Cowboy Song - The Authorized Biography of Phil Lynott by Graeme Thomson

 As with most teens in the 70's, I discovered Thin Lizzy through their terrific breakthrough album, Jailbreak, with their hits "The Boys Are Back in Town" and "Jailbreak". Hard-edged rock'n'roll with great songwriting and amazing dual lead guitars hooked damn near every kid who played rock'n'roll at the time. I have yet to truly explore their entire catalog (they have far more releases than I ever realized), but Jailbreak and Fighting have never left my playlist since they first appeared. As frontman, singer and songwriter, Phil has always been a stylish'n'hip rock'n'roll character who was cool enough and adaptable enough to play with Johnny Thunders and members of the Sex Pistols, among others, and is still revered to this days, decades after his untimely, all-too-early death. 

I never knew much about his story and right from the beginning this book tells the tale of a true individual, a young black kid in Ireland born out of wedlock to a white woman who went on to have two more children by other men who she gave up for adoption. His mother had numerous issues and Phil was sent to live with his grandparents where he stood out among his white peers, but it seems that he was given more positive attention, as opposed to the racial distancing one would expect, at least for the most part.

He grew into a stylish teen and, as much for his unique looks as anything else, became the lead singer for the Black Eagles, a local beat band who lasted a surprisingly long four years or so before fizzling out. From there he was asked to join Skid Row, again, more for his style than his singing, and he helped them to gain true notoriety with his looks and theatrics as well as the friends he brought along to create light shows and help roadie. He then started Thin Lizzy with Brian Downey (drums) and Eric Bell (guitar), got signed to Decca Records, moved to London and released two albums in short succession to little acclaim. Slogging through tours that barely paid the bills, they then stumbled upon a more winning formula with a revision of the traditional Irish number, "Whiskey in the Jar".

Funnily, despite previous theatrics in other bands, with Thin Lizzy Phil had to learn how to reach the audience while playing bass (his first band doing this) and singing. But, he studied hard at his presentation as well as his songwriting and everything did progress. By their third album, they started making headway in the charts and reached the attention of Ritchie Blackmore, who floated the idea of a supergroup with himself and Ian Paice, Paul Rodgers and Phil! This got as far as a recorded demo and fizzled when Ritchie and Ian returned to Purple, which may have been for the best all around! Thankfully, this was a time when a record company let a group grow (within reason, of course) and after a couple of dud albums, Thin Lizzy and company did begin to see some reward all around.

As everyone knows, the Jailbreak album was their smash hit breakthrough with "The Boys Are Back in Town" becoming a worldwide hit single and starting them on a trajectory for super stardom. Unfortunately, this is when Phil contracted hepatitis and derailed their entire momentum, which, while they remained reasonably successful, they - and he - never truly recovered from. The fact that two further American tours were derailed for other health and personnel issues (guitarists were the bane of Lynott's career, despite giving the band its melodic sound) also kept them from the ultra-stardom that they might have reached otherwise.

I always find it exciting to read about musicians' ride to fame'n'fortune, especially during the thrilling 60's and 70's, but so many, including Phil, threw everything away with extreme excesses of drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately, no one, not even the record companies or producers would make them terminate their excesses since most of them were dealing with the same devils. This is where Phil's story becomes painfully pitiful, sad, and sometimes sickening, 

Graeme managed to interview nearly every important character in this fascinating story and found more information through the usual channels of magazines, TV shows and documentaries, and fuses it all together into a captivating and informative tale. I have to say that this is one of my favorite r'n'r biographies of recent times. Dig it!