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Remembering
Eric Robin Bell (born 3 September 1947 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a Northern Irish rock and blues musician, best known as a founding member and the original guitarist of the rock group Thin Lizzy from 1969 to 1973. After his time in Thin Lizzy, he briefly fronted his own group before joining The Noel Redding Band in the mid-1970s. He has since released several solo albums and performs regularly with a blues-based trio, the Eric Bell Band.
This is his story.
This is his story.
242 pages, Paperback
Published April 6, 2022
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March 29, 2025
Eric Bell was the founding guitarist of Thin Lizzy. An accomplished musician with a career before and after his stint with Thin Lizzy, it is the work he did with the Dublin trio he will be remembered for. The sub title of the book acknowledges this.
This book is a real mixed bag. I enjoyed it. There is lots of good stories and facts in here. Bell has a life worth reading about.
But this is a strange book. It reads as the authors own memoir and I doubt there is much in the way of outside input or editing. There is so little grasp on chronology or focus on what the reader wanted to know. This felt like a decent draft that really needed an editor. There is very little in the way of discussion or feelings and much of it reads like a succession of short lived bands performing to ever decreasing returns highlighted by a mixture of anectdotes.
The build up to Thin Lizzy’s success and Bells developing substance abuse is strongly written. But it almost feels like leaving Lizzy solves all of this and it is essentially never discussed again. At one point he says ‘I’d been clean for seven years’ and you find yourself confused as to how such a major event happened and when? How has seven years passed?
In another paragraph he talk about his girlfriend and in the following mentions as an aside he was now married. This demonstrates the huge gaps in a book about the man’s life.
The lack of any discussion about his relationship with Lynott and Downey after leaving Lizzy is bizarre. No talk at all about whether he spoke to them afterwards, was he sad about that, did he resent their success, did it sadden him as they moved into heavy rock? Nothing. Lynott’s death and how this made him feel isn’t even mentioned other than in passing long after it happened and only because he played a tribute gig. These people were good friends and lived together. A huge part of their life was together.
Why isn’t the concert Bell played at the Point with Gary Moore to honour Lynott covered? Now this is a book about Bell, not Lynott but know why people are reading it. Lizzy was and is a huge part of his life. Pictures of the Point gig are included yet for it to receive no mention is very odd.
Sadly it also has a bit of a self published feel. My copy had odd blank pages bound into it and a habit of italicising paragraphs where song titles were mentioned.
Again a mixed bag. Worth a read for Lizzy fans but full of holes.
This book is a real mixed bag. I enjoyed it. There is lots of good stories and facts in here. Bell has a life worth reading about.
But this is a strange book. It reads as the authors own memoir and I doubt there is much in the way of outside input or editing. There is so little grasp on chronology or focus on what the reader wanted to know. This felt like a decent draft that really needed an editor. There is very little in the way of discussion or feelings and much of it reads like a succession of short lived bands performing to ever decreasing returns highlighted by a mixture of anectdotes.
The build up to Thin Lizzy’s success and Bells developing substance abuse is strongly written. But it almost feels like leaving Lizzy solves all of this and it is essentially never discussed again. At one point he says ‘I’d been clean for seven years’ and you find yourself confused as to how such a major event happened and when? How has seven years passed?
In another paragraph he talk about his girlfriend and in the following mentions as an aside he was now married. This demonstrates the huge gaps in a book about the man’s life.
The lack of any discussion about his relationship with Lynott and Downey after leaving Lizzy is bizarre. No talk at all about whether he spoke to them afterwards, was he sad about that, did he resent their success, did it sadden him as they moved into heavy rock? Nothing. Lynott’s death and how this made him feel isn’t even mentioned other than in passing long after it happened and only because he played a tribute gig. These people were good friends and lived together. A huge part of their life was together.
Why isn’t the concert Bell played at the Point with Gary Moore to honour Lynott covered? Now this is a book about Bell, not Lynott but know why people are reading it. Lizzy was and is a huge part of his life. Pictures of the Point gig are included yet for it to receive no mention is very odd.
Sadly it also has a bit of a self published feel. My copy had odd blank pages bound into it and a habit of italicising paragraphs where song titles were mentioned.
Again a mixed bag. Worth a read for Lizzy fans but full of holes.
Displaying 1 of 1 review