farmer, on EMI. It sold just a couple of hundred copies and is now a prized collector's item. By then Eric Wrixon had already gone, and Thin Lizzy settled down as a trio of Lynott, Bell and Downey. They built a following by playing Ireland's big ballrooms, squeezed in between a showband's two sets, earning far more than the Dublin clubs paid. Late in 1970 manager Brian Tuite arranged a showcase for Decca Records at Zhivago's club in Dublin. Decca's man had come to see a soul singer, but he preferred the band backing him. On the first of December 1970 Decca signed them to a one year deal with a five hundred pound advance.[1] [2] [3] [4]

In January 1971 the three of them drove to London and recorded their debut album, Thin Lizzy, in about a week, working from morning until night. Eric Bell later admitted they were stoned for most of it, thanks to a generous American producer, and that he could barely remember the sessions. The album had support from influential DJs John Peel and Kid Jensen but did not chart, and neither did Shades of a Blue Orphanage in 1972, whose title joined Bell's old band Shades of Blue with Orphanage. Around this time Phil nearly walked out. Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Paice invited him to form a band called Baby Face. It lasted about a week. Downey said Phil wanted to lead his own band, not sing in someone else's.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Whiskey in the Jar and a band falling apart

By 1972 Thin Lizzy were broke and Decca was losing patience. To pay the bills they even recorded an anonymous album of Deep Purple covers under the name Funky Junction, sold cheaply in Woolworths. Their manager, Ted Carroll by now, won them one last single. Phil had written what he saw as his big statement, Black Boys on the Corner, and as a throwaway B side the band worked up an electric version of Whiskey in the Jar, an old Irish ballad about a highwayman betrayed by his lover. Phil and Eric had strummed it in Dublin folk clubs for drinking money. Eric found a little guitar figure to open it, and Carroll heard a hit. Decca boss Dick Rowe agreed, and flipped the two songs around.[1] [2] [3]

Phil was furious, but the band was in no position to argue. Whiskey in the Jar came out in November 1972 and went to number one in Ireland. Carroll then peeled the labels off miniature whiskey bottles, stuck on new ones printed with the song's name, and sent them to producers at BBC Radio One. It worked. In February 1973 the single reached number six in Britain, and Thin Lizzy made their first appearance on Top of the Pops. The same winter they toured Britain supporting Slade. On the first night Slade's manager Chas Chandler tore into Phil for his shy stage manner and threatened to throw them off the tour. Phil learned fast, and even borrowed Noddy Holder's mirrored hat idea by fixing a mirror to his bass.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The hit turned out to be a trap. People expected an electric folk band, and some walked out when Lizzy played loud rock. The next singles flopped, and so did the album Vagabonds of the Western World in September 1973, although it was the first to carry the Celtic artwork of Phil's friend Jim Fitzpatrick. Eric Bell hated miming the song on European television, and the lifestyle was wearing him down. On New Year's Eve 1973, at Queen's University in Belfast, he walked off stage partway through the show. He left the band the next day. Bell later said simply that if he had stayed, he would have been dead, because of the drink and drugs that came with the job.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Phil called his old Skid Row friend Gary Moore to finish the tour. Moore stayed until April 1974, long enough to record a beautiful slow song called Still in Love with You, but he felt the lifestyle was doing him in and left to join Colosseum Two. Phil then hired two guitarists, John Du Cann and Andy Gee, for a German tour in May. It did not click at all, and Brian Downey quit in frustration. A few days later manager Chris Morrison turned up on his doorstep asking him to come back. Downey agreed, but only if they found new guitarists. With their Decca contract running out, Thin Lizzy were very close to the end.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Two guitars and a breakthrough

