Guitarist John Sykes (pic), who played with the rock bands Whitesnake and Thin Lizzy, has died at 65. He helped compose one of the defining power ballads of the late-1980s hair-metal scene in Is This Love, which drove sales of Whitesnake's self-titled 1987 LP to sales of more than 8 million copies in the United States.
His death was announced in a statement on his website, which said he died "after a hard fought battle with cancer." The statement didn't say when or where he died.
