As a founding member of Thin Lizzy and the band’s original guitarist, Eric Bell’s six-string talents accentuated the trio’s first three albums: 1971’s Thin Lizzy, 1972’s Shades of a Blue Orphanage, and 1973’s Vagabonds of the Western World.
If those don’t ring a bell, to be specific, it’s Bell’s fiery chops that you hear on Lizzy’s iconic cover of “Whiskey in the Jar.” Since leaving Lizzy in 1973, Bell has done his best to champion Ireland’s bluesy past, present, and future… with a rock ‘n’ roll twist. “Ireland has always seemingly had the blues around,” Bell tells ClassicRockHistory.com.
“Belfast was buzzing with it,” he adds. “It’s fabulous. It’s still got a lot of blues, and so does the rest of Northern Ireland. It’s very popular. I don’t know why, they don’t seem to be into folk music the way Southern Ireland and Dublin us. Belfast always was and is interested in the blues.”
To that end, Bell has a new—and very bluesy—record called Authenticity, the title of which came via one of Belfast’s blues-loving listeners. “For some reason, one night,” Bell says. “I was playing in London, and a girl came up to me and said, ‘Oh, your band sounds very authentic.’ I started hearing this word everywhere I went; it’s like a new word in society. So, I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll call the album Authenticity.’”
Bell says that, despite his stature in Ireland’s rock and blues scenes, it has been hard for him to step out of Thin Lizzy’s shadow. For a long time, this meant that most of his live setlists were filled with Thin Lizzy covers.
But not anymore, as Bell’s confidence in his songwriting has finally come head-to-head with his guitar playing. “It’s mostly my songs, and a few Lizzy covers,” he explains. “The whole is basically geared toward improvisation. That’s the way I present it, which I love.”
“I love having to wonder what I’m going to play,” he says. “Sometimes, you’re in that frame of mind and body, and it just pours out. And then, some other nights, it’s a little bit different, you know? But I really do enjoy it, it keeps me interested.”
What inspires you these days?
The Shadows. They’re one of my earliest influences, and I still love them. I find that there’s a million great guitar players out there, but I find them all pretty boring, to be honest with you. I don’t really listen to new rock music much, so if I’m trying to get my rocks off, I actually still put on the early Shadows music. It sounds old-fashioned, or dated, but I still get a real buzz, and a chill up my back listening to that type of stuff.
Why do modern guitar players bore you?
Everybody is just playing the blues, but with a bit of distortion, and sometimes, as fast as possible, like electric typewriters. [laughs] But don’t me wrong—all these players are great; it’s just the way they play doesn’t do anything for me. I listen, and go, “Yeah, he knows what he’s doing, but there’s nothing there that makes me go, ‘Wow.’”
Can you describe the type of player that you are for new listeners?
I don’t know… I remember when I was in Thin Lizzy, and we came over to London from Ireland, and recorded our first album and released it, all the critics said, “This band has no sense of direction. Every track is different, blah blah blah.” We said, “So what?” And it’s the same with my album. Every track is different. Why not?
Are you still using the same Fender Strat from your Thin Lizzy days?
Yeah, because I just like the sound of the guitar to be sort of pure. And that guitar is about 53 years old now. I bought it brand new when Thin Lizzy first started because I had a white Strat that was falling apart, and the manager suggested I get a new guitar. So, I got this Fender Stratocaster in 1972, and I’ve been playing it ever since. I still play it. It’s a beautiful guitar.
Digging into the tracks on Authenticity, what’s the story behind “Tale of Thin Lizzy?”
That’s exactly what happened, you know, the whole thing. It’s basically like an autobiography; it’s exactly what happened. Like, the whole song is true. I left the show band I was in, went to a club called Countdown, had my first trip on acid, met Philip [Lynott], and we decided to get a band together. That song tells the whole story of what happened. It’s all in the song.
How about “Honeycomb Nights?” What’s the backstory of that track?
When I was a kid, maybe about eight or nine years of age, I’d be playing out in the street with some of my friends, and it would start becoming evening time. And around that time, I could sort of sense the smell in the air, which was like honeycomb. So, a few years ago, I was thinking about that, and why it was.
So, what we used to do in Belfast was we’d only have one fire because there was no central heating, it was just one fire in this one room in the house. My parents used to light the fire, and sometimes, it wouldn’t catch; it just wouldn’t happen. So, they would get a big handful of sugar, white sugar, and throw it on the flames, and then, the fire would start igniting.
I got this idea of all the houses in Belfast doing this, and then, the smell of the burnt sugar would go up the chimney and go out into the street. And then, there’d be hundreds and hundreds of houses doing this, and that’s what the song is really about. It’s about throwing sugar on the fire, it going up the chimney, and that sweet smell is spreading while I was out playing with my friends.
What’s the meaning behind “I Wasn’t Born in the Delta?”
Yeah, that’s just a funny one. There are lots of blues groups in Belfast, in Ireland, there are loads. I’ve played quite a few gigs around Ireland, and sometimes, there are bands on with us, support bands. One night, before we went onstage, this blues band was playing, and the guy from Ireland was singing, “I was born in the Delta,” and I thought, “No you fucking weren’t.” [laughs]
You know, he lived on that same street in Ireland. [laughs] But that stuck in my head, so I thought it would be a funny take on a blues song, saying, “I wasn’t born in the Delta.” But I’ve still had my share of blues, you know? The nine-to-five jobs I had were absolutely bizarre, so I’ve had the blues myself, even though I wasn’t born in the Delta.
Do you have plans to tour behindAuthenticity?
I have a band called the Eric Bell Trio. As of now, we’re doing shows, and we do one track off the album, “I Wasn’t Born in the Delta.” But the rest of the tracks that I do now, probably nine or ten, are still my own songs. But that took forever for me to do because most people aren’t interested in hearing new songs; they just want Thin Lizzy covers.
It took me forever to actually have the confidence and the nerve to go into a club and play a lot of my own songs. It took a lot for me to get the courage to do that, but there’s hundreds of Thin Lizzy cover bands all over the world. Thank God they’re keeping the name alive, but I just do three Lizzy songs, and the rest is blues, and a few rock numbers done a certain way.
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Sarah McLachlan began her musical journey in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where her classical training in voice, piano, and guitar helped shape the sound that would later become her signature. Signed to Vancouver-based Nettwerk Music Group while still in her teens, she relocated across Canada and released her debut album, Touch, in 1988. The album garnered early attention with songs like “Vox,” which hinted at her future as a deeply emotional and technically gifted songwriter. It marked the beginning of a career that would span decades and elevate her to global acclaim.
McLachlan’s second album, Solace (1991), expanded her audience and deepened her lyrical scope. Songs like “Into the Fire” and “The Path of Thorns (Terms)” captured both spiritual yearning and romantic complexity, and the album was a critical and commercial success in Canada. Her introspective lyricism and ethereal vocals struck a chord with listeners seeking authenticity and vulnerability in pop and alternative music.
Her breakthrough came with the 1993 release of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, which marked a major leap in both production and songwriting. Produced by Pierre Marchand, a frequent collaborator who helped shape her atmospheric sound, the album included tracks such as “Possession,” “Hold On,” and “Good Enough.” The international success of the record solidified her presence on the global music stage, especially in the U.S. and Europe, where she gained a devoted fanbase. The album’s emotionally intense subject matter, including references to obsession, grief, and personal resilience, revealed the depth and ambition of McLachlan’s artistry.
By the time Surfacing arrived in 1997, McLachlan had become a household name. Released during the height of the Lilith Fair concert tour she founded, the album was both a commercial juggernaut and a creative high point. “Building a Mystery,” “Adia,” “Sweet Surrender,” and “Angel” all became major radio hits, and the album won four Juno Awards and two Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Instrumental Performance and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. “Angel,” in particular, became an enduring classic—used in film, television, and charitable campaigns—its haunting piano melody and lyrical sorrow emblematic of McLachlan’s ability to transmute grief into beauty.
Beyond her solo work, McLachlan made an indelible mark on the music industry with the creation of Lilith Fair, a groundbreaking all-female music festival launched in 1997. At a time when many promoters refused to book women back-to-back, McLachlan responded by creating an event that celebrated female musicians across genres. Lilith Fair became a cultural touchstone, touring from 1997 to 1999 and grossing tens of millions while giving a platform to artists such as Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman, and Jewel. It wasn’t just a concert—it was a movement.
