from the same London smack dealers. All went to
the same Harley Street Dr Feelgood to ease the
pain when we were withdrawing.
But here’s the thing: it was fun. At least while it
lasted. Which we all rather blithely assumed would
be forever, or however close to that you could get
without turning blue in someone else’s bathroom
It was the seventies, baby! Wanna line? Of
course you fuckin’ do!
Only Phil was now so far over the drug
rainbow he actually thought he had his
hands on the pot of gold. Thought he
didn’t have to sit down quietly any more
with a notebook in his hands working on
his songs the way he’d always done. For
Phil, before the shit hit the fan, the words- lyrics, poetry – always came first, music
second, made to fit. Now, in his
permanently eyeballed state, he began
coming up with half-riffs, spare parts,
musical mumbo-jumbo he’d lace with
some chick-slapped-Johnny’s-face
verbiage, delivered out the side of his
smirking mouth.
He’d also stopped writing
wholeheartedly with Thin Lizzy in mind.
Since signing his solo deal – a peccadillo
offered by the record company to try to
keep him from breaking up the band like
his hero Rod Stewart had done with the
Faces when he opted purely for a solo
career – Phil, ironically, spent more time
than ever working on songs. But it was all
scatter-gun, bits here and there, either with
or without the other Lizzy guys involved, none of
it delegated yet for either Lizzy or solo albums.
Tens of dozens of demo tracks, hastily recorded,
most of which would never see the light of day. On
the hoof, in the wee coke hours, with Moore,
Gorham, Jimmy Bain, Huey Lewis, Mark Nauseef,
Bob Geldof...
Brian Downey grew so disheartened he quit on
the eve of yet another apparently jinxed US tour in
August. “I was burnt out,” he told me. “My health
was really suffering. I needed to get away.” Former
Ian Gillan Band drummer Mark Nauseef was
hastily brought in for the rest of the year. After
some months of fishing and forsaking all over-
stimulations, Brian finally agreed to come back
into the fold in time to make Black Rose.
But things continued to grow more complicated
by the day. When work finally began on Black Rose,at Good Earth studios in London at the start of
1979, before it moved on to Pathé Marconi Studios
in Paris, Gary Moore, who had also scored a solo
deal with the band’s label, was already hard at
work on Back On The Streets, a project Phil also
busied himself with, writing, singing and playing
on three tracks.
Everything louder than everything else, Lizzy-
Lynott-Moore albums now became entangled.Parisienne Walkways, the wine-and-roses guitar opera
which Gary and Phil co-wrote, with Lynott on lead
vocals, which became a Top-10 smash for Moore
later that year, was begun during the Black Rose
sessions. Two of the tracks that ended up on Black
Rose – Sarah, music written by Moore, and featuring
Mark Nauseef on drums, and With Love, also
featuring Nauseef, along with Huey Lewis on
harmonica and Jimmy Bain on bass – were actually
recorded during sessions for Moore’s
album, and originally thought to be
intended for Phil’s projected solo album.
When in February Moore was booked
on to BBC music show The Old Grey
Whistle Test, he appeared as Gary Moore
& Friends, the friends in question being
Phil, Scott, drummer Cozy Powell and
keyboard player Don Airey. The two
songs they played were the as-yet
unreleased Back On The Streets, with Gary
and Phil sharing lead vocals, and Don’t
Believe A Word, in its as-originally-intended
slow-burn blues style, with Gary again
sharing vocals with Phil, another track
begun during the Black Rose sessions that
ended up on Gary’s album.
It was getting hard to see the wood for
the blazing forest fires.F
or producer Tony Visconti, who
had helped turn Bad Reputation into
such a beautifully crafted piece of
work, then worked his considerable magic
on making Live And Dangerous sound
exactly that, working on the Black Rose sessions was
a wearying experience. Just as he had abandoned
Marc Bolan when the drugs and poses overtook
the artistic mien, Visconti now decided this would
be his last Thin Lizzy album.
The blur of half-baked ideas only disguised the
lack of vision. Worse, once they got to Paris it was
the now blatant round-the-clock drug abuse.
According to Moore, Phil would “start each dayDrumming up some atmosphere:
Lizzy on the set of the Do Anything
You Want To Do video shoot in 1979.Lynott on (^) the set of
the video shoot for
Lizzy’s Waiting For
An Alibi in 1979.
MA
IN:
GET
TY;
(^) INS
ET:
(^) RE
X/S
HU
TTE
RST
OC
K
‘Black Rose was studded with
diamonds but neck-deep in cliché
and bish-bash-bosh padding.’
62 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM