The boys are back in town: sharing my basement flat in Dublin 4 with Phil Lynott and Gary Moore
I still take huge inspiration from the passing of friends Gary Moore and Phil Lynott, writes Johnny Duhan
HAVING spent a couple of years in London with the band Granny’s Intentions, I was back in Dublin living alone in a basement in Anglesea Road, close to Donnybrook Church, when Phil Lynott came knocking on my door one night looking for lodgings. He had heard that Johnny Hockedy (my flatmate and fellow Granny) had gone back to live in Limerick, and Phil wondered if I needed “help with the rent”. Being low on funds (as always), I snapped up the opportunity of a paying guest, though I did so with some trepidation knowing that Phil’s new band was called The Orphanage, a name that didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the rent department.
Philip turned out to be one of the easiest men I’d shared a room with since leaving home at 16. He was always on time with his share of the rent and contributed on a regular basis to the basic weekly groceries of Flahavan’s Porridge, Buttercrust Pan, and Heinz Beans — our staple with the occasional packet of Galtee rashers and Mattessons sausages thrown in when times were rosy.
A month or so after Phil moved in, Gary Moore arrived at our doorstep one evening looking for a place to stay, having been ejected from his girlfriend’s pad in town. Dressed in a scruffy black overcoat with dark wavy locks spilling over his eyes and shoulders, Gary looked bedraggled and lost.
Over a cup of tea, he poured out his heart to us about the great love he had for his girl from Nenagh who had broken up with him. Phil and I sympathised and agreed that he was welcome to kip in a sleeping bag on our floor till he found alternative accommodation. Months went by and he was still with us.
Philip and I were early risers. Gary rarely surfaced before midday. None of us had a watch but Phil was an expert at telling the time by the slant of light on the wall over his bed (a tip he had picked up from some cowboy flick, he told us). If Gary tried to sleep beyond noon, Phil would invariably shake him into consciousness and insist he get up so we could tidy up.
Philip was very domesticated. He kept the kitchen spotless and helped me with the cooking. While Phil and I would be going about the household chores, Gary would crouch over my acoustic Yamaha and play for hours on end, his agile fingers racing up and down the fretboard at astonishing speeds. Whenever Phil had a free moment he, too, would practise on his bass or work on his lyrics while slouching on his bed. The only place I felt comfortable working on my songs was on long coastal walks to Dun Laoghaire. Every afternoon I would set off with a biro and notepad, humming up melodies on the hoof and jotting down verses to go with them. Often when I’d get back to the basement in the evenings with a song in my pocket, I’d find Gary still playing my guitar with his head down, lost in the blues of Elmore James or BB King.
Like myself, Gary wasn’t big into socialising in the way Phil was. But occasionally on a Monday night, the three of us would doll up and saunter into the Bailey in Duke Lane off Grafton Street for a few pints before heading up to the TV Club on Harcourt Street, where most of the “heads” from the showband world fraternised. Philip usually had two dress outfits for these occasions. For going to the Bailey — where the artistic set hung out — Phil dressed in casual denims and then, before heading up to the TV club, he would change in the men’s room into a pair of dark slacks with white shirt and tie, which he carried around in a shoulder bag.
Because of the TV Club’s strict dress code, Gary and I would also take along neckties, which we would put on before entering the venue and remove once inside. On at least one occasion we were ejected from the ballroom for being caught with our ties in our pockets.
During the recording of Granny’s Intention’s album Honest Injun for Decca Records in London, our guitarist Johnny Hockedy left the band and, on very short notice, Gary was recruited to replace him for the remaining sessions. By this stage in Granny’s musical career, we were playing a mixture of folk and country-rock with a few soulful rockers thrown in to liven up the mix.
Though the high energy, riff-orientated semi-jazz that Gary was then playing with Skid Row was a million miles removed from our folksy songs, Gary had no problem adapting to our style. In the studio as on stage, once Gary started playing all eyes turned to him. He dazzled with his skill and versatility. Rarely did he need to do a double take and he came up with fresh musical ideas at the drop of a hat. The only thing that puzzled him during the recording sessions was the fact that I had been barred from the studio control room because of constant musical disagreements between our record producer and myself.
Some time back I happened upon a YouTube video of Gary playing a blistering version of The Thrill is Gone with one of his heroes BB King in a smoky venue similar to the Dublin beat clubs where Gary, Phil and I broke our musical teeth back in the Sixties.
Surprised to see that this duet had notched up over four million hits, I attributed its huge success to BB King’s worldwide popularity, until I noticed that another YouTube video of a solo performance by Gary playing Still Got the Blues had an even higher hit-count of eight million plus. Though it wasn’t widely known in Ireland, or indeed in England, Gary had enormous worldwide success. He also had gained the respect and admiration of the best of his musical peers, including some of the bluesmen that he himself idolised as a teenager. In a BP Fallon interview with George Harrison, the Beatles’ lead guitarist paid Gary the ultimate compliment by admitting to feeling like a mere “skiffler” when he compared himself to Gary.
The last times Gary and I met, we attended a Wings concert in London as guests of the great guitarist Henry McCullough. Back stage, Henry introduced us to Linda and Paul before Wings started. Halfway through the gig Gary was invited on stage for a “wee jam” by Henry. Without meaning to, Gary dominated the stage and played a blinder.
My last meeting with Philip, strangely enough, occurred back in Dublin’s TV Club at a time when Phil’s career was in a bit of a dip, after the break up of Lizzy. Having found him a little aloof at an earlier meeting at the height of Lizzy’s success, I was glad to find that a dose of relative failure had fully restored him to his old pure self, going on the trip down memory lane that we had backstage before he hit the spotlight. Now every time I hear The Boys are Back in Town, I’m left wondering am I the ‘Johnny’ who gets his face slapped by that irate girlfriend in one of the verses.
‘Once we were ejected from the TV Club for being caught with our ties in our pockets...’