Exclusive Blues Interviews, Blues Reviews, Blues Videos, Top Blues Artists, New Blues Artists.
Pages
▼
Monday, April 9, 2012
Slow Blues - Eric Bell
Eric Robin Bell (born 3 September 1947 in East Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a Northern Irish rock musician and guitarist, best known as a founder member and the original guitarist of the rock group Thin Lizzy.
Bell began his career with local groups around the Belfast area, including the last incarnation of Them to feature Van Morrison, between September and October 1966. He also played with a number of other bands including Shades of Blue, The Earth Dwellers and The Bluebeats, before joining an Irish showband named The Dreams. He left in 1969 having tired of the showband format, and at the end of that year he formed a band with local musicians Phil Lynott, Eric Wrixon and Brian Downey. Bell named the group Thin Lizzy, after Tin Lizzie, a robot character in The Dandy comic.
In 1974, after a brief period fronting his own Eric Bell Band, Bell was recruited by ex-Jimi Hendrix sideman Noel Redding, along with keyboardist Dave Clarke and drummer Les Sampson, to form The Noel Redding Band. Bell was initially unsure of the musical direction Redding was taking, but went on to record two albums with the group before they split in 1976. A third album of unused tracks was released in 1995. Bell composed the song "Love and War" for the second album, Blowin'.
In 1980, Bell reunited with Thin Lizzy to record a tribute song to Jimi Hendrix, "Song for Jimmy" , which was released as an orange flexi disc and given away with Flexipop Magazine in August 1981. It was later included on the Thin Lizzy Vagabonds, Kings, Warriors, Angels box set in 2002. Bell also appeared as a guest on Thin Lizzy's final tour in 1983, and the accompanying live album, Life.
Bell had also reactivated his own band in the late 1970s, and released an E.P. in 1981.
Bell subsequently joined saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith's eight-piece blues rock ensemble Mainsqueeze. They toured Europe, recorded a live album in 1983, and later toured as Bo Diddley's backing group, recording the Hey... Bo Diddley: In Concert album in 1986.
Bell has continued to perform and record with the Eric Bell Band throughout the 1990s and 2000s, releasing several albums. He has also recorded with the Barrelhouse Brothers.
In 2005, he joined Gary Moore onstage to perform "Whiskey in the Jar" at the Phil Lynott tribute concert "The Boy Is Back in Town" in the Point Theatre, Dublin. This was released on a DVD called One Night in Dublin: A Tribute to Phil Lynott. In 2010, Bell moved from London where he had lived for many years to his new home in West Cork, Ireland.
If you like what I’m doing, Like ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorites band! - ”LIKE”
No comments:
Post a Comment