In 2003, McLachlan returned with Afterglow, featuring the hit single “Fallen.” Though more subdued than her previous records, the album demonstrated artistic maturity and vulnerability. While it didn’t match the blockbuster success of Surfacing, it went multi-platinum in several countries and earned multiple Juno nominations. She followed it in 2006 with Wintersong, a holiday album featuring traditional carols and original songs. Her rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “River” became a seasonal staple.
McLachlan’s ability to blend sorrow and solace remained at the core of her appeal. Whether singing of loss, personal transformation, or spiritual transcendence, her music provided comfort to millions. She consistently addressed difficult emotional terrain with grace, a skill that resonated not just with listeners, but with critics who praised her vocal control and nuanced performances.
Her 2010 album Laws of Illusion came after a period of personal upheaval, including a divorce. The album was deeply autobiographical, exploring themes of separation, rebuilding, and emotional survival. Though it received mixed reviews, it reaffirmed her commitment to personal storytelling and further deepened her bond with longtime fans.
In 2014, McLachlan released Shine On, a project inspired in part by the loss of her father. Songs such as “In Your Shoes” and “Song for My Father” displayed a renewed sense of energy and optimism, mixed with her trademark melancholy. The album debuted in the top five on the Canadian Albums Chart and was supported by an extensive North American tour. That same year, she was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, a recognition of her contributions to the national and global music landscape.
Over the course of her career, McLachlan has sold over 40 million albums worldwide and earned three Grammy Awards and over a dozen Juno Awards. But her influence extends far beyond record sales. She has been a tireless advocate for women in music, mental health awareness, and animal welfare. Her long-standing partnership with the ASPCA brought her face—and voice—to one of the most recognizable and emotionally resonant public service campaigns in television history.
In 2002, she founded the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, which provides free music education to underserved youth in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Surrey. The school stands as one of her most lasting contributions outside of music, blending her belief in the transformative power of art with her commitment to community impact.
Though McLachlan has scaled back the frequency of her album releases in recent years, her touring remains active, and she continues to appear at benefit concerts, television specials, and musical collaborations. Her influence can be heard in a generation of singer-songwriters who followed in her wake—artists who prioritize lyrical depth, atmospheric production, and emotional truth.
Sarah McLachlan’s career has never been about flash or trend-chasing. It’s been about clarity, craftsmanship, and connection. She has built a legacy rooted in empathy, artistry, and advocacy—and in doing so, has earned a place not just on the charts, but in the hearts of millions who see their own stories reflected in her voice.
Complete List Of Sarah McLachlan Songs From A to Z
Adia – Surfacing – 1997
Amazing Grace – Wonderland – 2016
Angel – Surfacing – 1997
Angels We Have Heard on High – Wonderland – 2016
Answer – Afterglow – 2003
Away in a Manger – Wonderland – 2016
Awakenings – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Back Door Man – Solace – 1991
Beautiful Girl – Shine On – 2014
Ben’s Song – Touch – 1988
Ben’s Song (78 remix) – Touch – 1988
Black – Solace – 1991
Black & White – Surfacing – 1997
Brink of Destruction – Shine On – 2014
Bring on the Wonder – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Broken Heart – Shine On – 2014
Building a Mystery – Surfacing – 1997
Changes – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Christmas Time Is Here – Wintersong – 2006
The Christmas Song – Wonderland – 2016
Circle – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Dirty Little Secret – Afterglow – 2003
Do What You Have to Do – Surfacing – 1997
Don’t Give Up on Us – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Drawn to the Rhythm – Solace – 1991
Drifting – Afterglow – 2003
Elsewhere – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Fallen – Afterglow – 2003
Fear – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
The First Noel / Mary Mary – Wintersong – 2006
Flesh and Blood – Shine On – 2014
Forgiveness – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Full of Grace – Surfacing – 1997
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Go Tell It on the Mountain – Wonderland – 2016
Good Enough – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – Wintersong – 2006
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Wintersong – 2006
Heartbreak – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Hold On – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Home – Solace – 1991
Huron Carol – Wonderland – 2016
I Love You – Surfacing – 1997
I Will Not Forget You – Solace – 1991
I’ll Be Home for Christmas – Wintersong – 2006
Ice – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Ice Cream – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Illusions of Bliss – Laws of Illusion – 2010
In the Bleak Mid-Winter – Wintersong – 2006
In Your Shoes – Shine On – 2014
Into the Fire – Solace – 1991
Last Dance – Surfacing – 1997
Let It Snow – Wonderland – 2016
Little B – Shine On – 2014
Lost – Solace – 1991
Love Beside Me – Shine On – 2014
Love Come – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Loving You Is Easy – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Mary – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Mercy – Solace – 1991
Monsters – Shine On – 2014
O Come All Ye Faithful – Wonderland – 2016
O Holy Night – Wonderland – 2016
O Little Town of Bethlehem – Wintersong – 2006
Out of the Shadows – Touch – 1988
Out of Tune – Laws of Illusion – 2010
The Path of Thorns (Terms) – Solace – 1991
Perfect Girl – Afterglow – 2003
Plenty – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Possession – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Push – Afterglow – 2003
River – Wintersong – 2006
Rivers of Love – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Sad Clown – Touch – 1988
Shelter – Solace – 1991
Silent Night – Wintersong – 2006
Silver Bells – Wonderland – 2016
Snow – Wonderland – 2016
Song for a Winter’s Night – Wintersong – 2006
Song for My Father – Shine On – 2014
The Sound that Love Makes – Shine On – 2014
Steaming – Touch – 1988
Strange World – Touch – 1988
Stupid – Afterglow – 2003
Surrender and Certainty – Shine On – 2014
Sweet Surrender – Surfacing – 1997
Time – Afterglow – 2003
Touch – Touch – 1988
Train Wreck – Afterglow – 2003
Turn the Lights Down Low – Shine On – 2014
U Want Me 2 – Laws of Illusion – 2010
Uphill Battle – Touch – 1988
Vox – Touch – 1988
Vox (extended remix) – Touch – 1988
Wait – Fumbling Towards Ecstasy – 1993
Wear Your Love Like Heaven – Solace – 1991
What Child Is This? (Greensleeves) – Wintersong – 2006
What’s It Gonna Take – Shine On – 2014
White Christmas – Wonderland – 2016
Winter Wonderland – Wonderland – 2016
Wintersong – Wintersong – 2006
Witness – Surfacing – 1997
World on Fire – Afterglow – 2003
Albums
Touch (1988): 10 songs
Solace (1991): 11 songs
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy (1993): 12 songs
Surfacing (1997): 10 songs
Afterglow (2003): 10 songs
Wintersong (2006): 12 songs
Laws of Illusion (2010): 12 songs
Shine On (2014): 13 songs
Wonderland (2016): 13 songs
Check out our fantastic and entertaining Sarah McLachlan articles, detailing in-depth the band’s albums, songs, band members, and more…all on ClassicRockHistory.com
“Gary was so talented it actually haunted him. He wasn’t really in control of what was coming through him. That sort of thing always comes at a price”: How guitar icon Gary Moore snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with his early 80s solo albums
In the summer of 1984, Gary Moore was 32 and living off his reputation as one of the greatest guitarists in Britain. But so what? He’d been hearing about how great he was on guitar since he was 10 years old and playing in Irish showbands. That wasn’t what kept him up at night scowling.
With his disconcertingly scarred face (the result of a pub-fight glassing he was too wasted to remember the next morning) and overeager-Spaniel hair (the result, common at the time, of long-haired 70s rockers updating their haircuts to accommodate the rock-is-dead 80s), Moore appeared a haunted figure, both on stage, where his playing was intensely aggressive even at its most tender moments, and, especially, off stage, where even old friends sometimes came away a little frightened.
“Gary enjoyed success,” guitarist Eric Bell, his boyhood friend and predecessor in Thin Lizzy, told me. “But I don’t know if he was ever really happy. He was a perfectionist, but it was often to his own detriment.”
Moore walked out on his first professional band, Skid Row, on the eve of a US tour, citing frustration with their “limitations”. He was 19 and “very mixed up”. Or as Lizzy’s leader Phil Lynott said: “Gary’s the most contrary c**t I know.”
