BACK to Tommy Bolin Biographies
Some time has passed since the Geffen Records box set The Ultimate was released in October, 1989. That project, which came together through the efforts of Tom Zutaut and Willie Dixon, among many others, was the first official release of Tommy’s music since 1976. While it was great having the 22 previously released and one previously unreleased tracks made available in the set, there was still so much more of Tommy’s unreleased music to offer.
At the time The Ultimate Tommy Bolin was released, a documentary was put toghether by Mike Drumm for his Denver-based Music Link TV series. It featured footage of Tommy in various bands and interviews with band members, co-songwriters, etc. I had yet to meet Mike, but the documentary was very well done, and you could tell that he enjoyed Tommy’s music as well as the next person. Some time later, Mike gave me a call and asked me if I would be interested in doing another project - this time of all unreleased material. I thought about this for quite some time, but I didn’t know where to begin. Well, Mike had been thinking about it and felt he knew how to kick it into gear. He said he thought a friend of his, Barry Simons, an entertainment attorney from San Francisco, could help us put the pieces together. We all got together in Denver (Mike’s hometown). For three days we talked about Tommy’s music and a possible business plan. Barry felt that Tommy’s reputation was such that there would be major record-label interest. I went back home to Sioux City with a feeling of hope and gratification.
On the home front things weren’t going so well. Shortly thereafter, my younger brother, Rick, passed away after a short illness at the age of 37. Having recently lost my mother and before that, my dad, I took some time to get the strength to continue. Then things started to improve. My wife, Terri, got pregnant, and we had a baby boy, Bobby Vayne Bolin. It became clear to me that it was time to pick up the pieces because my parents and brothers would have wanted it that way. So Mike, Barry, and I met in Los Angeles and took a meeting at Rhino Records. What a godsend! They loved the idea. The concept of the deal was wrapped up in Senior Vice President of A&R Gary Stewart’s office almost before we had taken our seats. So here it is, Tommy Bolin: From The Archives, Vol. 1. I hope everyone appreciates and enjoys what they hear here from Tommy. He was the best and spiritually was a saint. Put it this way, I couldn’t ask for anything more - thank you all.
Johnnie Bolin 8/31/95
To all fans and friends of Tommy Bolin: From Mike Drumm, the Tommy Bolin Archives, Inc., July, 1995
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How could a musician who died almost 20 years before he reached mass acceptance still have an active fan base? Usually these phenomena are only supported by truly gifted musical originals, the kind who help define genres. The fans Tommy Bolin accumulated during his life, and the ones who have come onboard since his death in December of 1976, serve as witness that he was such an original. I am one of thousands who still marvel at his special musical gift and wonder: What if he had lived?
In the fall of 1969, I was very conscious of a palpable buzz in the Colorado air about Zephyr. The Boulder band had captured the hearts and minds of thouse\ands of front-range music fans with their deft exploration of rock, blues, jazz, and psychedelia. Fronted by the vaguely Joplinesque singer Candy Givens, the band was known for performances that contained enormous power and exhilarating improvisational musical excitement. The band performed many area concerts in 1969, promoting their first, self-titled, album on ABC-Probe Records. The lineup of that incarnation of the group also included David Givens, John Faris, Robbie Chamberlin, and Tommy Bolin.
As a first semester freshman at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I was naturally drawn to Tommy through Zephyr. Zephyr was the ultimate homegrown first-generation Colorado psychedelic rock band. And Tommy was its ultimate improvisational soloist. That fact stood out to me the first time I ever saw Tommy and Zephyr play, at a now-classic concert. The band, by then with drummer Bobby Berge, performed live on a Friday in October 1969 at The Glenn Miller Ballroom on the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus. Tommy’s playing that night was, as usual, awe-inspiring in its creative complexion and execution. I left the show almost breathless and exhilarated by how the band in general, and Tommy’s playing specifically, had expanded my musical consciousness. In this experience, I was not alone. Soon thereafter, I was hired by The Record Center, the hip record store "on the hill" in Boulder, and was delighted when Tommy would come in. We would play various Hendrix bootlegs for Tommy over the store PA, and he would happily hang out and listen to the entire album. Shortly thereafter, I got a job with CTI Records, a jazz label, and turned Tommy onto the Airto Moreira album Fingers. Tommy was totally taken by the modern Brazilian music and was later known for his pickup band live performances of a Flora Purim tune from Fingers, "San Francisco River." Tommy was into world beat long before there was such a genre! As the record company rep, I was able to get Tommy tickets to a date on the Fingers tour at Tulagi. Sure enough, Tommy , long-term girlfriend Karen L\Ulibarri, and their friends arrived early to secure front-row seats for the show. This was part of a pattern with Tommy. Since his arrival in Boulder in 1968, Tommy was continually being turned onto, and being captivated by, the music of jazz masters like John Coltrane, et al. Under this influence, he continued to develop his improvisational flare, which also owed a lot to Hendrix’s exploration of electronics. Although quick to bow to Hendrix, unlike others who were also influenced by him, Tommy kept his own style and did not stoop to mimicry.
