Tommy Bolin was born on this date in 1951 but only lived to reach 25 years of age. (Didn’t even make it into the 27 Club.)
Tommy never seemed to feel at home in a band, bouncing from Zephyr to James Gang to Deep Purple. Part of the problem was his misfortune in having to win over crowds that were expecting the likes of Joe Walsh and Richie Blackmore. Can you imagine the pressure of someone trying to replace Clapton in Cream or Joe Perry in Aerosmith?
But away from band settings, Tommy really shined. He was so respected by his fellow musicians that his first solo LP included heavyweights like David Foster, Jan Hammer, Jeff Porcaro, Glenn Hughes, David Sanborn, and Phil Collins. If you’ve never heard it, it is a very good album.
His second solo album contains one of the best songs released in 1976, Post Toastee. If Frampton’s Do You Feel Like We Do and I Don’t Need No Doctor had a child it would sound like Post Toastee. (There’s something special about long songs that have beautiful sections juxtaposed with blistering rock like Free Bird, Stairway, Highway Song, Comfortably Numb, and Post Toastee.)
And, of course, if Tommy had never done anything in his life other than the two-day session with Billy Cobham in May of 1973, he would still be a legend. Spectrum is an album that defies categorization. It still sounds as cool and hot and fresh today as it did 50 years ago, perhaps because it is an album with no overdubs; it was all cut live. And, Stratus defies, well, anything before or since. I’m not sure if there is a better example of musical magic than what can only be described as telepathy between Billy, Jan, Tommy and Lee on Stratus. I could go on and on gushing over Spectrum and Tommy’s contributions to it but, instead, I’ll just recommend watching Lee Sklar’s YouTube video #34 on Stratus from 2:40 to the end. What Lee fails to mention but does in other videos is that, no matter what the setting or the players, if he’s in a studio and someone asks him to play his bass line from Stratus, that’s the end of the session for at least an hour because every musician, everywhere, wants to jam with him on that song.
Getting back to Tommy, he overdosed not long after coming off stage opening for Jeff Beck (who Spectrum greatly influenced) and performing the encore of Post Toastee. Far too young but those that burn brightest often burn quickest.
