{"id":127858,"date":"2025-01-21T00:05:02","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T05:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/01\/21\/john-sykes-thin-lizzy-and-whitesnake-guitarist-dies-at-65\/"},"modified":"2025-01-21T00:05:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T05:05:02","slug":"john-sykes-thin-lizzy-and-whitesnake-guitarist-dies-at-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/01\/21\/john-sykes-thin-lizzy-and-whitesnake-guitarist-dies-at-65\/","title":{"rendered":"John Sykes, Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake Guitarist, Dies at\u00a065"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tJohn Sykes, the guitarist who performed with Thin Lizzy<\/a> and Whitesnake<\/a> in the 1980s \u2014 and who co-wrote several tracks on Whitesnake\u2019s highest-charting album, including the hit \u201cIs This Love\u201d \u2014 has died.<\/p>\n

\n\tSykes passed away following a battle with cancer, a statement posted<\/a> on his verified Facebook page said on Monday (Jan. 20).<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tGone But Not Forgotten: Musicians We Lost in\u00a02024\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\t\u201cIt is with great sorrow we share that John Sykes has passed away after a hard fought battle with cancer,\u201d the message said. \u201cHe will be remembered by many as a man with exceptional musical talent but for those who didn\u2019t know him personally, he was a thoughtful, kind, and charismatic man whose presence lit up the room. He certainly marched to the beat of his own drum and always pulled for the underdog.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn his final days, he spoke of his sincere love and gratitude for his fans who stuck by him through all these years. While the impact of his loss is profound and the mood somber, we hope the light of his memory will extinguish the shadow of his absence,\u201d the note read.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJust heard the shocking news of John\u2019s passing\u2026My sincere condolences to his family, friends & fans,\u201d Whitesnake\u2019s David Coverdale wrote Monday on X, where he posted photos in tribute to his former bandmate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn in Reading, England, in 1959, Sykes took up guitar when he was a teenager. He joined the band Streetfighter, and then Tygers of Pan Tang, but left the band in 1982 before recording his first solo single.<\/p>\n

\n\tSykes co-wrote and recorded his 1982 single \u201cPlease Don\u2019t Leave Me\u201d with Thin Lizzy\u2019s Phil Lynott. He later joined Thin Lizzy as guitarist and played on the Irish rockers\u2019 final studio album, 1983\u2019s Thunder and Lightning<\/em>, for which he co-wrote the track \u201cCold Sweat.\u201d \u201cIt was a little heavier and I think that was something that I\u2019d brought to the table,\u201d he recalled<\/a> of the sound of the album in a 2008 interview.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was young and what I lived for was being involved in rock \u2018n\u2019 roll,\u201d said Sykes, who\u2019d been a fan of Thin Lizzy before joining. \u201cThat was a wonderful time in my life, and I was only about 22 years old at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added that Thin Lizzy\u2019s 1983 split, following a tour billed as a farewell run, was \u201cdefinitely a kick to the guts. I didn\u2019t really think it was going to end and I don\u2019t think Phil really thought it was going to end either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSykes linked with Whitesnake to record new guitar parts for the U.S. version of the group\u2019s 1984 album Slide It In<\/em>, and for their next studio album, their self-titled set that was released in 1987. <\/p>\n

\n\tIt turned out to be Whitesnake\u2019s biggest chart success. Whitesnake<\/em> the album peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 that year, ultimately spending a total of 76 weeks on the chart.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe single \u201cIs This Love,\u201d co-written by Whitesnake\u2019s Coverdale and Sykes, reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart in 1987. It was the second biggest chart hit off of Whitesnake\u2019s self-titled album, just behind \u201cHere I Go Again\u201d (co-written by Coverdale and Bernie Marsden), which made it to No. 1 on the Hot 100. Both singles were preceded by \u201cStill of the Night\u201d (another Coverdale\/Sykes work), a song that only ranked at No. 79 on the Hot 100 but reached the MTV audience with its Marty Callner-directed music video \u2014 but Sykes isn\u2019t in the video.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough Sykes was a co-writer on the majority of the album\u2019s tracks, it would be the last Whitesnake project he contributed to before Coverdale unexpectedly fired him, and his bandmates, ahead of the record\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs you know, things went squirrely between us, which was unfortunate,\u201d Coverdale said in an interview with Metal Edge<\/a> in 2023. \u201cBut John was and is an incredible talent. Our musical chemistry was great, but it didn\u2019t work personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSykes shared his version of what happened in a 2017 interview with Rock Candy<\/a>, saying in part, \u201cDavid said nothing to any of us about having decided to kick us out of the band,\u201d and that he had found out about it from John Kalodner, then A&R at Geffen Records.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Sykes continued on his path in music. Following his time with Whitesnake, he formed the band Blue Murder, releasing two studio albums and one live album in the early \u201990s. His career later shifted to a focus on solo work, with five albums to come over the timespan of 1995-2004. <\/p>\n

\n\t2004\u2019s Bad Boy Live!<\/em> was his last full-length album released before his death.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2021, Sykes released two singles, \u201cDawning of a Brand New Day\u201d and \u201cOut Alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Sykes, the guitarist who performed with Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake in the 1980s \u2014 and who co-wrote several tracks on Whitesnake\u2019s highest-charting album, including the hit \u201cIs This Love\u201d \u2014 has died. Sykes passed away following a battle with cancer, a statement posted on his verified Facebook page said on Monday (Jan. 20). Related […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}