John Sykes/Whitesnake

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

I just wanted to remind everyone that the 1987 Whitesnake album is one of the greatest albums ever.  And John Sykes is ridiculously awesome.  Check out his solo from Cryin in the Rain from Rock in Rio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A-R4qbSzYk

[TAC]

I was reading Rudy Sarzo's Off The Rails earlier today, and after Randy died, they tried to recruit Sykes, but apparently, he and his manager made some contract demands that the Osbournes were having none of.
Sykes would obviously go on and join Thin Lizzy.
Ironically, the Aldridge/Sarzo rhythm section would tour that 1987 album. Saw them on that tour opening for Motley Crue.

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Wow, that's very cool.  Everything I've ever seen from the guy was just out of this world.  Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, Blue Murder, etc.  That' why I was so excited at the prospect of him partnering with Mike Portnoy.

[TAC]

I actually have the Tygers Of Pan Tang's Spellbound on vinyl!

John James Sykes

[Sir GuitarCozmo]

Oh hell, I forgot all about TOPT.  Something else Sykes-related that I have to check out.

[Jaq]

Fantastic solos there, but me? I'm all HOLY SHIT COZY POWELL IS KILLIN' THE DRUMS MAN. 

[TAC]

Fantastic solos there, but me? I'm all HOLY SHIT COZY POWELL IS KILLIN' THE DRUMS MAN. 

Oh yeah!!!!!!
He was the man!!

[jjrock88]

I would have loved to have heard what Thin Lizzy would have made throughout the 80's with the Thunder & Lightning line up.  That album is awesome.  I just have the 80s Whitesnake discs; never could get into their 70's material.  Their 1987 album is for sure one of the defining hard rock/metal albums of the decade.

[BlobVanDam]

I just wanted to remind everyone that the 1987 Whitesnake album is one of the greatest albums ever.  And John Sykes is ridiculously awesome.  Check out his solo from Cryin in the Rain from Rock in Rio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A-R4qbSzYk

No reminding needed here! Still regularly crank that one.
I recently got one of the older CD pressings, because I got tired of the 20th anniversary remaster being too compressed. It sounds so much better.

[wolfking]

Sykes is THE reason why I love 1987 so much.  The guitar work on Looking For Love alone is worth the price of the album.

Thunder and Lightning is of course incredible too.

[wkiml]

Sykes is my favorite guitar player of all time   

[TAC]

Sykes is my favorite guitar player of all time   

Really?  I don't mean that sarcastically.


I really gotta try Blue Murder. I was so disappointed with the debut. Do they get any better?

[jjrock88]

I only have the debut from Blue Murder and I really enjoy it. What did you find disappointing about it?

[bosk1]

For some reason, when I first got the debut back in '89, I absolutely hated it on first listen.  I was about to give it away and listened one more time just to make sure I wasn't missing anything.  Well, I loved it, and don't know what I was thinking first time around.  It embodies everything I like about Sykes as a singer and guitar player.  One of the best albums of that year, and there were some good ones.  I still consider it a classic. 

I'm trying to remember how many albums were released under the "Blue Murder" name.  I seem to recall there were three studio albums and one live album, but I can't seem to remember what the third studio album was (the second was Nuthin But Trouble).  In any case, I didn't like the follow up(s) as much, and only have the debut album and the live album, both of which are top notch. 

Live album:  https://www.amazon.com/Screaming-Blue-Murder/dp/B000009H5C/ref=ntt_mus_dp_dpt_3

[wkiml]

Sykes is my favorite guitar player of all time   

Really?  I don't mean that sarcastically.


I really gotta try Blue Murder. I was so disappointed with the debut. Do they get any better?

