Eric Bell | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Eric Robin Bell |
Born | England | 3 September 1947
Origin | Belfast, Northern Ireland |
Genres | |
Occupations |
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Instruments |
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Years active | 1966 – present |
Member of | Eric Bell Band [1] |
Formerly of |
Eric Robin Bell (born 3 September 1947) is a Northern Irish rock and blues musician, best known as a founding member and the original guitarist of the rock group Thin Lizzy, of which he was a member from 1969 to 1973. After his time in Thin Lizzy, he briefly fronted 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 was born in England on 3 September 1947 and brought up as a young child in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by his adoptive sibling-parents Harold and Ivy Bell. [3] [4] From Jocelyn Avenue, Woodstock Road, in the east of the city, he attended Orangefield High School. [5] As a boy he was enthralled by the music of Lonnie Donegan and "mesmerised" by the guitars in the Shadows. [6] He began his career with local groups around the Belfast area, including the last incarnation of Them to feature Van Morrison, between September and October 1966. [7] He also played with a number of other bands including Shades of Blue, The Earth Dwellers and The Bluebeats, before joining an Irish showband named The Dreams. [7] [8] He left in 1969, having tired of the showband format, and at the end of that year formed a band with Irish musicians Phil Lynott, Eric Wrixon and Brian Downey. Bell suggested the name Thin Lizzy, after Tin Lizzie, a robot character in The Dandy comic. [9] [10]
Organist Eric Wrixon left Thin Lizzy after a few months and the remaining trio later secured a contract with Decca Records. [11] As lead guitarist, Bell played 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-wrote a number of songs with Lynott and Downey, including "The Rocker" which became a live favourite throughout the band's career. [7] He also composed one song on his own, "Ray Gun", from their first album, Thin Lizzy. [12]
Although Thin Lizzy gained in popularity during the early 1970s, the pressures of recording, touring and the excesses of the rock star lifestyle began to take their toll. He left 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 stated 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." [7] He was temporarily replaced by Gary Moore. [11]
In 1974, after a brief period fronting his own Eric Bell Band, [13] Bell was recruited by ex-Jimi Hendrix sideman Noel Redding, along with guitarist/singer Dave Clarke and drummer Les Sampson, to form the Noel Redding Band. Bell was unsure of the musical direction Redding was taking, [14] but went on to record two albums with the group before they split in 1976. A third album of unused tracks was released in 1995. Bell composed the song "Love and War" for the second album, Blowin' . [15]
In 1980, Bell reunited with Thin Lizzy to record a tribute song to Jimi Hendrix, "Song for Jimmy" [sic], which was released as an orange flexi disc and given away with Flexipop in August 1981. [16] It was later included on Thin Lizzy's Vagabonds, Kings, Warriors, Angels box set in 2002, although much of Eric Bell's lead guitar work was missing from this version as the relevant master tapes could not be found. Bell also appeared as a guest on Thin Lizzy's final tour in 1983 and the accompanying live album, Life .
Bell had also reactivated his own band in the late 1970s and released an EP in 1981. [17]
Bell subsequently joined saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith's eight-piece blues rock ensemble Mainsqueeze. [17] They toured Europe, [18] recorded a live album in 1983 and later toured as Bo Diddley's backing group, recording the Hey... Bo Diddley: In Concert album in 1986. [17]
Bell has continued to perform and record with the Eric Bell Band throughout the 1990s and 2000s, releasing several albums. [17] He has also recorded with the Barrelhouse Brothers. [19]
In 2005, he joined 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 was released on a DVD called One Night in Dublin: A Tribute to Phil Lynott . [20] Bell lived in Dublin, then London before moving to West Cork, Ireland, then to Carrodore in the Ards Peninsula, County Down. [3]
Bell later blasted heavy metal band Metallica for failing to pay him £2,000 for a live show in Dublin in 1999. [21]
In November 2024 Bell was presented with the Legend Award at the Northern Ireland Music Prizes. [22]
A power trio is a rock and roll band format having a lineup of electric guitar, bass guitar and drum kit, leaving out a dedicated vocalist or an additional rhythm guitar or keyboard instrument that are often used in other rock music bands that are quartets and quintets. Larger rock bands often use one or more additional rhythm sections to fill out the sound with chords and harmony parts.
Skid Row were an Irish blues rock band of the late 1960s and early 1970s, based in Dublin and fronted by bass guitarist Brendan "Brush" Shiels. It was the first band in which Phil Lynott and Gary Moore played professionally before finding greater fame with Thin Lizzy.