Belfast-born Moore was the son of a protestant concert promoter. His career began in Dublin working with predominantly Catholic musicians. Naturally left-handed, he had taught himself to play right-handed. “He was always looking gift horses in the mouth,” said Lynott.
Moore shared a bedsit in Dublin with Lynott, who was three years older and a lifetime tougher, having grown up the only black kid in school. Moore saw Lynott as “like a big brother. He would cook breakfast and take me to the best market stalls to buy cheap stage clothes”.
Lynott had formed Thin Lizzy, featuring guitarist Bell, in ’69. They released their self-titled debut album in ’71 and relocated to London.
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Moore formed his own group, the Gary Moore Band, whose debut album, Grinding Stone, came out in ’73. Unlike Lizzy’s heightened blend of Irish roots music, Gaelic poetry and the new electric rock, Grinding Stone was a heady brew of Jeff Beck Group blues, Mahavishnu Orchestra fusion and the Allman Brothers. It was neither a commercial nor critical hit.
Gary Moore (left) with Thin Lizzy in 1974 (Image credit: Michael Putland/Getty Images)
That same year, Lizzy broke through with their wised-up version of Whiskey In The Jar: No.1 in Ireland, No.6 in the UK. But their next album was their third flop in a row. When a disillusioned Bell walked out after a bad acid trip on stage, Moore seemed the obvious replacement. He jumped at the chance, disbanding the Gary Moore Band on the spot. True to form, however, Moore ditched Lynott and Lizzy after one flop single, Little Darling, which had Moore’s Beck-inspired fireworks on full display.
“Gary always had his own thing going on,” says Lizzy drummer Brian Downey. “He didn’t see himself playing second fiddle to anyone, not even Phil.”
Maybe Moore had simply grown impatient with Lizzy’s ‘limitations’, because his next musical move was to join jazz-rock drummer Jon Hiseman in Colosseum II, a prog-oriented, mainly instrumental band that included keyboard player Don Airey and bassist Neil Murray, future go-to session guys for every major British band of the 80s, including various Gary Moore albums. Between 1976 and ’78, Moore co-wrote, played lead guitar and occasionally sang on four Colosseum II albums. The beard-stroking plaudits were many; the record sales pitifully few.
When Brian Robertson, who with Scott Gorham had replaced Moore in Lizzy, cut his hand so badly in a barroom fight that it was thought he might never play guitar again, Moore, at Lynott’s urging, agreed to take Robbo’s spot for a 1977 US tour with Queen. The second Colosseum II album had just been released, but Lizzy were huge at the time and, Gary confessed: “I found the idea of a couple of months of five-star hotels and limos very appealing.”
Gary Moore onstage at London’s Alexandra Palace in 1973 (Image credit: David Warner Ellis/Redferns/Getty Images)
When, in August 1978, fiery Robbo talked himself out of the band again, Lynott immediately phoned Moore and told him he was back, no arguments allowed.
“When Gary left Colosseum II he didn’t even tell me,” says Airey. “Then I was doing a Black Sabbath session and I heard Gary was in the next-door studio. I went in and there he was in a white satin jacket, white trousers, flowery shirt.
“He was embarrassed to see me. So we never mentioned him leaving. I said: ‘Right, I better get back to Ozzy. See you soon, eh?’ Then I didn’t see him again for two years.”
The next nine months turned Gary Moore into the hottest guitarist in the coolest rock band in the country. Black Rose, Moore’s only full Lizzy album, included three hit singles and went to No.2. The sight of them on The Kenny Everett Video Show blasting out Waiting For An Alibi while draped in Hot Gossip dancers helped establish Moore as an upgrade on Robbo. Moore held the same menace, but had more flash; scar-faced white lightning in skintight pants and gangster shades.
This was a new career peak for Moore. He’d recorded a solo album, Back On The Streets, that featured both Lynott and Downey. Lynott and Downey also joined for what became the album’s hit single, Parisienne Walkways. Sandwiched in the UK chart between Waiting For An Alibi (No.9) and Do Anything You Want To (No.14), Parisienne Walkways (No.8) was more than just pop-catchy – it was rock-immortal.
It was also in 1979 that Moore met former Deep Purple singer/bassist Glenn Hughes. Lizzy were in Los Angeles, where Hughes now lived, readying for a US tour. Scott Gorham introduced them at LA’s numero-uno rock star hangout, the Rainbow, and by the end of a very long night they were best buds till the end.
When, five months later, Moore stormed off stage after Lizzy’s set in front of 63,000 at the Day On The Green Festival in San Francisco, it came as a shock to everyone. Except Moore.
“It got to the point where the party after the show was more important than the show itself,” Eric Bell says.
When Lynott was so wasted he began forgetting lyrics, Moore decided he’d enough.
“There was never any half-measures with Gary.” Bell says. “Such a nice guy on our own, laughing and joking. But if he didn’t like something he’d soon tell you to fuck off.”
With Moore hiding out at Hughes’s place, AWOL from Lizzy, the two talked about starting their own band, to be called G-Force – geddit?
The self-titled G-Force album, released in May 1980, was heavily tipped for the top but sank without trace, helped on its way by the fact that Hughes was nowhere to be found on it – not instrumentally, not vocally, not even any co-writer credits. The two Gs had fallen out after a heavily coked-and-boozed Hughes tumbled over a table at his birthday party and Moore had laughed. They didn’t speak again for years.
Gary Moore in 1979 (Image credit: Mirrorpix/Getty)
Moore was used to people he worked with smoking dope and snorting coke; it was the 70s. But despite an over-fondness for downers when he was younger, Moore didn’t do drugs. He was a drinker. So he tolerated Hughes’s coke habit. Hughes recalls: “Gary didn’t tell me not to do it until 1984, when I was properly high around him.”
After G-Force there was talk of hooking up with Ozzy, who’d been sacked from Sabbath. But Moore didn’t want to be somebody else’s guitarist any more. Born under the sign of Aries, the ram. Zodiac element: Fire. Sign ruler: Mars. Gary Moore was a natural-born leader.
“Gary always hogged the stage,” Downey says. “Even in Thin Lizzy. Phil was the leader – except when Gary joined. Now it was like we had two leaders, which wasn’t very clever.”
Moore returned to London, and in 1982 released his second solo album, Corridors Of Power, another expertly dealt stack of cards with Moore back on lead vocals. But his reputation in the UK was still as the disgraced Thin Lizzy guitarist. The album barely scratched the Top 30.
Hughes also staged a comeback in 1982, teaming up with super-god American guitarist Pat Thrall to create one of the great lost masterpieces, the album Hughes/Thrall.
“Gary was a massive Hughes/Thrall fan,” Hughes says. “He’d completely forgotten about the G-Force incident.”
In the summer of ’84, Moore was touring US arenas opening for Rush, before coming ‘home’ in August to appear at the Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington. His latest album, Victims Of The Future, had found a winning formula that fitted the Kerrang! crowd – guitar-heavy rock blended with American-flavoured pop-metal – and had a woulda-coulda-shoulda hit in the power ballad Empty Rooms. It was his first UK Top 20 album, despite Empty Rooms failing to reach the Top 50. A first headline solo show at London’s Hammersmith Odeon followed. Then a headline solo Japanese tour.
With a week to kill in LA on the Rush tour, Moore had arranged to stay at Hughes’s palatial Northridge mansion. The only snag was that his host was now a full-time, pipe-sucking crack addict. Hughes “put the pipe down” for a few days while he showered, shaved and tried to “look like a normal guy – for Gary”.
The illusion held long enough to persuade Moore that another team-up with Hughes could work. So the seeds were sewn for what would become Moore’s pinnacle 80s solo album: Run For Cover.
There would be more albums to come on which Moore incorporated trad-Irish rhythms, pure American blues, burlesque pop-electronica, even drum’n’bass into his sound, but he never made another true-blue rock album like Run For Cover. He’d walked out.
Gary Moore in 1984 (Image credit: Fin Costello/Getty)
When Hughes flew into London to begin work, Moore’s manager insisted that Glenn lay down some collateral. “In case I fucked up.” They took one of his cars, a black Volvo he kept as a runaround. In return, Hughes was given at a luxury flat to stay in while the two began writing material. Material that Hughes would later receive no credit for, he explained, because Moore “controlled every aspect – from the syncopation of your bass, to what notes you play, to what you sing”.
