Tommy Bolin

[Hell_Tanner]

I think there are quite a few Tommy Bolin fans in here so let's just start by the beginning, shall we?

What's your favourite album(s) Tommy has played on?

Mine are James Gang's Bang album, Deep Purple' Come Taste The Band, Teaser/Private Eyes tie, close behind.

Bang is just a perfect classic rock album with lots of Funk and unknown gems like Alexis, Devil Is Singing Our Song and Mystery.



Come Taste The Band is a very unusual DP album but Tommy and Glenn were a soulful and funky match made in heaven. Too bad live renditions didn't illustrate this album that well, sometimes it did, sometimes it didn't.



Teaser is so diverse and shows Tommy' versatility and Private Eyes' first half is just perfect and Bustin' Out For Rosey is my favourite Tommy song of all time. The second half of Private Eyes is a lot more ballady and I'm not too keen on certain songs but I love the sound of that album.

[mrmetal]

I have Private Eyes, Come Taste the Band, and the Anthology. The Anthology is my favorite because it has several live tracks. Broken Rainbow is one the gems on that one.

I need to get the James Gang material, haven't been able to locate it locally. Guess I will have to Ebay for it.

[MetalHead]

Tommy Bolins parents(or was it grandparents?) were swedes

[Hell_Tanner]

Yes! His father had swedes origins and if I remember right his mother was lebanese.

Some people thought Tommy had native american blood but that was completely wrong.

[skrapmetal]

I like the Deep Purple' Come Taste The Band album and Teaser album. Alot of the Archives album that are available on his website are very good also like Live at Ebbets Field, Naked 1&2 , Snapshot, Come taste the Man vol.1 & 2. etc..... he was a great guitar player, Check him out if you havn't already.

[Hell_Tanner]

Yes, these Archives CD's are definitely worth checking out, I have a bunch of them. If one wants to discover the real, unrestrained Tommy Bolin it's on the Archives CD's that you can find him.

[stratattack]

The tribute site for Tommy is great you can get alot of great stuff from it he is one of the reasons I play guitar I like his james gang stuff better then Joe Wa;shes stuff. I think he would have been up there with Beck and Clapton if he had lived . His loss was so Tragic

[Hell_Tanner]

It certainly the first I've heard (read) someone saying he prefers the James Gang with Tommy Bolin! ...and I agree.
I think one of the things that hurt Tommy's career is that he came after someone else, someone who made a huge impact on their previous band: Ritchie and Joe. For most people Tommy could never replace them and he was almost considered as "the enemy", the guy who stole the others' gig. He took all the criticism that comes with a member's leaving right in the face, and that hurt him, especially in Deep Purple.

[stratattack]

I Agree that was always an up hill battle for Tommy always coming into a band after a guitarist with legend status had already cast the mold. but with james gang it was easier because Joe Walsh gave him the thumbs up . kinda Like what Peter Chris did for Eric Carr. I thought that was not only big of Joe Walsh but very cool of nim and it gave me a bigger respect for him as well.
as for his days in Purple I think it showed that all those gyes could and did survive without Richie . hell look how Steve Morse is doing an Awsome Job with Deep Purple.
Hell I only liked Richies Rainbow stuff the best, but Tommy had more Passion and Feeling with his playing and had NO ego he is a legend that needs more respect from guitarworld and all the other Mags for that matter.
I knew I liked Hell_tanner when I saw the Tommy bolin thing at the Bottom of his threads.

[Hell_Tanner]

Hehe, I started the forum out of pure passion but got some bizarre comments from the people over at tbolin.com guestbook. They were pretty inquisivitive and suspicious which I don't really understand. They were like: "who are you? what's your name? are you a man or a woman? why this forum?"...pretty weird. There are more possibilities on a forum but they seem to stick to the official site guestbook, whatever...

But back to Tommy, his inclusion in DP could've work beautifully, even Ritchie did give Tommy the thumbs up which is a rare thing for him to do. He attented a rehearsal and thought DP sounded realy good with Tommy, sadly, the audience didn't accept him so easily.
Plus some of his personal "issues" worsened at that period and that hurt his performances. Certain gigs were just perfect but when it didn't work it was just horrible. Too bad.
The audience didn't give Tommy a chance, but, in a way, he helped the bad critics by his behavior.

[stratattack]

I knew that and that was the sad part but I did not know that Ritchie gave him the thumbs up that is rare for him to say the least and yes I goto the bolin site alot I just never sighned the guest book.
AS forthis thread I dont think its weord at all Tommy like Jake is more then worth mentioning. good work bro
David (Dave) Flanegan. thats me