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Original THIN LIZZY Guitarist Talks About 'Whiskey In The Jar'

June 3, 2005

NewsLetter.co.uk has issued the following report:

As THIN LIZZY's original guitarist, east Belfast musician Eric Bell changed the sound of rock music. The ex-Orangefield boy is back in his home city for a gig this Sunday and we are talking about the unique and iconic shrill of Eric's guitar solo at the start of "Whiskey in the Jar": "It was always Phil (Lynott)'s call on which cassettes we kept in the car. One night when we were coming back from a gig, he was listening to traditional music and the CHIEFTAINS were playing.

"We started talking about how we could make the Irish pipes' sound on the guitar. I started messin' around trying to play it, couldn't get anywhere. It wouldn't work with blues' licks, but eventually I got it and 'Whiskey in The Jar' unfolded.

"We didn't want to record it. 'Black Boys on the Corner' was to be the A-side and our manager wanted 'Whiskey in the Jar' to be the B-side. In the end, because everybody loved both songs, they were brought out as a double A-side and it became a hit." Previously the band had had a fair degree of artistic freedom. That was all about to change, according to Eric: "It threw me completely. Once you have a hit, everybody starts taking you seriously. They're all keeping an eye on you: the record company people and the manager. We were playing gigs in ballrooms. Once we had a hit, 2,000 people would suddenly come down from the balconies and the bars to listen to 'Whiskey in the Jar' and then about 50 would stay on, when we started playing our own stuff."

Read the rest of the article at this location.

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