Once, Hughes screamed at him: “Why don’t you play the fucking bass yourself?” So Moore did.
Moore adored Hughes’s singing voice, and decided all lead vocals would be split between them 50-50. Hughes would eventually sing lead on four of the album’s 10 tracks.
Moore was such a Hughes/Thrall fan, according to Hughes, that the title track, Run For Cover, was “basically a rip-off of I Got Your Number”, the opening track on Hughes/Thrall. In his 2011 memoir, Hughes writes: “I Got Your Number was a huge influence on Gary. You can definitely hear it on Run For Cover.”
It was true, especially the tracks Hughes sings on, like the strutting Reach For The Sky or the swaggering Nothing To Lose or, best of all, the sassy All Messed Up. Even the freshly frosted Empty Rooms shone like new.
But with Hughes jonesing for crack and Moore oblivious to his pain, the tension in the studio quickly escalated. Hughes would wait for Moore to leave for the weekend, then hit the Embassy Club in Mayfair with Lemmy, who “could handle his drugs, I couldn’t”. Hughes was also midnight feasting, and at one point tipped the scales at 220 pounds/15 and a half stones.
He had originally sung lead on the new Empty Rooms. When Moore’s manager insisted Hughes lose weight and get his teeth fixed in order for them to perform it on Top Of The Pops, it led to a full physical examination. When blood-test results revealed the hideous truth of what Hughes had been up to in his spare time, he recalled: “I was on the next fucking plane. There was no conversation about it. I was gone.”
Needless to say the Hughes version of Empty Rooms never saw the light of day. When a still disgruntled Moore ‘revealed’ in an interview that Hughes had a food addiction, calling him Mr Creosote, “it really hurt me”, Hughes confessed. Moore was “not a man to fuck with. He didn’t have the scars on his face for nothing.”
Another estranged friend that Run For Cover would reconnect Gary with was Phil Lynott. Moore had guested one night on Lizzy’s official farewell tour the year before. Lynott spent all of ’84 trying to get a new band, Grand Slam, off the ground, but there were no takers. Meanwhile, it was common knowledge that Lynott was filling the void with heroin.
When Moore embarked on a four-night run in Ireland that Christmas – two in Belfast, two in Dublin – he invited his ‘big brother’ to come on for the encores each night and do Parisienne Walkways. Back in London, in January ’85, Moore invited Lynott to join him in the studio to record a track he wanted them to do together. It was called Out In The Fields, a song about equality based on the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Phil, though, had endured a “heavy Christmas” and was in bad shape. Moore once described him as “one of the most charismatic and charming fellers you could ever hope to meet, a real Irish gentleman”, quickly adding: “Unless you got on the wrong side of him, of course, and then he could be a real fucker.”
The Lynott in the studio that day, however, was different. “Phil in the early days was always the first guy in the studio and the last guy out. Such a workaholic. But when the drugs kicked in I saw a big change. He’d start each day with a spliff in one hand and a glass of whisky in the other.”
Gary Moore and Phil Lynott in 1985 (Image credit: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo)
Losing Thin Lizzy had affected Lynott deeply. Now his wife, Caroline, had left him too. “Without his wife and his kids, Phil was living on his own in this big house with a bunch of leeches,” Moore seethed. “Dealers and smack-heads.”
Moore begged. “Please, Phil… Saying I loved him and how I really wanted him to stop. He’d be like: ‘Oh yeah, I’m gonna do it but I’m not gonna do it overnight.’ Then the next day he’d be back to his old tricks.”
When the Out In The Fields single went Top 5 in June, it not only transformed Moore’s career, it also opened doors to a new solo deal for Lynott. “John Sykes said: ‘Oh, it’s really nice of you to work with Phil,’” Moore recalled. “But I didn’t see it as doing Phil a favour. It was his packaging of the whole thing which helped to make it such a big hit. The military uniforms we wore during the promotion were Phil’s idea. He had a gift for marketing, a great sense of how to sell to an audience.”
When Run For Cover was released in September, Moore toured the UK, and Lynott guested on Parisienne Walkways and Out In The Fields at Manchester Apollo and both nights at Hammersmith Odeon. “No pressure, no hard work, no hassle, but plenty of limelight and a great excuse to get wasted every night. I knew what he was up to,” Moore said.
The new Empty Rooms was the follow-up single to Out In The Fields. It reached No.23, didn’t become the hit that Moore thought it should have been.
“Gary was so talented I think it actually haunted him,” says Don Airey. “Once he got the guitar on, he seemed to connect. But he wasn’t really in control of what was coming through him. He couldn’t stop it. He was a genius, really. That sort of thing always comes at a price.”
Mick Wall is the UK’s best-known rock writer, author and TV and radio programme maker, and is the author of numerous critically-acclaimed books, including definitive, bestselling titles on Led Zeppelin (When Giants Walked the Earth), Metallica (Enter Night), AC/DC (Hell Ain’t a Bad Place To Be), Black Sabbath (Symptom of the Universe), Lou Reed, The Doors (Love Becomes a Funeral Pyre), Guns N’ Roses and Lemmy. He lives in England.
“I even received death threats – ‘Communist Swede, you think you’re so fantastic. Come to America!’ I’ve been there; the way it’s going now is not good”: If the new Flower Kings album offends you, Roine Stolt can live with that
(Image credit: Toby Photo)
A tale of death threats, accusations of being a Communist and the importance of Love: Roine Stolt talks about resisting formulas, looking beyond the boundaries of prog, and why he won’t compromise his creative vision with The Flower Kings.
There aren’t many musicians whose lives have been defined by music as completely as Roine Stolt’s. He joined Swedish prog flagbearers Kaipa aged just 17 and five decades later, he remains one of the genre’s most prolific composers and collaborators.
He recently tapped into the zeitgeist with Love, the 17th studio album from The Flower Kings, whom he founded in 1994. And for the bandleader, creating it has been his life’s calling.
“I just enjoy being in the zone,” he says. “At a younger age I was also painting, and I was going to go to art school, but then I was picked up by a band and we were playing 150 shows a year. So that became my profession, and I forgot about art school.”
With a career spanning over 50 years, he could be forgiven for resting on his laurels. The surviving artists who built progressive rock in the 1960s and 70s are either retiring or trying to finish as much work as possible while they still can.
THE FLOWER KINGS – Burning Both Edges (Official Video) – YouTube
“I maybe view it in a little bit of a different way,” Stolt says about the passing of the years. “Someone sent me a discography of recordings I’ve done. I started when I was 18 on my first album, and since then I think I’ve recorded 250 records. Even the guys in Yes and Genesis haven’t recorded that much!”
The catalogue spans Kaipa, The Flower Kings, The Tangent, Karmakanic, Agents Of Mercy, The Sea Within, Transatlantic and a joint album with Jon Anderson. It’s a body of work anyone would be proud of – but is it sufficient for someone consumed by the urge to compose?
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“Yeah, it’s enough,” says Stolt, “but I’m not saying I’m going to stop, because I enjoy recording. I enjoy writing songs. It’s not like I feel time running out in a dramatic way: ‘Oh, I need to write my last songs!’ I could be dead tomorrow, I might live 30 more years. I’ll keep on writing songs and recording and playing.
“I’m pretty happy where I am at the moment – I can still sit down by the piano and write songs and something new comes up. It doesn’t have to be the greatest song ever written; not a new Bohemian Rhapsody. I would love to, but that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m just looking to entertain myself and then I hope other people will be entertained too.”
Asked to describe the essence of The Flower Kings’ sound, he highlights a “strong element of melody,” adding: “There’s some element of Swedish folk music, some element of classical music, some element – not really of jazz, but more like fusion or a jam band thing.” For Stolt, it’s a balancing act between what the audience desires, where his bandmates are at musically, and what the record label needs to make a profit.
THE FLOWER KINGS – How Can You Leave Us Now? (OFFICIAL VIDEO) – YouTube
“I think it’s finding the right balance with being commercial. We want to sell albums, we want to go out and play to bigger audiences all the time – but I wouldn’t let my artistic vision suffer to do it.
