Philip Parris Lynott (, LIE-not; 20 August 1949 – 4 January 1986) was an Irish musician who was the co-founder, lead vocalist, bassist, and primary songwriter of the hard rock band Thin Lizzy. He was noted for his distinctive pick-based style on the bass and for his imaginative lyrics, including working-class tales and numerous characters drawn from personal influences and Celtic culture.
Lynott was born in the West Midlands of England and grew up in Dublin with his grandparents. He remained close to his mother, Philomena, throughout his life. He fronted several bands as a lead vocalist, including Skid Row alongside Gary Moore, before learning the bass guitar and forming Thin Lizzy in 1969. After initial success with "Whiskey in the Jar", the band had several hits in the mid-1970s, such as "The Boys Are Back in Town", "Jailbreak" and "Waiting for an Alibi", and became a popular live attraction combining Lynott's vocal and songwriting skills with dual lead guitars. Towards the end of the 1970s, Lynott embarked upon a solo career and published two books of poetry. After Thin Lizzy disbanded, he assembled and fronted the band Grand Slam.
During the 1980s, Lynott increasingly suffered from drug addiction, particularly to heroin. He and Moore had one more chart success with "Out in the Fields" in 1985, before Lynott died of septicaemia-induced pneumonia and heart failure early the following year. He remains a popular figure in rock music, and a statue in his memory was erected in Dublin in 2005.
Philip Parris Lynott was born at Hallam Hospital in West Bromwich on 20 August 1949. His Irish mother, Philomena Lynott, was born in Dublin. His Guyanese father, Cecil Parris, was from Georgetown. The two met in Birmingham in 1948 after Cecil had moved to England for work, beginning a relationship for a few months until Cecil was transferred to London. Philomena soon found out she was pregnant; after Lynott was born, she moved with him to a home for unmarried mothers in Selly Park, where Philip was baptised on 4 September. She subsequently moved to Manchester but stayed in touch with Parris, who helped pay for his son's support. She subsequently had two more children who were put up for adoption.
Lynott first attended school in Manchester's Moss Side. In 1957, Philomena sent him to live with her parents, Sarah and Frank in the Crumlin area of Dublin. Frank's presence gave him a father figure for the first time in his life. He knew he was different from his peers, but did not suffer any major racist attacks. Philomena stayed in Manchester and remained close to Lynott. She and her partner, Dennis Keeley, later took over the management of the Clifton Grange Hotel in Whalley Range. The hotel, nicknamed "The Biz", became popular with show business figures and was later referred to in a song on Thin Lizzy's debut album. Lynott had a happy childhood growing up in Dublin and was popular at school.
Lynott was introduced to music through his uncle Timothy's record collection, and became influenced by Motown and The Mamas & the Papas. He joined his first band, the Black Eagles, in 1965 as a lead singer, playing popular covers in local clubs around Dublin. He attended the Scoil Colm Christian Brothers' School on Armagh Road in Crumlin, where he became friends with Brian Downey, who was later persuaded to join the band from the Liffey Beats. The group fell apart due to the lack of interest of manager Joe Smith, particularly after the departure of his two sons, guitarists Danny and Frankie.
Lynott then left the family home and moved into a flat in Clontarf, where he briefly joined the group Kama Sutra. It was in this band that he learned his frontman skills, and worked out how to interact with an audience. In early 1968, he teamed up with bassist Brendan 'Brush' Shiels to form Skid Row. Downey was not interested in Shiels' request to be the drummer, so the job went to Noel Bridgeman. The band signed a deal with Ted Carroll, who would later go on to manage Thin Lizzy, and played a variety of covers including "Eight Miles High", "Hey Jude" and several numbers by Jimi Hendrix. Because Lynott did not play an instrument at this point in his career, he instead manipulated his voice through an echo box during instrumental sections. He took to smearing boot polish under his eyes on stage to draw attention to himself, which he would continue to do throughout Lizzy's career later on, and regularly performed a mock fight with Shiels onstage to attract the crowd. In mid-1968, guitarist Bernard Cheevers quit to work full-time at the Guinness brewery in Dublin and was replaced by Belfast-born guitarist Gary Moore.
Despite increased success, and the release of a single, "New Faces, Old Places", Shiels became concerned about Lynott's tendency to sing off-key. He then discovered that the problem was with Lynott's tonsils; he subsequently took a leave of absence from the band. By the time he had recovered, Shiels had decided to take over singing lead and reduce the band to a three-piece. Feeling guilty of having effectively sacked one of his best friends, he taught Lynott how to play bass, figuring it would be easier to learn than a six-string guitar, and sold him a Fender Jazz Bass he had bought from Robert Ballagh for £36, and started giving him lessons.
Lynott and Downey quickly put together a new band called Orphanage, with guitarist Joe Staunton and bassist Pat Quigley, playing a mixture of original material alongside covers of Bob Dylan, Free and Jeff Beck. Still learning the bass, Lynott restricted himself to occasional rhythm guitar alongside singing lead.
At the end of 2006, a number of Skid Row and Orphanage demo tapes featuring Lynott were discovered. These were his earliest recordings and had been presumed lost for decades.
Towards the end of 1969, Lynott and Downey were introduced to guitarist Eric Bell via a founding member of Them, keyboardist Eric Wrixon (Bell had played in a later lineup of Them). Deciding that Bell was a better guitarist, and with Lynott now confident enough to play bass himself, the four formed Thin Lizzy. The name came from the character "Tin Lizzie" in the comic The Dandy, which in turn came from the nickname for the Ford Model T car. The H was deliberately added to mimic the way the word "thin" is pronounced in a Dublin accent. Lynott later discovered the saying attributed to Henry Ford, "Any colour you like as long as it's black," which he felt was appropriate for him. Wrixon was felt by the others to be surplus to requirements and left after the release of the band's first single, "The Farmer", in July 1970.
During the band's early years – and despite being the singer, bassist and chief songwriter – Lynott was still fairly reserved and introverted on stage, and would stand to one side while the spotlight concentrated on Bell, who was initially regarded as the group's leader. During the recording of the band's second album, Shades of a Blue Orphanage (1972), Lynott very nearly left Thin Lizzy to form a new band with Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Paice, called Baby Face. "Ritchie turned up in the studio one day to jam," recalled Downey. "I was asked to play drums to Phil and Ritchie jamming… Me and Eric looked at each other like, 'Well, that's the end of the band then.' It lasted a week, then Phil came back as if nothing had happened. He wanted to be the leader of his own band, not the singer in someone else's." Due to being in dire financial straits Lizzy did, however, soon record an album of Deep Purple covers under the name Funky Junction. Lynott did not sing on the album as he felt his voice was not in the same style as Ian Gillan.
Towards the end of 1972, Thin Lizzy got their first major break in the UK by supporting Slade, then nearing the height of their commercial success. Inspired by Noddy Holder's top hat with mirrors, Lynott decided to attach a mirror to his bass, which he carried over to subsequent tours. On the opening night of the tour, an altercation broke out between Lynott and Slade's manager Chas Chandler, who chastised Lynott's lack of stage presence and interaction with the audience and threatened to throw Lizzy off the tour unless things improved immediately. Lynott subsequently developed the onstage rapport and stage presence that would become familiar over the remainder of the decade.