seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Jimi Hendrix


by Leave a comment

Death of Thin Lizzy Guitarist Gary Moore

Robert William Gary Moore, Northern Irish musician, most widely recognised as a singer, songwriter, and virtuoso rock and blues guitarist, dies of a heart attack on February 6, 2011, in Estepona, Spain.

In a career dating back to the 1960s, Moore plays with musicians including Phil Lynott and Brian Downey during his teenage years, leading him to memberships of the Irish bands Skid Row and Thin Lizzy, and British band Colosseum II. Moore shares the stage with such blues and rock musicians as B. B. King, Albert King, Jack Bruce, Albert Collins, George Harrison, and Greg Lake, as well as having a successful solo career. He guests on a number of albums recorded by high-profile musicians.

Moore is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on April 4, 1952. He starts performing at a young age, having picked up a battered acoustic guitar at the age of eight. He gets his first quality guitar at the age of 14, learning to play the right-handed instrument in the standard way despite being left-handed.

At the age of 16, aiming to become a musician, he moves to Dublin. Moore’s greatest influence in the early days is guitarist Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac who is a mentor to Moore when performing in Dublin. Other early musical influences are artists such as Albert King, Elvis Presley, Eric Clapton, The Shadows, and The Beatles. Later, having seen Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in his hometown of Belfast, his own style develops into a blues-rock sound that becomes the dominant form of his career in music.

In Dublin, Moore joins the group Skid Row with Noel Bridgeman and Brendan “Brush” Shiels. It is with this group that he earns a reputation in the music industry, and his association with Phil Lynott begins.

Moore moves to England in 1970 and in 1973, under the name “The Gary Moore Band,” he releases his first solo album, Grinding Stone. Grinding Stone receives “Album of the Year” accolades on KTAC-FM/Seattle–Tacoma, Washington, in 1974.

In 1974 he joins Thin Lizzy after the departure of founding member Eric Bell. From 1975 to August 1978, he is a member of Colosseum II. In 1977, Moore rejoins Thin Lizzy, first as a temporary replacement for Brian Robertson, and on a permanent basis a year later.

In July 1979, he leaves the band permanently to focus on his solo career, again with help from Phil Lynott. After a series of rock records, Moore returns to blues music with Still Got the Blues (1990), with contributions from Albert King, Albert Collins, and George Harrison. Other collaborations during his solo years include a broad range of artists including Trilok Gurtu, Dr. Strangely Strange, Jimmy Nail, Mo Foster, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, Jim Capaldi, B.B. King, Vicki Brown, Cozy Powell, Rod Argent, The Beach Boys, Paul Rodgers, Keith Emerson, Roger Daltrey, and Otis Taylor.

Gary Moore dies of a heart attack in his sleep at the age of 58 during the early hours of February 6, 2011. At the time, he is on holiday with a girlfriend at the Kempinski Hotel in Estepona, Spain. Moore is laid to rest in St. Margaret’s Churchyard, Rottingdean, East Sussex, England, in a private ceremony with only family and close friends in attendance.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Eric Bell, Founder Member of Thin Lizzy

eric-bellEric Robin Bell, Northern Irish rock and blues musician, is born on September 3, 1947 in East Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is best known as a founder member and the original guitarist of the rock group Thin Lizzy. After his time in Thin Lizzy, he briefly fronts his own group before joining The Noel Redding Band in the mid-1970s. He has since released several solo albums and performs regularly with a blues-based trio, the Eric Bell Band.

Bell begins his career with local groups around the Belfast area, including the last incarnation of Them to feature Van Morrison, between September and October 1966. He also plays with a number of other bands including Shades of Blue, The Earth Dwellers and The Bluebeats, before joining an Irish showband named The Dreams. He leaves in 1969 having tired of the showband format and, at the end of that year, forms a band with local musicians Phil Lynott, Eric Wrixon and Brian Downey. Bell names the group Thin Lizzy, after Tin Lizzie, a robot character in The Dandy comic.

Organist Eric Wrixon leaves Thin Lizzy after a few months, and the remaining trio later secure a contract with Decca Records. As lead guitarist, Bell plays on Thin Lizzy’s first three albums, Thin Lizzy, Shades of a Blue Orphanage and Vagabonds of the Western World, as well as their hit single “Whiskey in the Jar.” He co-writes a number of songs with Lynott and Downey, including “The Rocker” which becomes a live favourite throughout the band’s career. He also composes one song on his own, “Ray Gun,” from their first album, Thin Lizzy.

Although Thin Lizzy gains in popularity during the early 1970s, the pressures of recording, touring and the excesses of the rock star lifestyle begin to take their toll. Bell leaves the band after a New Year’s Eve concert in 1973, after throwing his guitar into the air in the middle of the concert, pushing the amplifiers into the audience and storming off stage. He states later that he had no regrets about leaving: “I really had to leave because of ill-health. It was exhaustion, and the majority of things that were available to me… I couldn’t really handle it.” He is temporarily replaced by Gary Moore.

