Thin Lizzy: Eric Bell to receive NI Music Prize’s Legend Award

Bell started to play guitar in a popular Irish showbands, but it was a move to Dublin that led to the birth of Thin Lizzy.

He saw Phil Lynott and drummer Brian Downey in the changing room of a music club in Dublin.

“We talked for a while and we thought we’d get a sort of jam together to see how we would work with each other musically,” he said.

Thin Lizzy also had a keyboard player – Eric Wrixon – for a while, but soon became a three-piece with Lynott, previously a singer, starting to play bass too.

“The very first rehearsal Phil started playing the bass, and at one point I don’t think he knew what key he was in!” Bell said.

“But there was something there, a telepathy sort of thing.”

Their first big hit, Whiskey in the Jar, features a guitar intro from Bell that is still instantly recognisable.

But, according to Bell, it was a bit of an accidental hit.

It was originally planned as a B-side for their first single for the record company Decca.

“We were in the studio and Phil sang a rough vocal and then we went in to listen to it,” he recalled.

“We thought it was a joke basically.”

Thin Lizzy got the news that the song had hit the charts when they were on tour in Germany.