Last Monday (January 20th, 2025) the rock community mourned the loss of John Sykes, the legendary guitarist known for his influential work with Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake, who passed away at the age of 65 after a courageous battle with cancer.
Who Was John Sykes?
He was an English guitarist who began his career playing with the English heavy metal band Tygers of Pang Tang.
Then, he joined the mythical Irish rock band Thin Lizzy.
Later, he was a paramount part of Whitesnake‘s commercial success.
Formed his band, Blue Murder, followed by a solo career.
In this post, I’m going to focus only his work on Whitesnake though, because they are one of my dearest bands ever.
John Sykes’s Whitesnake Era
After Micky Moody departed from the band, Whitesnake needed a “guitar hero” who could match David Coverdale’s persona, and they found him in Thin Lizzy’s guitarist, John Sykes. The year was 1984 and although Moody and Mel Galley had already recorded the guitar parts on 1984’s album Slide It In, John Sykes re-recorded those parts on the US version of the album. Sykes gave them a more heavy and modern tone to them.
Slide It In is the sixth studio album by English rock band Whitesnake, released on 30 January 1984.
My favorite songs from this album are:
With their next album, the self-titled Whitesnake (also known as 1987), the band moved a bit away from their blues roots to a more hard rock sound. Coverdale started having problems with the band and he fired most of the band, including John Sykes. That’s why even though John recorded the lead guitar parts and co-written a big part of the material on this album he doesn’t appear in the videos.
Coverdale, then, got a new line-up for the band and they adopted the glam image to adapt to the American audience. This album was a huge commercial success.
Sadly, John Sykes left the band before the release of this work, and on tour, the guitars were played by Adrian Vandenberg and Vivian Campbell.
Whitesnake is the seventh studio album by English rock band Whitesnake, released on 23 March 1987.
Although this album is a complete masterpiece, my preferred tracks are
After Whitesnake, John Sykes formed his band, Blue Murder, and after that, he focused on his solo career.
I’ve always felt like John Sykes was an underrated guitar player and that he never obtained the recognition he genuinely deserved. He was an amazing and very talented musician, and he will always remain in my heart and ears for having been a crucial part of two of my most treasured Whitesnake albums.
But one thing I’m sure of is that he’s playing his badass riffs in his beautiful Les Paul guitar in the Rock & Roll’s Heaven and reunited with Thin Lizzy’s Phyl Lynott, along with so many others of our fallen heroes.