Auditions were held in London in the summer of 1974. First came a teenage Glaswegian, Brian Robertson, who had actually come to London to audition as a drummer for another band. Downey recognised him, because Robertson had once turned up after a Lizzy show in Glasgow and played their songs in his hotel room. Phil decided a second guitarist would be insurance. Then came Scott Gorham, a Californian with his visa weeks from running out. He arrived with a cheap Japanese copy guitar, mistook Phil for a waiter in the West Hampstead club, and thought he had played badly. That night Phil phoned and offered him the job at thirty pounds a week. Phil gave Robertson the nickname Robbo, to tell him apart from Brian Downey.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The new line up signed with Phonogram, but their first album together, Nightlife, released in November 1974, disappointed everyone. Gorham said producer Ron Nevison, fresh from working with Led Zeppelin, kept asking them to turn the guitars down until the songs lost their drive. Phil's response was to produce the next one himself. That was Fighting in 1975, the first Thin Lizzy album to reach the British charts, though only at number sixty. It opened with a cover of Bob Seger's Rosalie, and on songs like Wild One you can hear the twin harmony guitar sound arriving. Downey called it the true birth of the band. They had also made their first trip to America, opening for Bob Seger and Bachman Turner Overdrive.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Vertigo gave them one final chance, and in early 1976 they recorded Jailbreak at Ramport Studios in London with producer John Alcock. One song had begun with Phil noodling on bass. Gorham added the chords and the riff, Robertson suggested a harmony, and then they forgot about it. It was called G I Joe, and they first thought of it as an anti war song. Of fifteen demos, the band chose ten, and The Boys Are Back in Town was not among them. Co manager Chris O'Donnell heard the rejected tape and insisted it go on. Gorham later joked that he is the man who thought it should never be a single.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Jailbreak came out on the twenty sixth of March 1976. Lizzy were touring America, selling few tickets, when their manager told them they had a hit and they had to ask which song. Two DJs in Louisville, Kentucky, had played The Boys Are Back in Town over and over until other stations followed. It reached number eight in Britain and number twelve in the United States, and the album became their only American gold record. Gorham said that without that song the band was over. Then disaster struck. On a tour with Rainbow, Phil went down with hepatitis, and the dates were cancelled. Downey later said bluntly that the illness came from the drugs Phil was taking.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Fame, fights and Live and Dangerous

Phil spent the summer of 1976 in a Manchester hospital with an acoustic guitar and wrote most of the next album there. One song, Massacre, came after a Protestant clergyman visited his bedside and the Catholic Phil reacted defensively. He regretted it, and wrote a lyric condemning religious prejudice. Johnny the Fox was released in October 1976 and gave them another hit in Don't Believe a Word. It also exposed tension with Robertson. Phil first played that song as a slow blues. Robertson called it rubbish, Phil vanished for a few days, and Robertson and Downey reworked it into the fast version everyone knows. When the credit went to Phil alone, Robertson was furious.[1] [2]

In the early hours of the twenty third of November 1976, the night before a crucial American tour, Robertson went to the Speakeasy club in London. His friend, the Glasgow singer Frankie Miller, was drunk and got into a row with the house band, Gonzalez. Their guitarist smashed a bottle and went for Miller's face. Robertson threw up his hand to block it. The glass sliced through his fingers, cutting tendons, nerves and an artery. He needed a transfusion and was told he might never play again. The tour was cancelled. Gorham said Phil was beyond livid. Robertson recovered, but to this day he has no feeling in one of his fingers.[1] [2]

While Robertson healed, Queen asked for Thin Lizzy as their support act in America, and Gary Moore came back to fill in. They played to huge crowds, including Madison Square Garden, early in 1977. Moore then returned to Colosseum Two, and Lizzy flew to Toronto to make Bad Reputation with producer Tony Visconti, with Gorham playing nearly all the guitar. At Gorham's urging he left two solos blank, and Robertson was flown in to play them. Robertson was reinstated in July. Bad Reputation reached number four in Britain, helped by the single Dancing in the Moonlight, with Supertramp's John Helliwell on saxophone. Punks liked the band too, which kept Lizzy from being written off.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

That August Phil turned twenty eight and celebrated at Castletown House, a Georgian mansion in County Kildare. Police raided the party, arrests were made and drugs were seized. Robertson later described guests throwing their stashes into the fire. The next day Lizzy headlined Dalymount Park in Dublin, and Phil strode on stage shouting a Dublin football chant, because the Dubs had just beaten Kerry down the road. In June 1978 came Live and Dangerous, a double live album drawn mainly from shows in London and Toronto. It reached number two in Britain, held off only by the Grease soundtrack, and stayed on the charts for sixty two weeks. Classic Rock magazine later named it the greatest live album of all time.[1] [2] [3]

