1. Eric Robin Bell was born on 3 September 1947 and is a Northern Irish rock and blues musician, best known as a founding member and the original guitarist of the rock group Thin Lizzy, of which he was a member from 1969 to 1973.
17 Facts About Eric Bell
1. 2.
Eric Bell has since released several solo albums and performs regularly with a blues-based trio, the Eric Bell Band.
3.
Eric Bell began his career with local groups around the Belfast area, including the last incarnation of Them to feature Van Morrison, between September and October 1966.
4.
Eric Bell played with a number of other bands including Shades of Blue, The Earth Dwellers and The Bluebeats, before joining an Irish showband named The Dreams.
5.
Eric Bell left in 1969, having tired of the showband format, and at the end of that year formed a band with Irish musicians Phil Lynott, Eric Wrixon and Brian Downey.
6.
Eric Bell suggested the name Thin Lizzy, after Tin Lizzie, a robot character in The Dandy comic.
7.
Organist Eric Bell Wrixon left Thin Lizzy after a few months and the remaining trio later secured a contract with Decca Records.
8.
Eric Bell co-wrote a number of songs with Lynott and Downey, including "The Rocker" which became a live favourite throughout the band's career.
9.
Eric Bell composed one song on his own, "Ray Gun", from their first album, Thin Lizzy.
10.
Eric Bell left the band after a New Year's Eve concert in 1973, after throwing his guitar into the air in the middle of the concert, pushing the amplifiers into the audience and storming off stage.
11.
Eric Bell was unsure of the musical direction Redding was taking, but went on to record two albums with the group before they split in 1976.
12.
Eric Bell composed the song "Love and War" for the second album, Blowin'.
13.
In 1980, Eric Bell reunited with Thin Lizzy to record a tribute song to Jimi Hendrix, "Song for Jimmy" [sic], which was released as an orange flexi disc and given away with Flexipop in August 1981.
14.
Eric Bell appeared as a guest on Thin Lizzy's final tour in 1983 and the accompanying live album, Life.
15.
Eric Bell had reactivated his own band in the late 1970s and released an EP in 1981.
16.
Eric Bell lived in Dublin, then London before moving to West Cork, Ireland, then to Carrodore in the Ards Peninsula, County Down.
17.
In November 2024 Eric Bell was presented with the Legend Award at the Northern Ireland Music Prizes.