Bolin continued on with Zephyr until late 1972, when he quit the band to set his own musical direction. Boulder was in shock. After all, how could you image Zephyr without Tommy? Tommy’s immediate reaction to the squabbles of Zephyr was to take a very personal and selfish turn with his creative direction. He went with all the instrumental and jazz influences he was personally drawn to and formed Energy as a prototypical rock-fusion instrumental band. It was not uncommon for Energy to play some of the most ferocious, loud, sensational voiceless music to a mere handful of adventurous music fans in Boulder venues such as Tulagi. One night in particular in late 1972 or early 1973 stands out in my mind: The "new" Tommy-less Zephyr, temporarily renamed The Bees and featureing guitar replacement Jock Bartley, later of Firefall, played a total boogie dance incarnation to a packed house at the aforementioned Glenn Miller Ballroom. Meanwhile, nearby at Tulagi, Energy played a huge, brilliant set to some ten people.
Tommy, in Energy, continued to push the envelope with wall-of-sound techniques like playing a pedal steel guitar in a wild, creative, non-country Hendrixian manner - something probably quite shocking to country music purists! It was during this period that the roots Tommy had also established in the fertile New York jazz-fusion scene with the likes of Jeremy Steig, Jan Hammer, Billy Cobham, and the aforementioned Airto provided Tommy with some speccial performance and recording opportunities. Between trips to New York, and occasional forays by Steig to Colorado, Bolin jammed, performed, and recorded in a variety of situations with these fusion kings.
The most well-known of these collaborations is Cobham’s Spectum album. Here was the Iowa-born, Boulder-based psychedelic guitar god playing on playing on equal creative and technical terms with the most accomplished progressive jazz players of the early 1970’s. During this time, I lived just four doors down from Tommy, and I was anxious to know what the results of the Cobham sessions were. On his return from New York, I went over to visit, and he gave me a now-lost advance cassette of the album. I played it into the ground until the album came out! Energy, meanwhile, evolved into a somewhat more commercial outfit that eventually featured long-term friend and lyrical collaborator Jeff Cook on vocals, along with Tom Stephenson on keys, Stanley Sheldon, later of Peter Frampton’s band, on bass, and Bobby Berge on drums. In an example of how blind record companies sometimes are, Energy could never get a record deal and fizzled out. During this time, Tommy approached me with a request. He wanted to buy a reel-to-reel tape deck so he could record acoustic song ideas at home. A pretty basic need. Since he had no credit or cash, he asked if I would co-sign on a loan with him so he could buy the tape deck. I was taken aback that he would need my help, but I instantly agreed. I just hoped that he would make all the payments! Years later, the installment loan document with both our signatures on it was found, and my memory was refreshed. In 1990, when I interviewed her for the Music Link Ultimate Tommy Bolin documentary, Karen Ulibarri, Tommy’s original personal accountant, said, "I remember, it was something I made sure we paid off quickly." A number of tapes in Tommy’s 150-hour musical archives were recorded with that very deck!
While his reputation and confidence were growing, his pocketbook was indeed empty. Tommy began a career change that was designed to commercialize his sound, thus increasing his opportunities to make money. Within this structure, Tommy accepted an offer to join The The James Gang. Many of the songs written for and performed by Energy were absorbed by The James Gang (witness their still-available Bang album, a most underrated early ‘70’s AOR classic).
Tommy, though, thought he could do better for himself than "just" being a member of The James Gang. He left the band, retained Barry Fey as his manager, and moved from Boulder to Los Angeles to finally develop his solo career. Almost simultaneously, a deal was struck to "rent" Tommy to Deep Purple, who were desperate to exploit their enormous worldwide fame after being abandoned by founding Purple guitar boss Ritchie Blackmore. The plan was to cash in in the short run while building the platform for Tommy to once and for all launch his solo career.