Live and Dangerous was the last record by the classic line up. Robertson's clashes with Phil had never really healed, and after a gig in Ibiza on the sixth of July 1978 they had a bitter argument. Robertson left for good and formed Wild Horses with Rainbow bassist Jimmy Bain, and later spent a short spell in Motörhead. Gorham has said that when Robbo went the first time he thought it was the end of the band, but Phil simply insisted they would keep going. Gorham also admitted that he and Phil were so close they built a wall around themselves that other members could not get through, something he came to regret.[1] [2] [3]

Black Rose and the arrival of heroin

Gary Moore came back yet again, and this time he stayed long enough to make an album. Phil was also keeping one foot in the punk world. He formed a loose side band with Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols called the Greedy Bastards, cleaned up for the public as the Greedies, and at Christmas 1979 they had a hit with A Merry Jingle. In late 1978 Downey caught pneumonia and missed tours of America and Australia, with American drummer Mark Nauseef filling in. Early in 1979 the band went to Paris to record Black Rose, A Rock Legend with Tony Visconti. It became their highest charting studio album, reaching number two in Britain.[1] [2] [3]

Paris was also where heroin arrived. Gorham has described how acquaintances of Phil visited the studio and one of them introduced him to the drug. Within six months he had a habit. Phil was using too, and the drug crept into the songs, most plainly in Got to Give It Up. The album still shows Phil at his best, from the tough hit Waiting for an Alibi to Róisín Dubh, a seven minute medley of Irish tunes played on twin guitars. There was tenderness too. Sarah was written for Phil's newborn daughter, with Gary Moore on guitar and Huey Lewis on harmonica, and it became a hit even though Phil worried it was not really a Lizzy song.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

On the fourth of July 1979, after a festival show in Oakland, California, Gary Moore walked out in the middle of the American tour. He had grown fed up with the drug use and what it was doing to the shows. Years later he said he had no regrets about leaving, only about the way he did it. Lizzy played a few nights as a trio, then Midge Ure, who was about to front Ultravox, stepped in on guitar. For a Japanese tour Scottish guitarist Dave Flett joined as well, so Ure could move to keyboards. For a while Ure was juggling Ultravox, Visage and Thin Lizzy at once. The band had to cancel a headline slot at the Reading Festival.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Phil's private life was changing too. On Valentine's Day 1980 he married Caroline Crowther, who had worked for the band's publicist and was the daughter of the much loved British television host Leslie Crowther. A second daughter, Cathleen, was born that summer. Phil also launched a solo career with Solo in Soho in April 1980, which included King's Call, a tribute to Elvis Presley with Mark Knopfler on guitar, and Yellow Pearl, co written with Midge Ure. A remix of Yellow Pearl became the theme tune of Top of the Pops for the first half of the eighties. Meanwhile the band hired Snowy White, a guitarist who had toured with Pink Floyd, and an eighteen year old keyboard player called Darren Wharton.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The new line up made Chinatown, released in October 1980, which reached number seven in Britain. The sessions were chaotic. Phil often made up lyrics at the microphone while a party raged in the control room, and some songs drifted back and forth between Lizzy and his solo records, which upset Snowy White. One single caused real controversy. Killer on the Loose was released while the man known as the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, was still murdering women in the north of England, and the timing drew heavy criticism. It still reached the top ten. By now, though, Thin Lizzy albums were barely troubling the American charts.[1] [2] [3]

Renegade, Thunder and Lightning and the end

In 1981 a greatest hits album, The Adventures of Thin Lizzy, reached number six in Britain, but a new single, Trouble Boys, stalled at fifty three. Nobody but Phil had wanted to release it. That summer the band headlined the very first concert at Slane Castle, with a young U2 among the support acts. The album Renegade followed in November 1981. Its title came when Phil spotted a biker wearing a jacket with Lizzy and Motörhead patches and the word Renegade. It reached only number thirty eight in Britain. Darren Wharton had just become a full member, yet his photo was left off the sleeve. He said later it hurt him a great deal.[1] [2] [3]