“I think we’re unpredictable in The Flower Kings, whereas I can see with other bands on our label – Haken, Dream Theater, Spock’s Beard – that it’s more of a formula; you know what you get. With The Flower Kings, you don’t know what you get. It can be a challenge for the listener. We take the risk of people maybe not liking it: ‘I like Last Minute On Earth; why don’t you write more songs like that?’ I could never do that. I could never go back and just write a song to please them.”
You see countries having this love affair with fascist parties. You keep your fingers crossed that it’s not going that way again
Rather than looking to bands within his genre for inspiration, Stolt finds ideas further afield. “I’ve been listening to so much music that isn’t really progressive rock and it’s not rock’n’roll. I’ve taken bits and pieces of whatever I’ve heard over the years. It doesn’t matter if it’s Hungarian music or Japanese music, American country music or Swedish folk music; I put it in and we do it in The Flower Kings way with the instrumentation that we have. That makes us stand out a little bit.”
In a time of war in Europe and the Middle East, and political turbulence in the US, an album that loudly declares the importance of love seems like a political statement. Stolt says that’s up to the listener – not that he’s any stranger to receiving a backlash against what he’s written.
“At times I have been a little bit political and I’ve been put down,” he says. “People say, ‘I’m going to stop listening to your fucking Communist records!’ I even received death threats in Sweden. They say, ‘Communist Swede, you think you’re so fantastic. Come to America and you’ll see what we mean!’
“I’ve been to America many, many times and I’ve seen what’s good and what’s bad. The way it’s going now is not good. You see it in Europe: countries having this love affair with fascist parties. You just keep your fingers crossed that it’s not going that way. We’ve seen it 70, 80 years ago. God forbid it’s going that way again.”
The songs on Love include lyrics such as, ‘If we could bury hate, there’s nothing greater than the love we save’ in The Elder. The song Love Is includes: ‘Way too many didn’t heed the warnings as hate moves fast from door to door.’ It’s hard not to see that as a commentary on the rise of the far right.
‘I listened to the Flower Kings – they’re Communists from Sweden!’ They’re wrong, but what can I say?
“I wouldn’t say it’s a political album, but I can’t deny that’s what’s creeping in and where the world is going. It’s for each and every one to do whatever they want; if they’re offended, I have no problem with that – there are so many other bands they can listen to.
“‘I listened to this new Flower Kings and they’re fucking Communists from Sweden!’ They’re wrong, but what can I say? It is what it is. I see no other way of doing music. This is what we do.”
In the 1960s there was a sense that music could change the world for the better. It’s easy to be cynical, but The Flower Kings might have a point: in these uncertain times, perhaps Love is all we need. “I can see a small ray of light,” says Stolt. Long may it shine.
After starting his writing career covering the unforgiving world of MMA, David moved into music journalism at Rhythm magazine, interviewing legends of the drum kit including Ginger Baker and Neil Peart. A regular contributor to Prog, he’s written for Metal Hammer, The Blues, Country Music Magazine and more. The author of Chasing Dragons: An Introduction To The Martial Arts Film, David shares his thoughts on kung fu movies in essays and videos for 88 Films, Arrow Films, and Eureka Entertainment. He firmly believes Steely Dan’s Reelin’ In The Years is the tuniest tune ever tuned.
Feature Photo: Christian Bertrand / Shutterstock.com
Three teenage sisters from Mexico’s industrial heartland never imagined their bedroom jam sessions would evolve into commanding stages alongside Metallica and Guns N’ Roses. The Warning emerged from Monterrey in 2013 when the Villarreal Vélez siblings—Daniela, Paulina, and Alejandra—transformed their passion for video game Rock Band into genuine musical prowess. This power trio has maintained its original lineup throughout their decade-long journey, with no member departures or additions since formation.
The band’s catalog spans four full-length studio releases, a pair of extended plays, and eighteen music videos that document their evolution from cover artists to original songwriters. Their discography includes XXI Century Blood (2017), Queen of the Murder Scene (2018), Error (2022), and Keep Me Fed (2024), alongside the EPs Escape the Mind (2015) and Mayday (2021). Commercial success followed artistic growth, particularly when their track “Money” climbed to position 31 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, while their streaming presence has grown to 1.2 million monthly Spotify listeners.
International recognition arrived through viral social media content, specifically their 2014 Metallica cover that accumulated over 26 million views and earned praise from Kirk Hammett himself. This breakthrough led to major label representation with Lava Records, television appearances including The Ellen DeGeneres Show and MTV Video Music Awards, and prominent festival slots. Their touring resume features support slots for legendary acts including Muse, Halestorm, Three Days Grace, and headline performances across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Daniela “Dany” Villarreal Vélez
Daniela Villarreal Vélez joined The Warning as its founding member and primary songwriter when the band formed in 2013. Born on January 30, 2000, she serves as lead guitarist and primary vocalist, establishing the band’s musical direction and creative vision. Her involvement spans the entire duration of the band’s existence, beginning when she was thirteen years old and continuing through their current international success.
Dany’s musical foundation began with childhood piano instruction before transitioning to guitar during her family’s Rock Band sessions. Her guitar technique has drawn attention from music publications for combining melodic sensibilities with aggressive rock dynamics. As the band’s principal songwriter, she shapes both lyrical content and musical arrangements, often initiating the creative process that her sisters then expand upon.
Her contributions to each album reveal artistic maturation across multiple releases. On Escape the Mind, she established the band’s early sound while working with producer Jake Carmona, who became a consistent collaborator. XXI Century Blood showcased her developing skills as both guitarist and vocalist during the band’s first full-length effort. Queen of the Murder Scene demonstrated her conceptual songwriting abilities through its narrative structure. Error marked her collaboration with renowned producer David Bendeth and represented her growing comfort with heavier guitar tones. Keep Me Fed displays her experimentation with fuzz and distortion effects, creating the album’s distinctive sonic character.
Beyond The Warning, Dany has developed relationships with guitar manufacturers and custom builders. Her partnership with PRS Guitars began after recommendations from producer David Bendeth and fellow musicians. She has also worked extensively with custom guitar maker Rick Toone, whose instruments appear prominently on The Warning’s recent recordings. Equipment demonstrations and interviews with guitar publications have established her as a respected young guitarist within the rock community.
Paulina “Pau” Villarreal Vélez
Paulina Villarreal Vélez joined The Warning as a founding member in 2013, bringing exceptional drumming skills and vocal abilities to the group. Born on February 5, 2002, she serves as the band’s drummer and shares lead vocal duties with her sister Daniela. Her dual role as percussionist and singer places her among a select group of rock musicians who excel in both areas simultaneously.
Pau’s musical development began with piano lessons at age four before discovering drums through Rock Band at age six. Her technical approach draws heavily from progressive rock influences, particularly Rush drummer Neil Peart, whose complex patterns and conceptual thinking shaped her playing style. Her vocal contributions complement her sister’s lead parts while occasionally taking center stage on specific songs.
Throughout The Warning’s discography, Pau has demonstrated growth as both performer and songwriter. Her early recognition came through profiles in drumming publications when she was just twelve years old. Escape the Mind featured her foundational rhythmic work that supported the band’s initial artistic vision. XXI Century Blood showcased her ability to handle both acoustic and electric percussion while contributing piano parts. Queen of the Murder Scene highlighted her vocal range through lead performances on select tracks. Error incorporated her technological expertise through integration of electronic elements and backing tracks. Keep Me Fed represents her most sophisticated drumming and vocal work to date.
Recognition for Pau’s abilities extends beyond The Warning through individual awards and honors. She received the Drumeo Rock Drummer of the Year award in 2023, competing against established professionals. Mexican publications have acknowledged her influence, with Forbes including her among the country’s 100 most powerful women in 2024. International recognition came through the Decididas Global Award for inspiring young women to pursue ambitious goals. Collaborative projects include her work with Dead Poet Society on the track “Hurt” and her directorial debut with The Warning’s “Qué Más Quieres” music video.
Alejandra “Ale” Villarreal Vélez
Alejandra Villarreal Vélez became The Warning’s bassist and youngest member when the band formed in 2013. Born on December 13, 2004, she was eight years old at formation, making her one of the youngest professional rock musicians to achieve international recognition. Her role encompasses bass guitar performance, harmonic vocal support, and occasional keyboard contributions.
Ale’s musical journey began with piano instruction before gravitating toward bass guitar around age seven. Her early performances required smaller instruments due to her age and physical stature, beginning with a Fender Mustang bass before transitioning to full-size instruments. Her rhythmic partnership with Paulina creates The Warning’s foundational groove while her melodic sensibilities add harmonic complexity to their arrangements.