Thin Lizzy are an Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. The band initially consisted of bass guitarist, lead vocalist and principal songwriter Phil Lynott, drummer Brian Downey, guitarist Eric Bell and organist Eric Wrixon although Wrixon left after a few months. Bell left at the end of 1973 and was briefly replaced by Gary Moore, who himself was replaced in mid-1974 by twin lead guitarists: Scott Gorham, who remained with the band until their break-up in 1983, and Brian Robertson, who remained with the band until 1978 when Moore re-joined. Moore left a second time and was replaced by Snowy White in 1980, who was himself replaced by John Sykes in 1982. The line-up was augmented by keyboardist Darren Wharton in 1980.
Robert William Gary Moore was a Northern Irish musician. Over the course of his career, he played in various groups and performed a range of music including blues, blues rock, hard rock, heavy metal and jazz fusion.
Philip Parris Lynott was an Irish musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the co-founder, lead vocalist, bassist, and primary songwriter for the hard rock band Thin Lizzy. He was known for his distinctive pick-based style on the bass and for his imaginative lyrical contributions, including working-class tales and numerous characters drawn from personal influences and Celtic culture.
"Whiskey in the Jar" is an Irish traditional song set in the southern mountains of Ireland, often with specific mention of counties Cork and Kerry. The song, about a rapparee (highwayman) who is betrayed by his wife or lover, is one of the most widely performed traditional Irish songs and has been recorded by numerous artists since the 1950s.
Shades of a Blue Orphanage is the second studio album by Irish rock band Thin Lizzy, released in 1972. The title is a combination of the members' previous bands: Shades of Blue and Orphanage.
Vagabonds of the Western World is the third studio album by Irish hard rock band Thin Lizzy, released in 1973. It was the band's last album with original guitarist Eric Bell and the first to feature the artwork of Jim Fitzpatrick, whose work would appear on many subsequent albums by the band.
Greatest Hits is a double-CD compilation of Thin Lizzy songs released in 2004.
The Adventures of Thin Lizzy is a compilation album by the rock band Thin Lizzy, released in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1981. It features songs released as singles from 1972 to 1980.
Brian Michael Downey is an Irish drummer. He was a founding member of the rock band Thin Lizzy and the only other constant in the band aside from leader Phil Lynott until their disbandment in 1983. Downey also co-wrote several Thin Lizzy songs. Allmusic critic Eduardo Rivadavia has argued that Downey is "certainly one of the most underrated [rock drummers] of his generation".
Whiskey In The Jar is a compilation album by Irish rock band Thin Lizzy, originally released in 1996, covering the early part of the band's career. There are various versions of this album, released by different record companies, with the same track listing but with different covers.
Wild One: The Very Best of Thin Lizzy is a 1996 compilation album by Irish rock band Thin Lizzy. It was released ten years after the death of frontman Phil Lynott in 1986 as a tribute to him.
Vagabonds Kings Warriors Angels is a 2001 4-disc set by Irish rock group Thin Lizzy, which also contains a book chronicling the life of the band and music in some detail, with rare photos and a discography. The set was packaged in a longbox format with the booklet fixed inside like a book.
Eric Wrixon was a musician from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a founding member of Them and Thin Lizzy. He came up with the band name "Them", but as he was a minor his parents declined to sign a recording contract on his behalf and he was replaced in July 1964 prior to recording with the band. By August 1965, he had completed his studies and very briefly returned to Them.
One Night in Dublin: A Tribute to Phil Lynott is a live DVD by Gary Moore credited to "Gary Moore and Friends".
The following is a discography of Thin Lizzy, an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Originally led by frontman, bass guitarist, songwriter and singer Phil Lynott, their most commercially successful songs are "The Boys Are Back in Town", "Whiskey in the Jar" and "Jailbreak", all major international hits still played regularly on hard rock and classic rock radio stations.
This is the discography of the Northern Irish blues, heavy metal and hard rock guitarist and singer-songwriter Gary Moore.
Hey... Bo Diddley: In Concert is a 1986 live album by Bo Diddley, recorded on a European tour. His backing band for the performances on the album were Mainsqueeze, featuring guitarist Eric Bell, previously of Thin Lizzy, and Dick Heckstall-Smith, the jazz and blues saxophonist. Other members of the band included bass guitarist Keith Tillman, who, like Heckstall-Smith, had previously played with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers; and drummer Leonard "Stretch" Stretching, who had performed with Marvin Gaye and Tom Waits.