1982 was grim. On a European tour Downey was hurt in a nightclub fight in Denmark, and in March Gorham collapsed from drug induced exhaustion and went home. In August Snowy White quit, tired of the chaos and of Phil's drug problems. Longtime co manager Chris O'Donnell left as well, saying he was watching a once brilliant band fall apart. Phil brought in John Sykes, a fiery young player from Tygers of Pan Tang. Sykes made the band louder and heavier, and Thunder and Lightning, released on the fourth of March 1983, went to number four in Britain. Gorham has said he felt sorry for Sykes, because everyone else already sensed it would be the last album.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Gorham had gone to Phil and said he could not go on. Phil talked him into one more album and a farewell tour instead. It turned into a celebration, with Eric Bell, Brian Robertson and Gary Moore joining in on stage. On the live album Life, five guitarists play The Rocker together, eight musicians on one stage. But the darkness was real. In Japan, Phil and Scott struggled to find heroin, and Gorham recalled them locking eyes during Still in Love with You at the Budokan, both sick, with sweat running down Phil's face like tears. Downey said later that if they had kept touring, the consequences could have been grim for both of them.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Thin Lizzy played their final British show at the Reading Festival on the twenty eighth of August 1983, a set later released as a BBC live album. Their last concert with Phil came at the Monsters of Rock festival in Nuremberg, Germany, on the fourth of September 1983. Downey remembered that after that show they simply shook hands and said goodbye. Only Darren Wharton was really upset. The others accepted it. In fourteen years Phil Lynott had led the band through twelve studio albums and a long list of guitarists, and written or co written almost everything they recorded. Now he was on his own, and his addiction was getting worse.[1] [2] [3]

Phil's last years

Phil quickly formed a new band, Grand Slam. Downey agreed to join, then quit when rehearsals called for two in the afternoon began around six, and Phil himself turned up whenever he woke. John Sykes left for Whitesnake with Phil's blessing. Grand Slam played their first show in Waterford in April 1984 and toured clubs and festivals all year, but no record company would sign them, largely because of Phil's reputation for drug use. Oddly, at rehearsals the band nicknamed him Sergeant Rock for his strict drill. They played their last show in December 1984 and folded. Phil's marriage had also broken down that year as his drug use escalated.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

There were still flashes of the old magic. In May 1985 Phil and Gary Moore reached number five in Britain with Out in the Fields, the biggest hit single of Phil's career. But he was deeply hurt not to be asked to play Live Aid that July, even though it was organised by his friends Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. His final single, Nineteen, produced by Paul Hardcastle, only reached number seventy six. Brian Downey's last memory of him was miming that song together on a Christmas television show in Newcastle. Phil drank brandy on the early flight, locked himself in the dressing room, and came out sweating and groggy.[1] [2] [3]

A few weeks before Christmas, Scott Gorham visited Phil at his house in Kew in west London. Scott was newly clean and wanted Phil to hear some songs. Phil opened the door in a bathrobe, puffy and short of breath from asthma. A phone call brought news that a possible drug charge had been dropped, and he celebrated by downing a pint glass three quarters full of neat vodka. Phil talked about reforming Thin Lizzy and promised he would get off the drugs. He sounded so determined that Gorham believed him. Brian Downey had also discussed a reunion, but said Phil's drug and drink problems were always going to be the stumbling block.[1] [2] [3] [4]

On Christmas Day 1985 Phil collapsed at home in Kew. His mother found him. She had not known about his heroin addiction, but his estranged wife Caroline did, and drove him to a drug clinic at Clouds House in Wiltshire. Staff there sent him straight on to Salisbury Infirmary, where he was diagnosed with septicaemia, with damage to his kidneys and liver. He woke long enough to speak to his mother, but at the new year he was put on a ventilator. Phil Lynott died on the fourth of January 1986 of pneumonia and heart failure. He was thirty six. His funeral was held in London, and he was buried at St Fintan's Cemetery in Sutton, north Dublin.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The news stunned the people closest to him. Downey said Phil had such a strong constitution that they all thought he was invincible, and nobody knew how badly his organs were damaged. Gorham was at home when his wife took the call, and knew from her tears what had happened. Eric Bell said he was surprised and yet not surprised, because Phil believed he was indestructible. Gorham later said the cruel twist was that even if Phil had quit the drugs the moment they last met, he had already done too much damage. He added that he still sometimes gets angry that Phil went and died on him.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Keeping the flame alive