In 1974, after a brief period fronting his own Eric Bell Band, Bell is recruited by ex-Jimi Hendrix sideman Noel Redding, along with guitarist/singer Dave Clarke and drummer Les Sampson, to form The Noel Redding Band. He is initially unsure of the musical direction Redding is taking, but goes on to record two albums with the group before they split in 1976. A third album of unused tracks is released in 1995. He composes the song “Love and War” for the second album, Blowin’.

In 1980, Bell reunites with Thin Lizzy to record a tribute song to Jimi Hendrix, “Song for Jimmy,” which is released as an orange flexi disc and given away with Flexipop in August 1981. It is later included on Thin Lizzy’s Vagabonds Kings Warriors Angels box set in 2002, although much of Bell’s lead guitar work is missing from this version as the relevant master tapes cannot be found. He also appears as a guest on Thin Lizzy’s final tour in 1983, and the accompanying live album, Life.

Bell subsequently joins saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith‘s eight-piece blues rock ensemble Mainsqueeze. They tour Europe, record a live album in 1983, and later tour as Bo Diddley‘s backing group, recording the Hey… Bo Diddley: In Concert album in 1986.

Bell continues to perform and record with the Eric Bell Band throughout the 1990s and 2000s, releasing several albums. He also records with the Barrelhouse Brothers.

In 2005, Bell joins Gary Moore onstage to perform “Whiskey in the Jar” at the Phil Lynott tribute concert “The Boy Is Back in Town” in the Point Theatre, Dublin. This is released on a DVD called One Night in Dublin: A Tribute to Phil Lynott. In 2010, he moves from London where he had lived for many years to his new home in West Cork, Ireland.


by 1 Comment

Birth of Musician Gary Moore in Belfast

gary-moore

Robert William Gary Moore, Northern Irish musician, most widely recognised as a singer, songwriter, and virtuoso rock and blues guitarist, is born in Belfast on April 4, 1952.

In a career dating back to the 1960s, Moore plays with musicians including Phil Lynott and Brian Downey during his teenage years, leading him to memberships of the Irish bands Skid Row and Thin Lizzy, and British band Colosseum II. Moore shares the stage with such blues and rock musicians as B.B. King, Albert King, Jack Bruce, Albert Collins, George Harrison, and Greg Lake, as well as having a successful solo career. He guests on a number of albums recorded by high-profile musicians.

Moore starts performing at a young age, having picked up a battered acoustic guitar at the age of eight. He gets his first quality guitar at the age of 14, learning to play the right-handed instrument in the standard way despite being left-handed.

At the age of 16, aiming to become a musician, he moves to Dublin. Moore’s greatest influence in the early days is guitarist Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac who is a mentor to Moore when performing in Dublin. Other early musical influences are artists such as Albert King, Elvis Presley, The Shadows, and The Beatles. Later, having seen Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in his hometown of Belfast, his own style is developing into a blues-rock sound that becomes the dominant form of his career in music.

In Dublin, Moore joins the group Skid Row with Noel Bridgeman and Brendan “Brush” Shiels. It is with this group that he earns a reputation in the music industry, and his association with Phil Lynott begins.

Moore moves to England in 1970 and in 1973, under the name “The Gary Moore Band,” he releases his first solo album, Grinding Stone. Grinding Stone receives “Album of the Year” accolades on KTAC-FM/Seattle-Tacoma, Washington, in 1974.

In 1974 he joins Thin Lizzy after the departure of founding member Eric Bell. From 1975 to August 1978, he is a member of Colosseum II. In 1977, Moore rejoins Thin Lizzy, first as a temporary replacement for Brian Robertson, and on a permanent basis a year later.

In July 1979, he leaves the band permanently to focus on his solo career, again with help from Phil Lynott. After a series of rock records, Moore returns to blues music with Still Got the Blues (1990), with contributions from Albert King, Albert Collins, and George Harrison. Other collaborations during his solo years include a broad range of artists including Trilok Gurtu, Dr. Strangely Strange, Jimmy Nail, Mo Foster, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, Jim Capaldi, B.B. King, Vicki Brown, Cozy Powell, Rod Argent, The Beach Boys, Paul Rodgers, Keith Emerson, Roger Daltrey, and Otis Taylor.

Gary Moore dies of a heart attack in his sleep at the age of 58 during the early hours of February 6, 2011. At the time, he is on holiday with a girlfriend at the Kempinski Hotel in Estepona, Spain. Moore is laid to rest in St. Margaret’s Churchyard, Rottingdean, East Sussex, England, in a private ceremony with only family and close friends in attendance.