Artist: Bolin, Tommy
Label: SPV Records
Released: 2006
Rating: 3.5/5
Tommy Bolin. Who???
For all you youngsters who’ve never heard of him, or whose ears find the name a bit foreign, let me quickly sketch this super-guitarist, who sadly left our planet way, way too soon. “But heroes die young!” Right?
Tommy Bolin was born in 1951 and by the age of 20 had already formed a fusion jazz-rock-blues band called Energy. Later he stepped in for Joe Walsh on guitar in The James Gang and cut two albums with them. In 1975 he released his solo debut Teaser and played on the recording of the Deep Purple album Come Taste The Band. In 1976 he started work on his second album, Private Eyes, which was originally meant to be a double album but ended up as a single LP because of money troubles. The tour that followed the album was sadly his farewell, as he died at just 25 from an overdose of illicit substances, i.e. a cocktail of beer, champagne, cocaine and heroin. For a better idea of what it all looked like 30 years ago, click the following link: http://www.tbolin.com/audiovideo/index.html
This time around we have Bolin’s remastered release Whips and Roses 2, from the series in his finally released box set titled Tommy Bolin masters series. It gives us a cross-section of Bolin’s “sadly too short” body of work, and with its two bonus tracks it’s an album for all the true fans of virtuoso guitar. Most of the tracks are packed with long, experimental and illusionistic guitar passages.
The album’s tracks Homeward Strut and Sooner Or Later are definitely the best known among Bolin connoisseurs. In my opinion, it’s precisely in these two that Bolin shows off all the skill and shine he has. His playing style reminds me most of the famous trio Taste.
The peak of the album is definitely the fourteen-minute jam Bagitblues Deluxe, where his performance shows close musical kinship with Jimi Hendrix. His take on the slapping guitar technique is especially interesting. Just like Jimi, Tommy was none too gentle with his six-string . In the aforementioned track Bolin improvises like the devil himself and finishes with a kind of slow Southern blues theme that at best echoes the influence of the Allman Brothers Band. Next comes Lotus, which moves from a Hendrix-tinged slow blues intro through slide transitions into the heavier parts of the song, then wraps up and rolls on into the howling Journey 2, which is once again a real treat for so-called guitar freaks. The second bonus track, Tommy’s Got Da Blues, brings an interesting old-school blues theme. The song consists of a Southern-accented vocal with a honky-tonk piano melody, naturally backed by a pumping bass line in the background and of course the indispensable Bolin ripping guitar insert. The last bonus track, which also closes the Whips and Roses 2 album, is called Some People Call Me. The song sounds kind of chaotic and hollow, and the sound is as if it were coming out of an empty beer can. The reason is probably that it’s a raw demo recording of a live performance, originally captured on a single mic. It shows us the Tommy Bolin atmosphere of the time, a simple bluesy guitar tune accompanied by organ and sax solos. Personally, I don’t get why this track was put on the album at all, since the unpolished screaming and whistling of the crowd in the background completely drowns it out.
All in all, I’d sum it up as a good, listenable album meant for true lovers of rock guitar. It still carries a whiff of the emptiness this young performer and songwriter left behind when he left us so young. We can’t help but ask the obvious question: what else could he have given us? Definitely a lot more than he sadly did. Luckily we still have two new Bolin albums where Tommy plays and shines like a true guitar god, and one of them is called Whips and Roses 2.
Track List
1. The Grind (3:25)
2. Crazed Fandango (5:01)
3. People, People (6:08)
4. Homeward Strut (3:41)
5. Sooner Or Later (4:18)
6. Bagitblues Deluxe (14:23)
7. Spacy Noodles (2:26)
8. Lotus (6:02)
9. Journey 2 (3:48)
10. Bolin`s Boogie (2:37)
11. Tommy`s Got Da Blues (9:10)
12. Some People Call Me (13:12)
Album length: 74:32