In May 1986 the band reunited for Ireland's Self Aid concert, with Gary Moore, Downey, Gorham, Wharton and Bob Daisley on bass, and Bob Geldof sharing the vocals. From 1987 Phil's friend Smiley Bolger ran the Vibe for Philo, a tribute concert in Dublin every January on the anniversary of his death, until a final edition in 2023. In 1990 the surviving members turned a rough Lynott demo into the single Dedication, which reached number two in Ireland early in 1991 and headlined a best of album that went top ten in Britain. That release brought a dispute, because the song had been co written with Grand Slam guitarist Laurence Archer, who was left uncredited and later settled out of court.[1] [2] [3]

In the mid nineties John Sykes played some Lizzy songs on a solo tour of Japan, and the ovation convinced him to revive the band with Gorham, Downey and Wharton, with Marco Mendoza on bass and Sykes himself singing. It was billed as a tribute to Phil, and they played only the old songs. Critics said there could be no Thin Lizzy without Lynott, and Gorham admitted that at times he felt he was in a cover band covering his own songs. Line ups changed constantly, with Downey leaving in 1998. In 2009 Sykes left, saying he wanted to play his own music. Sadly Sykes died of cancer in December 2024, aged sixty five.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

In 2010 Gorham built a new line up with Downey, Wharton and Mendoza, Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell on guitar, and a new singer, Ricky Warwick from County Down, formerly of the Almighty. They sold out the Hammersmith Apollo, and the Guardian noted there was barely a dry eye when they played Still in Love with You beneath photos of Phil. When they began writing new songs, they decided in 2012 not to release them as Thin Lizzy, out of respect for Phil, and his widow was uncomfortable with the idea too. The music came out under a new name, Black Star Riders, starting in 2013. Downey chose not to join and later formed his own band, Brian Downey's Alive and Dangerous.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Thin Lizzy still reappeared now and then. In 2016 they played festival dates to mark forty years of Jailbreak and thirty years since Phil's death, with Judas Priest drummer Scott Travis and Aerosmith's Tom Hamilton on bass, and Midge Ure once again joined them on stage. In September 2021 Gorham left Black Star Riders, saying he wanted to concentrate on Thin Lizzy. Along the way the family lost more of its own. Gary Moore died of a heart attack in his sleep at a hotel in Estepona, Spain, on the sixth of February 2011, aged fifty eight. Philomena Lynott, who had fought for years to keep her son's memory alive, died of cancer in June 2019, aged eighty eight.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Legacy

Thin Lizzy's biggest musical gift was the twin lead guitar sound, two guitars playing harmony lines. Bands like Judas Priest and then Iron Maiden and Def Leppard took it and ran with it, and Iron Maiden even covered Massacre. Metallica's bassist Cliff Burton adored the band, and Metallica recorded Whiskey in the Jar in his honour and won a Grammy for it. The Cure's Robert Smith said he saw them about ten times in two years, and that their live sound was better than drinking. Axl Rose was a fan too, and the tattoo behind the cross design on Appetite for Destruction referred to Thin Lizzy. Rolling Stone placed The Boys Are Back in Town among the five hundred greatest songs of all time.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Phil himself became a symbol. He was the first Black Irishman to find real success in rock, in a band that drew members from both sides of the Irish border and from Catholic and Protestant families during the Troubles. In 2005 a life size bronze statue of him by Paul Daly was unveiled on Harry Street, just off Grafton Street in Dublin, and Moore, Bell, Robertson, Downey and Gorham played together at a tribute concert. In 2019 Ireland's postal service issued two stamps with Jim Fitzpatrick's artwork, and the Central Bank released a silver coin in his honour. There are plaques at his childhood home in Crumlin and at the hospital in West Bromwich where he was born.[1] [2] [3] [4]

His words live on in other ways. Phil published two books of poetry in the seventies, later collected as Songs for While I'm Away, which also became the title of a 2020 documentary. His mother kept his memory burning until the end. She visited his grave near her home almost daily, poured water over the stone to wash his face, as she put it, and gave it a little kick as she left, for breaking her heart. In 2012 she and Scott Gorham objected when Mitt Romney's campaign used The Boys Are Back in Town, saying Phil would never have supported its stance on gay rights. As of 2026, the music keeps finding new listeners, from box sets to Irish rugby crowds.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The archive keeps opening up. A six disc set called 1976, expanding Jailbreak and Johnny the Fox, came out in 2024. In 2025 Decca released Acoustic Sessions, pairing Phil's original vocals and Downey's drums from the early days with new acoustic guitar from Eric Bell. In 2026 an album Scott Gorham recorded with a Los Angeles band called The Western Front in 1983 and 1984, shelved when a record deal collapsed, was finally released. For all the chaos, heroin and heartbreak, what remains is a body of songs that sound, as Gorham once put it, as if they were sung by a man telling the truth.[1] [2] [3]

The people around Thin Lizzy

Phil Lynott and Brian Downey. School friends from Crumlin, they formed Orphanage and then Thin Lizzy, and Downey was the only other member to play on every Lizzy record. He called Phil a friend and mentor he went to for advice instead of his own father. Their friendship survived Downey quitting once in 1974 and walking out of Grand Slam, and they were discussing a reunion shortly before Phil died.[1] [2] [3]

Phil Lynott and Scott Gorham. Gorham said they clicked from the first night, and for ten years they were inseparable, joking on stage and partying off it. They also became heroin users together from 1979. Gorham got clean in the mid eighties with a controversial electrical treatment and a lot of golf, and Phil did not. Gorham later kept the band's name alive, admitting he still sometimes gets angry that Phil died on him.[1] [2] [3]

Phil Lynott and Brian Robertson. Robbo was the fiery young Scot whose playing shaped the twin guitar sound, and whose temper matched Phil's. They clashed over songwriting credits, over the Speakeasy injury that wrecked the 1976 American tour, and over Live and Dangerous. After a row in Ibiza in 1978 he left for good, but he returned for the farewell tour and the 2005 statue concert.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Phil Lynott and Gary Moore. They met as teenagers in Skid Row and shared a Dublin bedsit. Moore joined Thin Lizzy three separate times and walked out twice, once in the middle of an American tour, which infuriated the band. Yet their best music together was undeniable, from Black Rose to Parisienne Walkways and Out in the Fields. After Phil died, Moore dedicated his album Wild Frontier to him.[1] [2] [3]

Phil Lynott and Philomena Lynott. She had him young and alone, and sent him to her parents in Dublin, so she once said they felt more like brother and sister than mother and son. Her Manchester hotel became Lizzy's party base. She did not know about his heroin use until the very end. Afterwards she wrote the memoir My Boy and campaigned for his statue until her death in 2019.[1] [2] [3]

Phil Lynott and Caroline Crowther. Caroline, daughter of television host Leslie Crowther, married Phil on Valentine's Day 1980, and they had two daughters, Sarah and Cathleen. The marriage broke down in 1984 as his drug use escalated, but she drove him to a clinic when he collapsed. After his death her relationship with Philomena was so strained that Philomena had to seek a court order to see her grandchildren.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Phil Lynott and Brush Shiels. Shiels led Skid Row and pushed Phil out of the singer's job, a decision that left him feeling guilty. To make amends he sold Phil a bass guitar and taught him how to play it, which set up the whole of Thin Lizzy. They stayed friends, and years later Shiels even showed Phil the bass exercise that helped shape the song Chinatown.[1] [2] [3]

Phil Lynott and Midge Ure. Ure co wrote Get Out of Here on Black Rose, rescued the 1979 American tour when Gary Moore quit, and co wrote Phil's solo hit Yellow Pearl. Phil in turn persuaded Lizzy's management to sign Ultravox. When Ure and Bob Geldof organised Live Aid without him, Phil was crushed, and Ure later said he felt guilty it never occurred to him to suggest a Lizzy reunion.[1] [2] [3]

