March 26 – Thin Lizzy Break Through

Ireland’s bad boys of rock broke out in a big way on this day in 1976. Thin Lizzy’s Jailbreak was released 43 years ago today. It was the band’s 6th studio album, and one Vertigo Records clearly told them was their “make or break” effort. Happily for their fans, it succeeded in making the band headliners… thanks in part to just two guys across the ocean in Kentucky.

Think Lizzy had formed in Ireland some seven years earlier. Although Irish hard rock bands are probably scarce enough to begin with, Lizzy was unusual as well for among other things, having an American guitarist (Scott Gorham), a Black lead singer (Phil Lynott) and in their incorporation of traditional Irish folk in their music, ala Van Morrison. In fact their first hit domestically was their take on an old Irish folk tune, “Whiskey in a Jar.”

That song had been a #1 hit in Eire and a hit across the strait in Britain as well, but beyond that the first half-dozen years and five albums had not done much commercially. Vertigo Records were getting tired of waiting and pushed them back into the studio mere months after their fifth album, Fighting had come out. Jailbreak continued on that album’s strengths, such as the dual guitars up front giving them an ultra-heavy sound for the time, and Lynott’s increasing hold over the band’s direction, giving the record, as allmusic would later say, a “cohesive sound.”

Although the album gave the group their biggest hit, and as well delivered a classic rock staple in the title track (VH1 would later grade “Jailbreak” among their top 100 hard rock songs of all-time), the choice of the first single was one few heard. “Running Back” was the producer, John Alcock’s favorite, but also one which he put his thumbprint on more than the rest. He felt the original rather too rocky, and brought in keyboards and produced a much more pop-sounding song he hoped would be radio-friendly. Not friendly about it was guitarist Brian Robertson, who liked the original take, and called the finished product “bollocks,” walking out on the band for a bit. He’d be fired by his bandmates later that year, and would go on to record a version that sounded like his take of the song some 35 years later.

“Running Back” might have had polish, and Lynott’s approval – he thought it sounded reminiscent of Van the Man – but it didn’t win over many fans. Neither did the interestingly country-tinged “Cowboy Song” which would become a single. And while Lynott seemed quite proud of “Warriors”, his label no doubt shied away from the song which he wrote as a tip of the cap to “heavy drug users”, saying “people like Hendrix and Duane Allman were perfectly aware of the position they were getting into…it was a conscious decision to go out and take the thing as far as it can go.”

It might have been the end of the band, were it not for one tune they didn’t even especially seem to like. “The Boys Are Back in Town” was originally just an album track the label figured too “aggressive” for radio, but when they were touring the States, two Louisville DJ’s took to it and played the song incessantly. This of course, was back in the Johnny Fever era when DJ’s could often do things like play whatever they felt like playing! It caught on in the Kentucky city, then nearby areas of the Midwest and soon the label decided maybe it wasn’t too aggressive after all. The single quickly zoomed up to #12 in the U.S., #8 in both Canada and the UK and gave them their second, and last, chart-topper in their homeland. That helped the album hit the North american top 20 and go gold in the U.S., Canada and Britain as well. It would be their only major hit on this side of the Atlantic.

Reviews at the time were middling. The Village Voice graded it B- and compared it to “boring” Springsteen cast-off songs and a number of publications seemed to miss the release entirely, perhaps not surprisingly given the band’s low sales to that point. retroactively, the album has gained stature and allmusic would go on to give it a perfect 5-star rating, best in the band’s catalog, calling it “where the band truly took flight” and loving Lynott who “hit his peak as a songwriter… a rough rebel with the heart of a poet.”

The follow-up album, Johnny the Fox a few months later, failed to capitalize on the opening and flopped, but Thin Lizzy were set and kept going until 1983 (a couple of years before Lynott died from complications of pneumonia) and became one of the bigger concert draws around. Their touring entourage was larger than the studio band, and among the musicians who played with them live were a pre-News Huey Lewis and Ultravox’s Midge Ure.