Cowboy Song by Graeme Thomson

Author:Graeme Thomson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2016-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

Thin Lizzy spent the next year learning how to be the band they wanted to be. Part of the process involved the two new arrivals working out how Lynott ticked.

‘Phil was a guy of multiple personalities,’ says Scott Gorham. ‘He was that hard guy from the songs. You didn’t say the wrong thing to him at the wrong time. Nobody did. If you were to say anything derogatory to him about Ireland, that was fighting talk. He would not take any shit from anybody about the whole Irish thing. He could be the hard man when it suited him, and wild. He was out every night raising hell. That was the nature of the beast. He was the one who taught me the basic rules of going out at night. I don’t think he had any restrictions whatsoever. On the other side of it, he was a real gentle kind of guy too.’

While Thin Lizzy were still in the process of establishing their identity and orientation, they made two records. Nightlife, released on 8 November 1974, and Fighting, released on 12 September 1975, are half-formed place markers. Produced by Ron Nevison, an American who had worked with Bad Company and the Who, Nightlife is a tepid record, the fussy, layered production largely neutering the band’s already tentative sense of self. It’s a provisional and uncertain work. Phonogram heard the uneven mix of under-powered blues, saccharine ballads, aimless instrumentals and misfiring Sham-rockers and shrugged. Aside from ‘Still in Love with You’, which became a career-long concert highlight, ‘Nightlife was a pretty mediocre record,’ says Nigel Grainge. ‘There was no singles material on it, nothing that would take them beyond where they were at the time. We did nothing with it.’

Fighting swung in the other direction. It was an equally self-conscious record in many ways, but stronger and more confident. Much of that assurance stemmed from the six-week US tour Thin Lizzy had undertaken shortly before it was recorded, supporting Bachman-Turner Overdrive in March 1975. If watching Slade had forced Lynott to reassess his stage craft, then this was a challenge on a far greater scale. Playing arenas and stadiums with capacities rising to 20,000, bottom of a three-act bill which included Bob Seger, Thin Lizzy came of age as a live band. ‘The impact on Phil was huge,’ says Gorham. ‘He couldn’t wait to get out there. We hadn’t sold any records, but we were on this big tour, playing these arenas, and it hit Phil in a big way.’

The Bachman-Turner Overdrive/Thin Lizzy bill transferred to British venues throughout April and May. By the time prospective producer John Alcock saw the band for the first time later in 1975, he was struck not by the songs – which he felt were average and tended to merge into a homogenized sonic soup – but by the command the lead singer had over the crowd.

‘He did that crouch, splitting the legs, and he had a black Fender Precision bass with a mirrored pick-guard on it,’ says Alcock.

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