Black History Month Music: Phil Lynott

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Not much to report from yesterday, just some driving and visiting tornado memorials from the 2011 Super Outbreak. I also took a nap in the new car, and I need a softer pad. I’m off to sites in Montgomery today, but first, another musician to celebrate Black History Month with. Phil Lynott I hear you already: “You skipped Jimi Hendrix for him?” Well, everyone knows Hendrix, and I never saw Hendrix live. I did see Phil Lynott live. Phil, to put your searching mind at ease, was the front man for Thin Lizzy. This is so cool in every respect: an Irish black guy playing hard rock. Yes, I saw Thin Lizzy, as part of my second-ever rock concert (Summer Jam II in Louisville in 1978), and they were far and away the best act that day. Lynott’s problem, like many on this and every other musician list, had a bad drug problem. He was reportedly rather shy onstage, so I guess he took the drugs to give him “courage.” As often happens, it stopped giving him courage and started giving him medical issues. On Christmas Day, 1983, Lynott collapsed at his mother’s home. He was taken to a hospital, where he was discovered to have sepsis caused by the organs failing from all of the heroin they’d been fed. He died eleven days later, just 36 years old. In America, Thin Lizzy is best known for “The Boys Are Back in Town” and the “novelty” of having a black man front a hard rock band. They were so much more than either of those things. Phil Lynott Born Philip Parris Lynott, August 20, 1949, West Bromwich, Sandwell, England Died January 4, 1986, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England (sepsis/multiple organ failure) (age 36) Another great Thin Lizzy song, “Jailbreak”: