Laura Izibor has always been a fan of Philip Lynott. It’s hardly surprising. He was Ireland’s first successful male black artist. In rock’n’roll terms, Izibor is his female equivalent. “I was in the middle of recording my second album last week when I became aware of a lot of Philip Lynott stuff going on ,” she says, “and I thought: I’d love to have a go at ‘Don’t Believe A Word’. It’s easily my favourite Phil Lynott song and when I talked to the band they were well up for doing it too.”
Izibor was impressed that her Stateside musical compadres were familiar with the Lynott oeuvre. “Amazingly, they all knew the song,” she explains, “so we got into it very quickly. I think the first time I heard it was on Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous album.We did a slower version of it than the Thin Lizzy version.”
As is often the case the switch from a male to a female narrator in the song freshens it up in an intriguing way. “What intrigued me about recording it was that I’d never heard a girl singing that song before,” Laura reflects, “and I thought it would bring a different perspective to have a female singer doing it. So I’m really pleased with the way it’s turned out. In fact, it’s worked out so well that I wouldn’t actually rule it out of being on the new album. But we’ll have to see about that! (laughs)”
Laura is a bona fide star herself, bringing a totally new dimension to Irish pop – in much the same way as Philip Lynott did back in the 1970s. “Philo wrote so many great songs,” she says, “but it was even more important to me growing up as a black kid in Dublin that here was a successful rock musician who was black and loved by so many people in Ireland and all over the world – and he lived only twenty minute away from where I lived!
“He was a real inspiration on so many levels, and I’m really proud to have come from the same city as he did.”

For more of this interview, including exclusive details of Laura Izibor’s next album, go to www.hotpress.com