Across The Warning’s albums, Ale has evolved from a promising young player to an accomplished bassist with her own distinctive voice. Escape the Mind captured her early abilities despite being only ten years old during recording. XXI Century Blood demonstrated her growing confidence and technical skills at age twelve. Queen of the Murder Scene featured more prominent bass lines that showcased her developing musical personality. Error marked her emergence as a fully capable bassist with sophisticated understanding of song structure. Keep Me Fed displays her matured playing style and secure place within the band’s sonic identity.
Ale’s instrument preferences reflect her professional growth and industry relationships. Her connection with Spector Bass began when a fan gifted her one of their instruments, leading to an endorsement deal that made her their youngest artist at age fifteen. She currently performs on custom Spector NS5 XL five-string basses, including “Inferno,” a model she designed herself. These instruments accommodate the band’s varied tunings while providing the tone and playability she requires for their energetic performances. Beyond bass performance, she cites influences ranging from jazz legend Jaco Pastorius to contemporary French electronic artists, demonstrating the broad musical awareness that informs her contributions to The Warning.
Rocket, the hotly-tipped Los Angeles alt. rock / shoegaze / grunge quartet have announced UK and European headline shows ahead of four arena-sized gigs in support to Smashing Pumpkins. The band have also shared a new single, One Million, on Transgressive Records / Canvasback.
Talking about the ideas behind the song, the band say: “One Million is about wanting someone to meet you halfway but not knowing if they ever will. It’s the feeling of doing everything you can, going above and beyond for someone, knowing that you would wait a million years for them just to notice how important they are to you.
“It’s the hoping that maybe you are as important to them as well. It’s learning to be okay with the fact that you might always love them more.”
The quartet – Alithea Tuttle (vocals/ bass), Baron Rinzler (guitar), Desi Scaglione (guitar) and Cooper Ladomade (drums) – will kick off their European excursion with four shows supporting Mannequin Pussy before striking out on their own for a headline club tour.
Rocket will play:
May 26: Paris Trabendo, France (supporting Mannequin Pussy) May 28: Nijmegen Doornroosje, Holland (supporting Mannequin Pussy) May 29: Amsterdam Tolhuistuin, Holland (supporting Mannequin Pussy) May 31: Berlin Columbia Theater, Germany (supporting Mannequin Pussy)
Jun 02: Rotterdam V11, Holland Jun 04: Hasselt Club AFF, Belgium Jun 05: Brussels Botanique, Belgium Jun 09: Brighton Green Door Store, UK Jun 10: London The Windmill, UK Jun 11: Birmingham Hare and Hounds, UK Jun 12: Glasgow, McChuills, UK Jun 14: Manchester Outbreak Festival, UK
Aug 08 : Gothenburg Way Out West Festival, Sweden Aug 10: London Gunnersbury Park (supporting Smashing Pumpkins), UK Aug 12: Halifax The Piece Hall (supporting The Smashing Pumpkins), UK Aug 13: Scarborough Open Air Theatre (supporting Smashing Pumpkins), UK Aug 14: Colchester Castle Park (supporting Smashing Pumpkins), UK Aug 16: Brecon Beacons Green Man Festival, UK
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A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.
Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee and his wife Brittany Furlan have had an … eventful week, to put it mildly, as divorce rumors and an alleged catfishing scandal have dogged the couple.
On Thursday, TMZ reported that Lee and Furlan had been living separately for the past two weeks and were possibly headed for divorce due to Lee’s “out of hand” drinking. That same day, Lee posted a video of himself in the studio and said he was working on a song called “Stupid Girl.”
Lee currently does not follow Furlan on Instagram, and Furlan no longer has Lee’s name in her Instagram bio. Unfortunately, the divorce rumors were only one small part of the couple’s ongoing drama.
Brittany Furlan and Ronnie Radke Address Catfishing Allegations
On Saturday, Furlan posted a TikTok in which she admitted to talking on Snapchat with somebody whom she believed to be Ronnie Radke, singer of the rock band Falling in Reverse.
“Obviously, I’m in a hotel right now. I’ve been going through a really tough time in my marriage, which was none of anyone’s fucking business, but he’s made it everyone’s business,” Furlan said in reference to Radke. She said the rocker “started trying to seduce me” and suggested they “can have a secret thing as long as you don’t snitch. Why would a catfish worry about me snitching?”
Furlan said she did not save any of her Snapchat message history, but she posted text message screenshots that she claimed were proof that Radke was indeed messaging her. She also told Lee that she’d been messaging Radke (or a Radke impersonator) and that Lee “freak[ed] out” and messaged the singer himself.
Radke corroborated this in one of several TikToks he posted over the weekend, in which he swore that he hadn’t been talking to Furlan and shared several messages from fans who also claimed to have encountered his impersonator.
“I’m sorry to Tommy and everything, man,” Radke said. “Tommy, man, I’m not doing this to you, and I fucking hope that you can somehow be cordial with me, dude, you know what I mean? I fucking love your band.”
Radke also posted a video in which he scrolled through his app download history to prove that he never installed Snapchat on his phone. He emphatically declared in multiple videos that he’d never spoken to Furlan, even though she allegedly showed up outside his house one day. Radke even suggested the alleged catfisher took photos from his Instagram and used them to create Snapchat deepfake videos.
“So you mean to tell me that Brittany Furlan DM’d me — I’ve never responded one time to her ever, as you can see here,” Radke said. “This is the beginning, [with her] responding to my stories. Here’s the second one, and here’s the final one, where she says she’s sitting outside my house. [I] never responded, never followed, never liked any of her pictures. You mean to tell me that you fell for that Snapchat when I’ve never in my life followed you back or responded to you on Instagram or any other platform?”
Lee has yet to issue any sort of formal statement on the drama. Shortly after teasing his song “Stupid Girl,” the drummer shared another text post on Instagram that simply read, “Who’s been catfished?”
The Women of Motley Crue
Marriages, one-night stands and everything in between.
The ’80s were a bewildering period for the Who, as both the band and principal songwriter Pete Townshend got off to a fast start only to quickly stall out.
By 1982, the Who had scored a pair of Top 10 albums in the U.S., with 1981’s platinum-selling Face Dances and the gold-certified follow-up It’s Hard marking the beginning of their post-Keith Moon era with replacement drummer Kenney Jones.
Townshend’s nascent solo career was taking off, as well. His likewise platinum-selling Empty Glass rose to No. 5 in the U.S. in 1980, largely on the strength of Townshend’s infectious Top 10 hit “Let My Love Open the Door.” His 1982 follow-up All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes then reached the Billboard Top 30, despite its admittedly confusing title.
The Who subsequently fell silent, but its two best-known members roared back in 1985 with Townshend’s gold-selling Top 30 hit solo album White City: A Novel and Roger Daltrey‘s Under a Raging Moon, which just missed the U.S. Top 40.
Their band didn’t return to the road until 1989, and by then Kenney Jones had moved on after two LPs and related concert appearances that included a memorable turn at Live Aid. “I would have given anything not to have joined the Who,” the former Faces and Small Faces drummer later admitted, “because I would have given anything for Moonie to still be there. There is only one drummer for the Who — and that’s Keith Moon. And that’s the way it will always be.”
The next new Who album was 2006’s Endless Wire and they didn’t release another until 2019’s self-titled Who. After 1989’s The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend, his lone solo album remained 1993’s Psychoderelict. That added a certain gravitas to what they did in the ’80s. It was the end of the era:
No. 10. “It’s Hard” From: It’s Hard (1982)
An early version of this song, then titled “Popular,” was rejected during sessions for 1981’s Face Dances and reworked with a new chorus. The result is just one of the contemporary Pete Townshend tracks that doesn’t seem to have been written with Roger Daltrey’s cadence in mind, including the somehow even more wordy “Cry If You Want.” “It’s Hard” then failed to chart after the lead single “Athena” reached a high-water mark among the Top 40 in both America and the U.K. Still, a bouncy propulsion carries everything along.