Phil Lynott and Jim Fitzpatrick. The Dublin artist, also famous for his Che Guevara portrait, gave Thin Lizzy their Celtic visual identity, from Vagabonds of the Western World through Jailbreak, Johnny the Fox and Chinatown, plus the band logo. He helped research the history for Genocide on Chinatown, yet felt Phil's lyrics were deteriorating by then. In 2019 his art appeared on Irish stamps honouring Phil.[1] [2] [3]

Scott Gorham and John Sykes. Sykes joined for the final album, and Gorham felt sorry that he arrived just as the band was ending. It was Sykes who later persuaded Gorham to revive Thin Lizzy in the nineties, singing lead himself. Gorham insisted he was always the one in charge, and Sykes left in 2009 to focus on his own music. Sykes died in December 2024.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Phil Lynott and Chris O'Donnell. As co manager, O'Donnell rescued The Boys Are Back in Town from the reject pile and chose Phil's photo for the front of Live and Dangerous against the band's wishes. He saw the drink and drugs up close, from the Speakeasy night onward, and quit in 1982, saying a once brilliant band was falling apart before his eyes.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Rare facts about Thin Lizzy

• Decca's contract and Thin Lizzy's first album sleeve both got the band's name wrong. Decca signed the band as Tin Lissy in December 1970, and an in house designer first produced the debut album sleeve reading Tin Lizzy. Some early gigs were also advertised under the wrong name.[1] [2]
• Thin Lizzy's debut single, The Farmer, sold only a couple of hundred copies. Released on EMI in July 1970, the single is now a collector's item. Organist Eric Wrixon played on it but had already left before it came out.[1] [2] [3]
• Before their first hit, Thin Lizzy secretly recorded a budget album of Deep Purple covers. Desperate for money, they made Funky Junction Play a Tribute to Deep Purple, with another band's singer and a photo of a different group on the cover. It sold in Woolworths for fifty pence.[1] [2]
• Phil Lynott spent about a week in a band with Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Paice of Deep Purple. During the Shades of a Blue Orphanage sessions, Phil jammed with them as a band called Baby Face. Brian Downey and Eric Bell thought Lizzy was finished, but Phil returned as if nothing had happened.[1]
• Whiskey in the Jar was only ever meant to be a B side. Phil's own song Black Boys on the Corner was the intended A side. Decca boss Dick Rowe switched them around, and Phil was furious.[1] [2]
• Thin Lizzy's manager sent Radio One producers miniature whiskey bottles with new labels to plug the single. Ted Carroll peeled the labels off and replaced them with ones reading Whiskey in the Jar by Thin Lizzy. Radio One soon began playing the song.[1]
• Phil's mirror on his bass was inspired by Noddy Holder of Slade. On the 1972 Slade tour, Holder's mirrored top hat gave Phil the idea. The same tour began with Slade's manager Chas Chandler threatening to throw Lizzy off for Phil's shy stage manner.[1]
• Brian Robertson first came to London to audition as a drummer. He saw the advert for Thin Lizzy's guitar auditions while in town for another band's drum audition. He had studied cello and classical piano for years before switching to guitar.[1] [2]
• At his audition, Scott Gorham mistook Phil Lynott for a waiter. Gorham had no idea what Phil looked like and was weeks from his visa expiring. He was hired that night on thirty pounds a week and slept on an army cot.[1]
• Scott Gorham switched from bass to guitar after a friend died. When his bandmate Steve Schrage was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1968, Gorham decided to take his place on guitar and try to get where his friend would have got.[1]
• Gorham's brother in law is Supertramp's drummer, Bob Siebenberg. Siebenberg married Gorham's sister and persuaded him to move to England. Another Supertramp member, John Helliwell, played saxophone on Dancing in the Moonlight.[1] [2]
• The Boys Are Back in Town was first called G I Joe. The band originally thought of it as an anti war song. Phil also tried titles like The Kids Are Back before landing on the final one.[1] [2]
• Phil once flew to the wrong Madison and missed his cover artist. Trying to meet Jim Fitzpatrick in Madison, Connecticut, he went to Madison, Wisconsin, so Bad Reputation ended up with a different artist's cover.[1]
