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Ultimate Guitar publishes an article by Greg Prato on the “Tommy Bolin dilemma”: When Tommy Bolin stepped into the James Gang, he was replacing Domenic Troiano and, previously, Joe Walsh. When he later joined Deep Purple, he was replacing Ritchie Blackmore. Two wildly different guitarists, two established legacies, and Bolin was expected to fill both […]
Read more »Garth Webber, guitar player, sound engineer, and owner of the Red Rooster Studios in Berkeley, California, reminisces about his encounters with Tommy Bolin
Read more »Bass Player magazine has an interview with session player extraordinaire Lee Sklar. And he thinks that working on Billy Cobham’s album Spectrum with Tommy Bolin, among others, was a highlight of his 2,000-album (by the latest count) career. What are some of the moments in your career that you think of as outstanding? “Stratus with […]
Read more »Back in 2006 Don Airey and Ian Paice performed at the ProLight+Sound trade show in Frankfurt, Germany. Turns out that a recording was up on Youtube all this time, without us being aware. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.
Read more »Johnnie Bolin, Tommy’s brother, has passed away on September 5, 2024. He was known as a musician in his own right (played drums for Black Oak Arkansas since the mid-1980s), and an enthusiastic supporter of keeping his brother’s memory alive. A funeral service will be held at 2:00pm Saturday, September 14, 2024, at the Sioux […]
Read more »Tommy Bolin & Friends album Great Gypsy Soul is going to be reissued in August on Cleopatra Records. The album, originally released in 2012, was a project that brought together major players who recorded alongside Tommy Bolin’s tracks from the outtakes of Teaser. The new edition expands it with 6 bonus tracks, features new artwork, […]
Read more »A Tommy Bolin exhibition has opened at the Sioux City Public Museum. Many of the artifacts on display are from the collection of Bolin’s brother Johnnie. What: Gypsy Soul: Remembering Sioux City’s Tommy Bolin When: Friday, May 31, 2024 10:00 AM to Sunday, August 18, 2024 5:00 PM Where: Sioux City Public Museum 607 4th […]
Read more »A gentleman going by Mr. Zero has published in his blog a pretty detailed write-up of Tommy Bolin’s collaboration with Alphonse Mouzon on the latter’s album Mind Transplant. That recording, along with Tommy’s work with Billy Cobham, got him noticed by the big boys and an audition with Deep Purple a year later. > The […]
Read more »BraveWords publishes a chapter from the 2008 Tommy Bolin biography by Greg Prato, called Touched by Magic. Quite possibly it is the same chapter that was released as a teaser at the time of publication, but it’s been 15 years, and it’s a chapter telling about Tommy joining Purple, so here we go. David Coverdale […]
Read more »Geir Myklebust reprints in his blog a heartfelt eulogy to Tommy Bolin penned by Geoff Barton for the December 11, 1976, issue of Sounds. HEARD ABOUT Tommy’s death last Sunday morning. The news hit hard and low. I hadn’t known him particularly well, but there was always — shall always be — a place for […]
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