No. 9. “Don’t Let Go the Coat” From: Face Dances (1981)
Townshend wasn’t quite sure what inspired the title of the Who’s first album without Keith Moon. Was it a friend making strange expressions while moving a match from side to side in his mouth – or the chameleon-like Face Dancers from Frank Herbert’s Dune series? The subject matter of “Don’t Let Go the Coat” presents a similar mystery: Was it a tribute to Townshend’s spiritual guru Meher Baba, referenced in part on 1971’s “Baba O’Riley”? Or to Townshend’s parents, who took care of him during a descent into drugs and alcohol?
No. 8. “Give Blood” From: Pete Townshend’s White City: A Novel (1985)
The opening track for Townshend’s fourth solo album came together in an off-handed way. In fact, he didn’t even play on it. Townshend had brought in Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, bassist Pino Palladino and drummer Simon Phillips – but he didn’t have a completed song for them. He presented a few demo ideas, then finished the lyric later. Palladino was called at the last minute when founding bassist John Entwistle subsequently died on the eve of the Who’s 2002 U.S. tour and remained with them for years.
No. 7. “I’ve Known No War” From: It’s Hard (1982)
This isn’t exactly the most musical song on It’s Hard, but the bluntly honest “I’ve Known No War” may be the most important. Townshend thought so: “It’s possibly one of the best Who tracks we’ve ever done, I believe,” he later said. “It’s very archetypal, very ’60s issue, but it’s also bloody great.” Everything started with the very Cold War construct of a clock ticking. The underlying message – “basically we’re a bunch of spoilt brats,” Townshend admitted – would resonate for generations.
No. 6. “After the Fire” From: Roger Daltrey’s Under a Raging Moon (1985)
This was meant to be a new song for the Who’s Live Aid performance. Instead, Townshend’s “After the Fire” became the highlight of an emotionally unbound Daltrey solo album but then was largely forgotten. Building on his more celebrated “Slit Skirts,” this song dealt head-on with the wounds that time conveys — and the weird mixture of anger and regret that remain. Yet “After the Fire” could get no higher than No. 48 on the Hot 100. It’s a shame, since Townshend had finally found Daltrey’s voice again.
No. 5. “Eminence Front” From: It’s Hard (1982)
There’s no denying that “Eminence Front” boasts a gas pedal-mashing groove – but listen more closely: John Entwistle thunks his bass, but without the murderous intent we’ve come to expect. And that tense little keyboard figure can’t obscure the fact that Roger Daltrey is nowhere to be found. Instead of ending It’s Hard with a sense of newfound direction from the remaining three founding members, this sounded like what it was: The next Pete Townshend solo song as the Who went dark.
No. 4. “Slit Skirts” From: Pete Townshend’s All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982)
Reflective and frank, “Slit Skirts” convincingly argues the case for middle-aged rock. Townshend opens things in a writerly way — like you’d just barged in during a rare moment of doubt from a guy too old for the nonsense of youth yet too young to be calling it quits. But his meditation about the chances we don’t take was, even then, an obvious aberration. On stage and with subsequent high-concept solo albums, there’d be a slow progression back to the worst of the Who’s excesses. Still, “Slit Skirts” showed Townshend’s craft could evolve away from the past’s bloody-fingered riffing and the throwback rock operas to follow.
No. 3. “Athena” From: It’s Hard (1982)
With its rumbling guitar opening, striking tempo changes, and the way Daltrey’s barking verses bleed into Townshend’s “she’s just a girl” Greek chorus, “Athena” seemed to point to a return to form for the Who on their second Keith Moon-less project. Kenney Jones, his oft-maligned replacement, even tosses in a few explosive drum rolls as a bright brass section weaves in and out. Unusual for ’80s-era Who, “Athena” was perfectly suited for Daltrey’s staccato rasp. Only now, this reliably cocksure street tough has become romantically confused. “Athena” ends with a thrilling flourish amid Daltrey’s desperate pleas.
No. 2. “Let My Love Open the Door” From: Pete Townshend’s Empty Glass (1980)
In 1980, Townshend’s solo career hadn’t yet been sunk — as it was on later, more literary missteps like 1989’s The Iron Man — by his own overblown pretensions. He’d started off in a low-key way with 1972’s Who Came First, then belatedly followed it up by issuing 1977’s Rough Mix with a Paul McCartney-ish sounding Ronnie Lane. With its easy, confident charm, the superlative Empty Glass – home to this zippy hit – was a huge leap forward. Townshend at first seemed willing to focus on smaller, more confessional canvases that his band might have dismissed in the demo stage. He was never better.
No. 1. “You Better You Bet” From: Face Dances (1981)
Townshend appeared to have lost the ability to write for Daltrey in the early ’80s, while he found solo success using his own voice. Is there anything more ironic than the title track from 1981’s Face Dances ending up on All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes a year later? Townshend’s best songs simply eluded the Who. Here’s a rare example of one that appeared on a band album, and — what do you know? — “You Better You Bet” became a hit. What’s clear now, however, is that it wasn’t just the material. Even this international Top 20 hit feels a little safe. Maybe more than his playing, the Who sorely missed Keith Moon’s reckless abandon.
The Who Albums Ranked
Half of the Who’s studio albums are all classics, essential records from rock’s golden age. But where should you start?
If there is a name that is practically synonymous with the blues, it’s Buddy Guy.
At the time of this writing in May 2025, Guy is 88 years old and still playing live, recording music and touring the country. The list of guitarists he has influenced is a mile long — Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, etc. — hailing from all over the world. As far as Guy sees it, the blues is for everyone nowhere where you come from.
“If you love the blues, you can play it,” he told Guitar Player back in 1999. “Every interview I’ve ever had, I get asked ‘Can a white man play the blues?’ I hate that question! It’s a human being, man. If I had eight fingers on my left hand, then I would say, ‘No, a white man probably can’t play like me.'” … Look at athletes — boxers, football players, baseball players—they come in all sizes and all colors, and all those guys are great. Music is the same way. There’s no advantage or disadvantage. If you want to learn this thing, man, and you love it the way I love it, you can do it.”
Some of those aforementioned guitarists have collaborated with Guy over the years and the result is typically a wonderful marriage of blues and rock, old and young. Below are 14 examples of this.
Eric Clapton
Guy and Clapton have been rubbing shoulders since the late ’60s, occasionally sharing stages — here’s a clip of them trading licks in 1969. Guy participated in Clapton’s 24 Nights all-star blues guitar lineup in London in the early ’90s, which was made into a live album, as well as Clapton’s 1991 soundtrack album for the movie Rush. Of course, Guy has also been a guest several times at Clapton’s Crossroads Festival. “No matter how great the song, or performance, my ear would always find him out,” Clapton said when he inducted Guy into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. “He stood out in the mix, simply by virtue of the originality and vitality of his playing.”
The Rolling Stones
Guy has been around long enough to remember when there was no Rolling Stones. Many years ago, in 1964, fellow bluesmen Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon brought the Stones to Chess Records where Guy was making a record. “I got pissed off: ‘Who in the hell are these guys?'” Guy recalled in 2015 to Rolling Stone. “I had never seen a white man with hair that long and high-heeled boots before. They had come to do an audition for Chess Records.” Eventually, those long-haired musicians would more than prove themselves. “I found out later when they were bigger than bubblegum that they were the Rolling Stones, the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band I’d ever play with,” Guy continued to Rolling Stone. “Nobody matches that sound that the Rolling Stones get. Playing with them is like playing with a machine.” Guy has opened for them on tour several times. Below, you can watch Guy perform with the Stones in 2008 at their Shine a Light concert.
Keith Richards and Mick Jagger
We’re going to stick with the Rolling Stones theme for a moment here and note that Guy has also collaborated specifically with two of their members: Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. They both appeared on Guy’s 2018 album The Blues Is Alive and Well — Richards played guitar on “Cognac” (as did Jeff Beck, but more on him shortly), while Jagger contributed harmonica to “You Did the Crime.” “Buddy Guy brought Chicago blues to its pinnacle,” Richards once told Pollstar. “His phrasing, originality and style topped it all. Not only that, but he’s a great guy.”
Jeff Beck
As mentioned, Jeff Beck was part of the above song with Guy and Richards, but he also worked with Guy on several other occasions. In 1991, Beck played guitar on “Mustang Sally,” which Guy recorded for his album Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues. They also played live together a number of times — here’s a clip of them performing “Let Me Love You” at the Hollywood Bowl in 2016. “Buddy Guy just hit the spot for me,” Beck said to Blues Blast Magazine in 2017. “He has a lot of very exquisite timing and is delightfully out of key sometimes. That’s what I find so charming. It’s just a hair sharp. It wouldn’t be right, had it been dead on the note.”
