Shades of a blue orphanage --- Thin Lizzy --- 1972 (Decca)
Too often Lizzy get categorised and judged by their later albums, your "Jailbreaks", your "Johnny the Foxes", your "Renegades", and while those albums are all excellent and deserve all the praise they get, and have rightly taken their place in music history, we sometimes forget that Lizzy did not start out like a pumping, strutting metal band that took over the world and burst the charts open for heavy metal, introducing even Irish trad music to headbangers with a gleeful abandon and disregard for the rules of genres. Their first three albums are much more dour, staid affairs, more closely rooted in the blues traditions of the deep south than the screaming metal of bands like AC/DC or Van Halen. Time to take a trip back then, forty years into the past, and check out their second release.
You can see by the album cover that it's not quite going to be a riproaring fretfest and chock-full of hit singles and memorable hooks. The sleeve is blue, the title is blue, the music ...? Well, let's see. This was before later guitar gods like Scott Gorham, Brian Robertson and Gary Moore made their mark on Lizzy's music, and before the band's first hit single, the seminal "Whiskey in the jar". In fact, the album was pretty much slated on its release, and nobody really would have given these three lads from Ireland any chance whatever of making the big time.
If they wanted to make an instant impression, that's not achieved by either the drum-heavy opening nor the title to "The rise and dear demise of the funky nomadic tribes", the only track on the album not exclusively written by mainman Phil Lynott. With jazz and blues influences aplenty, and more than a little psychedelia in there, it's over seven minutes long, perhaps a brave move, perhaps a foolish one on your second album, considering the debut had not exactly set the world on fire. Mainstay of the band, drummer Brian Downey takes command while Eric Bell shows his prowess on the guitar, very much a blues performance as compared to later finger-burning efforts by Moore, Gorham et al. To their previous lineup Lizzy added Irish musician Clodagh Simonds on keyboards, although she doesn't feature, or seem to, on the opener, and it ends as it began, with a big drum solo from Downey.
A bit repetitive, I believe if I was listening to this album for the first time I would not be too encouraged to go that much further, but things change with "Buffalo gal", a more upbeat, together song with a certain pop sensibility about it, more of a melody and indeed I can even hear similarities to "Whiskey" in there, whether intentional or not I don't know. Now for the first time you can hear Simonds' keyboards and they do add an extra dimension to the music, filling it out when it seems a little sparse. This track is the first time I think you can hear the quality of Phil Lynott's voice, which definitely stands out above the somewhat pedestrian music, despite some pretty nice licks from Eric Bell. Lynott's bass playing, too, comes into its own here. I have to say though the impression of Elvis on "I don't want to forget how to jive" is painful, and the song itself something of a rockabilly embarrassment, notwithstanding the sprightly piano from Simonds. Thankfully it's very short, and we move on into "Sarah".
Now this is not the song that appeared later on "Black Rose", but rather a touching piano-led tribute to his grandmother, who brought him up and is often forgotten in the Phil Lynott story. His mother, Philomena gets all the plaudits, referring to "My Phil", but it's a sometimes forgotten fact that she didn't want to look after him as a child, and sent him away to his granny. This song is a moving and emotional thank you from the young Irish lad to his gran, and while the production on the vocal (or the vocal itself) is muddy and echoey, it's still a great song. I'd like to have heard it re-recorded with today's techniques. Carried on folky acoustic guitar that later changes to electric, "Brought down" is a good rocker with a melancholy tone, and some fine expressive guitar from Bell. "Babyface" is something of a non-entity, going past without making any impression on me.
"Chatting today" has a nice Spanish guitar vibe to it, and one of the best vocals from Lynott since "Buffalo gal", and it hops along at a nice brisk pace, while "Call the police" is very seventies funk with a hard grinding edge, but doesn't really do it for me. The title track then closes the album on a lovely slow blues number, tying with the opener for the place of longest track. Beautiful mellotron and keys from Clodagh Simonds lay down a lovely, bittersweet atmosphere that surrounds and suffuses the song. This is so good that it stands head and shoulders above anything else on the album, and if anything is an indication of the talent in Thin Lizzy that was just waiting to take the world by storm, this is it. A beautiful and emotional closer, and a song that hints at greater success to come for a band who were to soon leave the orphanage behind and be adopted by millions of rock and heavy metal fans.
TRACKLISTING
1. The rise and dear demise of the funky nomadic tribes
2. Buffalo gal
3. I don't want to forget how to jive
4. Sarah
5. Brought down
6. Baby face
7. Chatting today
8. Call the police
9. Shades of a blue orphanage
As a marker for future generations, "Shades of a blue orphanage" doesn't really stand out. There are few I believe who, even back then, would have thought it possible this band could rise to stardom, let alone superstardom. The seed is there, sporadically, but as an album this almost detracts from Lizzy's better qualities rather than showcase them. With the exception of the closer and title track and perhaps "Buffalo gal" and "Chatting today", most of what you hear on this album is fairly low-grade, and would not set anyone's heart racing, even diehard blues fans.
Even so, this was the album that would lead to "Vagabonds of the western world" the following year, which, though the song would not appear on it, would be synchronous with the release of what would be their first big hit and a song that, though a traditional Irish one, would become their signature tune. After that, while their rise to fame would not exactly be meteoric, 1976's "Jailbreak" would be their commercial breakthrough, turning them into household names, albeit with two new guitarists to replace the departed Bell, who would leave after "Vagabonds", ironically missing out on hitting the big time with Lizzy. From a trio of guys who looked less than likely to make a splash in the record biz, Lizzy would in four short years have the world at their feet.
Not bad for three orphans from Ireland, eh?