• On the Fighting and Bad Reputation sleeves, each member was a playing card suit. Phil was spades, Downey clubs, Gorham hearts and Robertson diamonds.[1]
• The front cover of Live and Dangerous was meant to be the back. The band wanted equal billing, but manager Chris O'Donnell swapped the photos at the last minute so Phil was on the front.[1]
• Live and Dangerous was kept off number one in Britain by the Grease soundtrack. It peaked at number two in 1978 and stayed on the chart for sixty two weeks.[1]
• Phil Collins played percussion on Johnny the Fox, but nobody remembers which song. Collins was a friend of Phil's. Neither Robertson nor Downey could recall his contribution, and Robertson suspected it was mainly for name dropping.[1]
• Scott Gorham and Brian Downey each got their own sleeve for the single Sarah, though neither played on it. The song was recorded by Phil with Gary Moore on guitar, Mark Nauseef on drums and Huey Lewis on harmonica. Three different sleeves were printed, one each for Lynott, Gorham and Downey.[1]
• Phil Lynott wrote the Top of the Pops theme tune. A remix of Yellow Pearl, co written with Midge Ure, opened the show from 1981 until 1986.[1] [2]
• Phil played the preacher in Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. In 1978 he sang and spoke the role of Parson Nathaniel on The Spirit of Man.[1]
• For a time in 1979 and 1980 Midge Ure was in Ultravox, Visage and Thin Lizzy at once. He stepped in on Lizzy guitar after Gary Moore quit, then moved to keyboards, while Vienna was taking shape.[1]
• Snowy White was invited to rehearse for Pink Floyd's The Wall and to join Thin Lizzy at the same time. Gorham had seen him playing with Pink Floyd in New York and approached him in 1979. He joined and recorded two albums with Lizzy.[1]
• The album Renegade was named after a stranger's biker jacket. Phil saw a biker wearing Lizzy and Motörhead patches with the word Renegade, and rewrote a song and titled the album on the spot.[1]
• The Nightlife cover panther was not meant to be Phil. Jim Fitzpatrick said the panther referred to the Black Panthers and figures like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.[1]
• Phil's first poetry book was printed in only one thousand copies. Songs for While I'm Away appeared in 1974 with an introduction by John Peel. Almost all the poems were Lizzy lyrics.[1]
• Police raided Phil's twenty eighth birthday party at a Georgian mansion. The August 1977 party at Castletown House in Kildare ended with arrests and drugs seized, the day before Lizzy headlined Dalymount Park.[1]
• Philomena Lynott's Manchester hotel was the only one willing to house the Sex Pistols. The Clifton Grange, nicknamed The Biz, took them in on the Anarchy tour in December 1976 and was Lizzy's party base.[1] [2]
• Eric Bell says Metallica never paid him for playing Whiskey in the Jar with them. He joined them in Dublin in 1999 and says he got only a bundle of merchandise instead of the two thousand pounds he expected.[1] [2]
• Pete Townshend told Scott Gorham he missed Phil more than Keith Moon. Gorham met Townshend in a music shop soon after Phil died, and was left not knowing how to respond.[1]
• Scott Gorham secretly made drawings for more than forty years. He hid them even from his wife until she found a folder. His first exhibition was in 2024, and Jim Fitzpatrick praised the work.[1] [2]
• On the farewell live album Life, five Lizzy guitarists play one song together. On The Rocker, Bell, Robertson, Moore, Gorham and Sykes all play, with eight musicians on stage.[1]
• Paul Hardcastle played the bassline on Phil's last single, on Phil's own bass. Phil caught him playing it and told him to keep it on the record Nineteen.[1]
• Phil was a Manchester United shareholder and a friend of George Best. The two used to socialise at his mother's Manchester hotel.[1]
• The Irish Central Bank issued three thousand silver coins for Phil's seventieth birthday anniversary. The fifteen euro coins came out in November 2019, part of a Modern Irish Musicians series.[1]
• Sade recorded a version of Still in Love with You. It appeared as a new track on her 2011 Ultimate Collection.[1]

Disputed stories

These stories are told often but the accounts don't agree. Here are the versions and who says what.