Johnny the Fox is the seventh studio album by Irish hard rock band Thin Lizzy, released in 1976. This album was written and recorded while bassist/vocalist Phil Lynott was recovering from a bout of hepatitis that put him off the road halfway through the previous Jailbreak tour. "Don't Believe a Word" was a British hit single. Johnny the Fox was the last Thin Lizzy studio album on which guitarist Brian Robertson featured as a full member of the band, as the personality clashes between him and Lynott resulted in Robertson being sacked, reinstated, and later sacked again.

Recording

Once Lynott had returned to the UK from the aborted US tour in June 1976, when the band had been scheduled to support Rainbow, he spent time in hospital in Manchester recovering from hepatitis. He had an acoustic guitar with him and wrote the songs for Johnny the Fox during June and July, with one outing to play a gig at Hammersmith Odeon on 11 July. After his release from hospital, Lynott joined the other members of the band and travelled to Munich, Germany in August to record the album at Musicland Studios with producer John Alcock. Alcock has said that the decision to record outside the UK was for tax reasons.

Early in the recording process, it became clear that neither the band nor the production team were happy with the studios or the recording process, and they experienced particular trouble obtaining a satisfactory drum sound.

According to Robertson, Lynott wrote "Rocky" with him in mind.

Backing musicians

Phil Collins of Genesis was brought in to contribute some percussion to one or more tracks, seemingly because he was a friend of Lynott's. Robertson later said, "Collins was just a mate of Phil's... I think Phil probably just wanted to get him on the album to name-drop."

Irish musician Fiachra Trench provided string arrangements, for example on "Sweet Marie", on which he used one bank of violins and two viola sections.

| rev2 = Classic Rock

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| rev3 = Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal

| rev3Score = 10/10

| rev4 = Melody Maker

| rev4Score = (favourable) To the contrary, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic stated that Johnny the Fox fell short in comparison to the previous album, Jailbreak, suggesting that the album veered toward "an odd, half-baked concept album", despite showing the same strengths as its predecessor, i.e. Lynott's lyrics and the group's musical power. Praising "Don't Believe a Word" and "Borderline" as great moments, he said that the album "never falls flat", but is "never quite as gripping as Jailbreak". Eddy also wonders whether the character-heavy album is "supposed to be a rock opera—a working-class-mythos fugitive-kid-shooting drugstore-attendant saga".

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Certifications

See also

  • Quality Street Gang

References

  • Official music video