I've been a fan of his since the Tyger days...his work on Thunder and Lightning blew me away and Whitesnake ST just sealed it.....Blue Murder has some tasty stuff but alot of filler as well

I prefered Nothing but trouble over the first album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCkoHBJbJeI

His solo stuff is very good

if you can find yourself a copy of Bad Boy Live!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Boy_Live!_(album)        I recommend it . It covers most of his career sans the latter solo stuff  which is nothing like the output from Thin Lizzy/Blue Murder/Whitesnake...its much mellower alot of ballads but again great guitar work

[TAC]

Yeah, I was looking at Bad Boy Live on Amazon just the other day. Screaming Blue Murder also had some great reviews. I am considering putting them on my Christmas list.

[bosk1]

Good song, Bill.  And, like many, the solo is a reminder of Sykes' absolutely ridiculous vibrato and ability to somehow repeatedly bend an E string into the next zipcode without breaking it. 

Found something else cool while I had that video up.  Here's a complete show from '95:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6swzNRmKzk

Listening now. 


@TAC:  As I said above, Screaming Blue Murder is excellent.  The only very small beef I have with it is that Sykes botches the lyrics of Still Of The Night in one spot, but it's still amazing overall.

[Lowdz]

Sykes is my favorite guitar player of all time   

Really?  I don't mean that sarcastically.


I really gotta try Blue Murder. I was so disappointed with the debut. Do they get any better?

For me the debut is really good and they got poor from there. Was looki ng forward to the Portnoy Sykes project in fact any Sykes project, but he's about as prolific as Def Leppard.

[wolfking]

Yeah, I loved the debut right away, but what I heard from them after that didn't match the debut.

[TAC]

OK, so I gave Blue Murder's self titled a good spin last night. I still feel very underwhelmed by it. There is some great playing by Sykes and Tony Franklin, but the songs just aren't strong enough.
Ptolemy is probably my favorite song here. I like Billy as well.  Black Hearted Woman sounds like it could've been lifted right from the 1987 Whitesnake album.
Valley Of The Kings would've been so much better if Sykes' fantastic outro wasn't drowned out by the dated 80's style " na na na" part. 

This album also would've been so much better had Cozy Powell played on it.

The other thought I had was that this album reminds me of a lot of Michael Schenker's material. You have to really be a fan of Sykes to truly enjoy this album I think. I mean he plays brilliantly, spine tingling in places, and that is similar to Schenker, but like Schenker, you really have almost ignore the song and zero in on the chops.

[bosk1]

I guess that's just a "we'll have to agree to disagree" situation then, as I (and a lot of other people I know) think the song writing is very good, especially on the songs you mention. 

[Jaq]

One of my more enduring memories of Blue Murder-and I was somewhat underwhelmed by the debut at the time, though it's grown on me since-was the video for Valley of the Kings. Carmine Appice had the typical big double bass kit, and across the top of the two drum heads it read "BLUE MURDER" and across the bottom it read "CARMINE APPICE" One word on each bass drum. Thanks, however to the camera angles and the way the kit was set up, though, you spent most of the video seeing either "BLUE CARMINE" or "MURDER APPICE." Me and my best friend at the time called Carmine Appice Blue Carmine for YEARS. 

[bosk1]

  I had never noticed that before.  Had to YouTube the video just now to check it out. 

Incidentally, seems like a decently-budgeted video judging from all appearances.  Wonder why they couldn't seem to afford a shirt for Tony. 

[Jaq]

That Blue Murder video came out in the middle of the period when me and my best friend would hang out on Saturdays after he got off work-I worked a Monday-Friday job, he had one at Red Lobster where he mostly worked evenings, so we usually didn't hang out a lot during the week-and if we had nothing better to do, we'd drink beer and watch Headbanger's Ball and shoot the shit. The Blue Carmine thing was one of many that developed from our Headbanger's Ball beer bashes. 

