Yahoo Lifestyle John Sykes, Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy Guitarist and Co-writer of ‘Still of the Night’ and ‘Is This Love,’ Dies at 65
John Sykes, a veteran hard-rock guitarist who was a member of Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy and the Tygers of Pan Tang, has died, according to a post on his official Facebook page. He had battled cancer for several years; he was 65.
A fiery guitarist and strong singer with a mane of wavy blond hair, Sykes is best known for his work on Whitesnake’s eponymous 1987 seventh album, for which he cowrote nearly every track — including the hit singles “Still of the Night” and “Is This Love” — and played all of the guitars. However, he had been fired from the band before the album’s release, due to disagreements with frontman David Coverdale, and saw two other guitarists miming his parts in the songs’ videos and touring extensively with the band during its peak years.
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The post on his page reads: “It is with great sorrow we share that John Sykes has passed away after a hard fought battle with cancer. He will be remembered by many as a man with exceptional musical talent but for those who didn’t 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. In 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.”
Born in Reading, England in 1959 and raised partially in Spain, Sykes began playing guitar as a teen and launched his professional career with a group called Streetfighter in the late 1970s after he’d moved to Blackpool in the north of England. He left that group to joined the Tygers of Pan Tang, which were popular during the “New Wave of British Heavy Metal” era of the early 1980s that also spawned Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and many other bands. He played on three of the group’s albums and left in early 1982, but was contractually obligated to record two more songs for the band’s label, MCA.
After Sykes auditioned unsuccessfully for Ozzy Osbourne’s band, Tygers producer Chris Tsangarides connected him with Phil Lynott, singer-songwriter of Thin Lizzy, who were enormously popular at the time and had a constantly shifting second lead guitarist position. The members of Thin Lizzy played on a Sykes solo single that fulfilled his contract, and he was asked to join the band.
Sykes brought a distinctly heavy metal touch to the band’s final album, “Thunder and Lightning,” which did not sit well with many fans, but Lizzy was in a downward spiral, primarily due to Lynott’s heroin addiction (which ultimately led to his death in early 1986), and the band split up in 1983.
While he’d intended to continue working with Lynott, Sykes instead opted to join Whitesnake in early 1984. He added guitar parts to the band’s “Slide It In” album and played with them for a world tour, but Coverdale fired the entire band after the self-titled album was recorded and regrouped with alums of Dio, Ozzy Osbourne, Quiet Riot and Vandenberg. Driven by the Sykes-cowritten songs and their videos, that album became a global smash and Whitesnake was a major draw for the next two years, although their follow-up album flopped.
Sykes formed the band Blue Murder with veteran drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tony Franklin, although the outfit only lasted for two albums. In the following years he was considered as Def Leppard’s replacement for the late guitarist Steve Clark (although the role went to Vivian Campbell, who ironically had replaced him in Whitesnake) before pursuing a solo career and fronting a Lynott-less incarnation of Thin Lizzy for several years.
Sykes also auditioned unsuccessfully for Guns N’ Roses in 2009, and continued work on solo material in the years before his death.
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