Mark Knopfler
Speaking of Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits also played on that album. His contribution was to a song by John Hiatt called “Where Is the Next One Coming From?”
John Mayer
One could certainly argue that John Mayer is not classic rock and therefore does not belong on this list, but he has been a member of Dead and Company for a decade now and has also collaborated with a host of rock ‘n’ roll greats, so we feel he’s deserving here. He and Guy have played live together several times over the years. Below you’ll see them performing at Farm Aid in 2005. “Any time he’s in town and wants to play, I’ll be there,” Mayer said to The Guardian in 2010. “I learn from him all the time and I’ve never taken it for granted. Every time I’m on stage with him I travel back in my mind to the 16-year-old kid who wrote a letter saying, ‘Can I please be on your guest list some night, because I’m too young to get into a bar but I really need to hear you play?’ I did that! So the wow factor never leaves.”
John Mayall
In 1993, John Mayall called up some friends to play on his album Wake Up Call. Guy was one of them, along with the likes of Mick Taylor, Mavis Staples and more. Guy joined Mayall on a song called “I Could Cry,” both on guitar and vocals. Of course, they’ve played live together, too — here’s a clip of Guy, Mayall and Junior Wells, another iconic bluesman, performing “Messin’ With the Kid.”
Paul Rodgers
Guy is a talented vocalist on his own, but it can’t hurt sometimes to throw in another exceptional singer, such as Paul Rodgers. The Bad Company frontman helped out on a cover of “Some Kind of Wonderful” which appeared on Guy’s 1993 album Feels Like Rain. Guy returned the favor that same year when he played on one of Rodgers’ albums, Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters, joining him on a Rodgers original called “Muddy Water Blues.”
Bonnie Raitt
Hold on because we’re not quite done with Feels Like Rain. That album also featured another guitar legend, Bonnie Raitt. She added vocals and slide guitar on the album’s title track. Not that that was the first time they’d crossed paths — Guy and Junior Wells were her support act back in 1975. “They thought her interest in the blues was some kind of freakish quirk,” Dick Waterman, a leader of what was then a blues revival movement, told Rolling Stone in 1975, “but she’s proud that Buddy and Muddy [Waters] and Junior and [Howlin’] Wolf now regard her as a genuine peer. Not ‘she plays good for a white person or a girl,’ but ‘she plays good.'”
Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana and Guy have played live together multiple times over the years — below you’ll see them at the 2004 Montreux Festival performing T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday.” Note how intently Santana watches Guy’s guitar skills. Santana was also a guest on Guy’s Grammy-winning 2010 album Living Proof, on a song titled “Where the Blues Begins.”
Peter Green
As far as blues rock musicians go, Peter Green was one of the very best. He was a member of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers for a short time before he went on to found a little band called Fleetwood Mac — more on them later. Green left Fleetwood Mac in 1970 and he struggled for some time with his mental health, but he never quit making blues music. In the late ’90s, he formed the Peter Green Splinter Group, and in 2000 they released an album titled Hot Foot Powder. It featured several notable guests, including but not limited to Otis Rush, Joe Louis Walker, Dr. John and, of course, Guy, who played on “Cross Road Blues.”
Jerry Lee Lewis
In 2006, Jerry Lee Lewis made an album called Last Man Standing, for which he invited a host of fellow rock ‘n’ rollers to contribute to. That included Jimmy Page, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Robbie Robertson, Rod Stewart and Don Henley, to name a few. Guy was also a part of it, playing on a song called “Hadacol Boogie.” There’s a live version below.
George Thorogood and the Destroyers
George Thorogood has also shared stages with Guy. Plus, Guy was a guest on a Destroyers album called 2120 South Michigan Ave. in 2011. That’s him on lead guitar on the cover of Tommy Tucker’s “Hi-Heel Sneakers.”
Fleetwood Mac
Many years before Guy contributed to Peter Green’s album, he played with Green’s band Fleetwood Mac back in 1969. A recording session was held then at Chicago’s Chess Records that, in addition to Fleetwood Mac, included various local blues musicians: Otis Spann, Willie Dixon, Shakey Horton, J.T. Brown, Honeyboy Edwards, S.P. Leary and, finally, Guy. The resulting album was Fleetwood Mac in Chicago.
Top 40 Blues Rock Albums
Inspired by giants like Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and B.B. King, rock artists have put their own spin on the blues.
INXS was growing in the studio, one album at a time. Guitarist Tim Farriss, a cofounding member of the Australian group, can remember vividly what the progression felt like.
He lands on sessions for 1982’s Shabooh Shoobah specifically as a moment where things began to change. “It was a million miles [ahead] in technology, leaps and bounds from where we’d previously recorded,” he says during an interview for the UCR Podcast that you can listen to below. “Previously, we had old tape machines catching fire and engineers falling asleep from having too much whiskey in their coffee. We kind of felt like we were in the big leagues with Mark Opitz [producing the album] and [subsequently] recording and touring on the back of that, through the US and whatnot.”
While they were on tour for 1984’s The Swing, they made a pivotal connection, meeting producer Chris Thomas (Roxy Music, the Beatles), who had first seen the band play a show in Japan. Intrigued by what he saw, he made contact.
“He came and met us all at the Palladium in Los Angeles, and told us everything he loved about the band. He had also seen us opening for the Pretenders in Dallas somewhere,” Farriss recalls. “He’s great mates with Pretenders, obviously, having produced all their records. So he came backstage at the Palladium and said, ‘Look, you guys just are amazing live,’ which is a great compliment coming from him. ‘I really want to try and capture that live feeling that you have.”
Thomas got his wish, overseeing and guiding the work on the songs that would form 1985’s Listen Like Thieves. Fans can get a sense of what the sessions were like thanks to a newly expanded edition of the album. The expansion adds a bonus disc of moments from the studio that offer a fly on the wall perspective of what it was like working with Thomas. The album itself has been freshly remixed by longtime band associate Giles Martin as well, with a previously unreleased live show from the Royal Albert Hall rounding out the bonus material.
As keyboardist Andrew Farriss recalls in an essay by Paul Sexton included in the new set, Thomas was an imposing figure to work with. “It took me a little while to understand,” he remembered. “I even said to Chris not that long ago, ‘I was terrified of you when I was in the studio. You would pull no punches in the studio, man. You would just say, ‘That sucked. You’ve got to get back in there and you can do better than that.'” But as Andrew adds, that’s why they wanted to work with Thomas, because they knew he wasn’t going to “kiss your ass and that’s a really good thing.”
Chris Thomas Made a Huge Impact on INXS
“Chris really understood the band. His whole way of producing was to bring the most out of the individuals in the band,” Tim explains. “So you would hear Kirk [Pengilly]’s character in the music and Jon [Farriss]’s way of playing on the tracks. We started realizing that while we were recording with him. ‘What You Need’ was the final track. Chris was like, ‘We just need one more song.’ We still hadn’t done one of my favorite pieces of music that [Andrew Farriss] had on his demo tape, which was basically the bass line from ‘What You Need.’ I’m like, ‘I reckon this is a song guys’ and Chris Thomas is like, ‘Yeah, I agree.'”
They worked the song up over the weekend that followed and laid it down in a day that Monday and were in the local night club that same night, Benny’s Bar, in Sydney, “a renowned party area,” Farriss details. “The DJ put it on and played it really loud. We were like, yeah, this sounds really good. It was a really fun record to make.”
Watch INXS’ ‘What You Need’ Video
Listen Like Thieves spent two weeks at No. 1 in their homeland of Australia, peaking at No. 11 in the United States. “What You Need” gave the group its first Top 5 single in the States, while songs like “This Time” and the title track also received substantial airplay. Ultimately, it laid important groundwork for the global explosion that happened with their next two albums and Farriss confirms it was an important milestone. “There wouldn’t have been a Kick if it hadn’t been for Listen Like Thieves. It just wouldn’t have happened.”
Listen to Tim Farriss of INXS on the ‘UCR Podcast’
INXS Albums Ranked
Like many bands that came of age during new wave’s peak years, they didn’t stick around in one place for too long.