Thinking about Blue Murder again, I think part of my initial disappointment for it at least came from the fact that, originally, Ray Gillen was supposed to be the singer. It was kind of funny the reputation Ray Gillen had as a singer before he joined Badlands-he was always touted as being awesome when he replaced Glenn Hughes in Black Sabbath, but he never recorded anything to back that up. It was just one of those things the metal community knew. "Ray Gillen's going to be in this? Awesome!" Turns out we were right, but man, we didn't have a lot of evidence at the time. What makes that notion funny now is how, after hearing the demo with Gillen singing, John Kalodner at Geffen convinced Sykes to sing on the album himself. Go figure.

[TAC]

I was actually underwhelmed when Badlands came out too.

I would take Tony Martin over Gillen. A regret  I have is completely ignoring the Martin led Sabbath back then, only going back a couple of years ago to rediscover it.

[bosk1]

What makes that notion funny now is how, after hearing the demo with Gillen singing, John Kalodner at Geffen convinced Sykes to sing on the album himself. Go figure.

Are the demos floating around out there anywhere?

By the way, I heard the story slightly differently.  As I recall it, it was only after Ray declined and they were hunting for a singer that they prompted Sykes to sing.

[Jaq]

Yeah, I've heard it both ways too. The other makes more sense than the A&R guy telling Sykes to sing instead of Gillen. And if those demos exist, I haven't found them. Yet. I do know that copies of the Sabbath album that Gillen sang on before leaving and being replaced by Tony Martin are out there though.

[Lowdz]

Yeah, I've heard it both ways too. The other makes more sense than the A&R guy telling Sykes to sing instead of Gillen. And if those demos exist, I haven't found them. Yet. I do know that copies of the Sabbath album that Gillen sang on before leaving and being replaced by Tony Martin are out there though.

The Sabbath ones were released on the 2nd disc of the Eternal Idol deluxe edition a couple of years ago.

[Jaq]

That's where it was! Amazing that I can remember shit me and my best friend did wasted together decades ago and I can't remember something that came out recently. 

[wolfking]

Yeah, I've heard it both ways too. The other makes more sense than the A&R guy telling Sykes to sing instead of Gillen. And if those demos exist, I haven't found them. Yet. I do know that copies of the Sabbath album that Gillen sang on before leaving and being replaced by Tony Martin are out there though.

The Sabbath ones were released on the 2nd disc of the Eternal Idol deluxe edition a couple of years ago.

Yeah, I got that, they were okay, but Martin was wasily the better choice.  The best Sabbath era IMO.

[Lowdz]

Yeah, I've heard it both ways too. The other makes more sense than the A&R guy telling Sykes to sing instead of Gillen. And if those demos exist, I haven't found them. Yet. I do know that copies of the Sabbath album that Gillen sang on before leaving and being replaced by Tony Martin are out there though.

The Sabbath ones were released on the 2nd disc of the Eternal Idol deluxe edition a couple of years ago.

Yeah, I got that, they were okay, but Martin was wasily the better choice.  The best Sabbath era IMO.

Personal taste and all that. DIO for me. I preferred the Martin era over Ozzy, though my mate Bryan would lynch me for that.

[jjrock88]

I have the deluxe versions of both Seventh Star and Eternal Idol.  The Gillen tracks are very good and interesting to hear for sure.  But the Martin versions are without question better.  Second best Sabbath era.  Badlands was a much better fit for Gillen.

[pgf]

Good song, Bill.  And, like many, the solo is a reminder of Sykes' absolutely ridiculous vibrato and ability to somehow repeatedly bend an E string into the next zipcode without breaking it. 

Found something else cool while I had that video up.  Here's a complete show from '95:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6swzNRmKzk

Listening now. 

You should check this one out from 1989 with the original lineup, fantastic stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsXr43nBCdc&list=UL

[Jaq]

Returning to Sykes, I listened to Thunder and Lightning last night for the first time in a while. Good lord what a killer album. 

[TAC]

Returning to Sykes, I listened to Thunder and Lightning last night for the first time in a while. Good lord what a killer album. 

Yes it is!!!!!