Ebook: Cowboy Song: The Authorized Biography of Thin Lizzy’s Philip Lynott

Philip Lynott packed a vast amount into his thirty-six years. An instantly identifiable singer, charismatic stage performer, and supremely gifted songwriter, the guiding spirit of Thin Lizzy combined the instincts of a wild man with the soul of a poet.
            The first biography written with the cooperation of the Lynott Estate,Cowboy Songexplores the fascinating contradictions between Lynott’s unbridled rock star excesses and the shy, sensitive "orphan" raised in working-class Dublin. The mixed-race child of a Catholic teenager and a Guyanese stowaway, Lynott rose above daunting obstacles and wounding abandonments to become Ireland’s first rock star.
           Cowboy Songanalyses his unsettled childhood; musical apprenticeship; key alliances with the poets, painters, and folkies of sixties Dublin; stardom with Thin Lizzy; and drug-induced decline. It examines the unique blend of cultural influences which informed Lynott’s writing, connecting Ireland’s rich reserves of music, myth, and poetry to hard rock, progressive folk, punk, soul, and new wave. The results—including the hits “Whiskey in the Jar,” “The Boys Are Back in Town,” and “Dancing in the Moonlight,” and classic albumsJailbreakand Live and Dangerous—are now part of the rock canon.
            Including an afterword by Lynott’s former wife Caroline Taraskevics,Cowboy Songis the definitive authorized account of an extraordinary life and career. Drawing on scores of exclusive interviews with family, friends, bandmates, and collaborators, it is both the ultimate depiction of a multifaceted rock icon and an intimate portrait of a much-loved father, son, and husband.