Within months of each other, Deep Purple’s Come Taste The Band and Tommy Bolin’s Teaser were released. The differences were stark. Teaser contained a diverse vitality and stamp of originality that was all Tommy. However, instead of indulging himself totally, Tommy agreed to have an instrumental left off the album, lest the record be judged too "weird." Generating radio airplay now had to be factored into the equation. In fact, those of us who loved the instrumental side of Tommy’s talent couldn’t help but notice how commercial Teaser was. That didn’t keep us from thinking that it was a cool album though. Unlike the Purple album, there was a wide variety of musical styles on Teaser that gave a nod to many of Tommy’s influences. The record still sounds great today (if you can find it).
In Purple, Tommy’s style was just part of a previously defined format. Even though he was writing most of the band’s new music, it was all being funneled through the Purple sound - a sound Tommy had never listened to before he joined the band, but was able to contribute to in return for that previously elusive salary. While not a chapter of major musical milestones for Tommy - the period was far better known for its celebration of debauchery than for creative inspiration - his Purple membership certainly gained him a new legion of fans. At least, among those who didn’t condemn him because he wasn’t Ritchie Blackmore.
In late spring 1976, Deep Purple disbanded, allowing Tommy to finally gear up his solo career with the formation of the Tommy Bolin Band. During the year, he played many concerts with a seemingly ever-changing lineup. I saw the very first incarnation of the band in May 1976 at Ebbetts Field, a small 250-seat club in downtown Denver. That band included Narada Michael Walden on drums, Mark Stein on keys, Reggie McBride on bass, and Norma jean Bell on sax. What a lineup! The band came out and burned a hole through the Teaser material.
While in town for a series of shows, I attended a party held in Tommy’s honor for the record industry of Colorado. We had all heard stories of the infamous "L.A. lifestyle" and wondered what kind of shape we would find Tommy in. To my delighted surprise, Tommy instantly acknowledged me with a big friendly hug. However, it did appear that Tommy’s stay in Deep Purple had further deepened his addition to partying. From that point on, the band went through a continual shifting of personnel as money and lifestyle issues created an unsteady environment.
The last half of the year was, by all accounts, a difficult period for Tommy. He had broken up with Karen and began questioning a lot of what was going on in his personal and business life. His second album Private Eyes was recorded with his band du jour and released by Columbia. An opening act slot on a national tour with Jeff Beck was secured and scheduled to begin on December 3 in Miami.
At that time, I used to watch Good Morning America, especially for Rona Barrett’s celebrity news feature. On an early December morning I looked up to see Rona with, surprisingly, the Teaser album graphic superimposed next to her. I thought, "Tommy’s not big enough yet to be featured on network TV." In the split second it took for that thought to go by, Rona announced that Tommy had been found dead the morning after the Miami concert. Dead from multiple drug intoxication. The timing couldn’t have been worse. While a very few cynics in that era claimed Tommy was washed up and "spent," the reality is that he had just put all the lessons of his career to work and had become a true self-contained solo artist, producing, writing the music and lyrics, playing all guitars and singing the parts while encouraging the contributions of guest artists and his always stellar band lineups. He was finally ready to go for the big time on his own terms. Just looking at the AOR bands that broke huge after Tommy’s death, there is no doubt that if he had lived, his fame would have caught up with his incredible insiders’ reputation. A bright future was in the offing. But that was 19 years ago.
Tommy is gone, but clearly not forgotten. Through his music he continues to live on, aided by the formation of the Bolin estate’s officially licensed Tommy Bolin Archives, Inc. The company’s principals include Tommy’s sole surviving immediate relative, brother John Bolin, Barry Simons, David Stein, and myself. The Archives is now the exclusive representative of Tommy’s music, image, and likeness. Its sole mission is to preserve, protect, defend, and release the music contained in the official Bolin musical archive, as compiled originally and stored by Willie Dixon.
This compilation is the first in a series of releases that pickes up where Geffen Records’ The Ultimate Tommy Bolin left off. While The Ultimate served as a vital sampling of Tommy’s offically released works, it contained only on song from "the archives." This series will sample the geight and bredth of the archives. Tommy’s musical persona shines bright whether the track is a polished studio track, a solo acoustic demo tape, or an ergized live performance. Enjoy and pass the word!
Tommy’s music is alive