Why Lynott Is The Greatest
Rockabilly Queen Imelda May on why Phil Lynott is the ultimate role model for a generation of Irish rockers.
The Hot Press Newsdesk, 04 Mar 2011
Following years of breadline struggle, Imelda May has been doing pretty well for herself in recent times. Between hit singles and albums, extensive tours of Europe and America, live performances everywhere from the Grammys in Los Angeles to the Royal Albert Hall, and picking up some well deserved gongs (including a Meteor and the Classic Rock Awards ‘Breakthrough Artist of the Year’), the Liberties-born singer has seen many musical ambitions realised in the last couple of years.
Shortly before her latest album, Mayhem, was unleashed onto an appreciative listening public last year, Imelda’s record company asked the beautiful Irish rockabilly sensation to write down a wish-list of the musicians she’d most like to work with. With nothing to lose, and no great expectations, she decided to go for broke.
“I just put down the biggest names I could think of – David Bowie, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen and so on,” she recalls. “It was a mental list, and I thought none of it will ever happen.”
Needless to say, some of it did. Last October saw May recording a new version of her bittersweet love duet ‘Kentish Town Waltz’ with Lou Reed in a New York studio. “I’d already recorded it for the album so it wasn’t for the album. It just came up and it was the chance of a lifetime. So I hopped on a plane to New York, spent four hours with him, and then I had to catch a plane back again. All in the one day.”
The producer on that one day was none other than Tony Viconti, who worked with Thin Lizzy on several key albums (most notably Live And Dangerous). Given Imelda’s Dublin roots, the subject soon came up.
“When I was recording with Tony Visconti, he was telling me, ‘I worked with Phil Lynott as well’,” May recalls. “And I was like, ‘No way!’ And he was saying he was terrific to work with. He was like a bit of a whirlwind or a cyclone, full of ideas, and very, very charismatic, and flying. And he also said he loved to party. So the music sessions were thrown into proper sessions – bringing a bottle of whiskey, and the singsong would start and all of a sudden you’d have to reign yourself in. So it sounds like they’d a great time.”
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