Thin Lizzy-Whiskey in the jar

Thin Lizzy are an Irish hard rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. The two founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist/vocalist Phil Lynott met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of thirteen studio albums.

Thin Lizzy are best known for their songs "Whiskey in the Jar", "Jailbreak" and "The Boys Are Back in Town", all major international hits still played regularly on hard rock and classic rock radio stations. After Lynott's death in 1986, various incarnations of the band have emerged over the years based around guitarists Scott Gorham and John Sykes, though Sykes left the band in 2009.

Thin Lizzy's de facto leader, Lynott was composer or co-composer of almost all of the band's songs. He was one of the few black musicians to achieve commercial success in hard rock, and the first black Irishman to do so. Thin Lizzy boasted some of the most critically acclaimed guitarists throughout their history, with founders Downey and Lynott as the rhythm section, on the drums and bass guitar.

As well as being multiracial, the band drew their members not only from both sides of the Irish border but also from both the Catholic and Protestant communities during The Troubles. Their music reflects a wide range of influences, including country music, psychedelic rock, and traditional Irish folk music, but is generally classified as hard rock or sometimes heavy metal. Rolling Stone magazine describes the band as distinctly hard rock, "far apart from the braying mid-70s metal pack".

Allmusic critic John Dougan has written that "As the band's creative force, Lynott was a more insightful and intelligent writer than many of his ilk, preferring slice-of-life working-class dramas of love and hate influenced by Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, and virtually all of the Irish literary tradition." Van Morrison, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix were major influences during the early days of the band, and later influences included American artists Little Feat and Bob Seger.

"Whiskey in the Jar" is a famous Irish traditional song, set in the southern mountains of Ireland, with specific mention of Cork and Kerry counties, as well as Fenit, a village in Kerry county. It is about a highwayman, or perhaps a footpad, who is betrayed by his wife or lover, and is one of the most widely performed traditional Irish songs. It has been recorded by numerous professional artists since the 1950s.

The song first gained wide exposure when the Irish folk band The Dubliners performed it internationally as a signature song, and recorded it on three albums in the 1960s. Building on their success, the Irish rock band Thin Lizzy hit the Irish and British pop charts with the song in the early 1970s. The American metal band Metallica brought it to a wider rock audience in 1998 by playing a version very similar to that of Thin Lizzy's with a heavier sound, and won a Grammy for the song in 2000 for Best Hard Rock Performance.

" The above text is a mashup from Wikipedia."