Lunedì 17 Mar 2008, 16:29

Eric Bell / "Irish Boy" / Irish Boy (7) / Jan 2008

Artist: Eric Bell
Original Album: Irish Boy
Track: Irish Boy

Born in Dublin, Eric Bell was the original lead guitarist for Thin Lizzy, and played on the band's first three albums: Thin Lizzy, Shades of a Blue Orphanage and Vagabonds of the Western World. While not as blazing as the guitar on latter-day Thin Lizzy albums, that takes nothing away from his playing. It's his warm, firey guitar that makes Whiskey in the Jar go down like a shot of the stuff itself.

I've seen some information that this was originally released in Europe at the end of the 90s, but I have never heard of it until recently.

IMHO, this is the album's best track, concerning the yearnings of an Irish lad far from his native green. Bell's guitar is meandering and melancholy, bittersweet and hopeful.

So, any Irish in me? Yes! Ulster Irish, which perhaps explains in part my contrarian nature. In fact, I'm a contradictory mashup in heritage as much as in tastes: half English, fourth Scots-Irish, fourth German. The Scots-Irish branch of the tree hails from County Donegal, the most northern county in Ireland yet not part of Northern Ireland. Those ancestors emigrated to the colonies in the 18th century.

\m/ (♣_♣) \m/