Musical career
Tommy Bolin began playing in bands around Sioux City as a youth before moving to Boulder, Colorado in his late teens. He had played in a band called American Standard before joining Ethereal Zephyr, a band named after a train that ran between Denver and Chicago. When record companies became interested, the name was shortened to Zephyr. This band included Bolin on guitar, David Givens on bass, and Givens' wife Candice Givens on vocals. The band had begun to do larger venues, opening for more established acts such as Led Zeppelin. Their second album, entitled Going Back to Colorado, featured a new drummer, Bobby Berge, who would pop up from time to time in musician credits in album liner notes from Bolin's later projects.
After this record, he decided to move on to more progressive projects. In 1972 Bolin, at the age of 20, formed the fusion jazz-rock-blues band Energy. While the band never released an album during Bolin's lifetime, several posthumous releases have demonstrated the band's power and Bolin's artistic vision. He also played on Billy Cobham's Spectrum album, which included Bolin on Guitar, Billy Cobham of Mahavishnu Orchestra on drums, Leland Sklar on bass and Jan Hammer (also of Mahavishnu Orchestra) on keyboards and synthesizers. This was a fusion-powerhouse line up that resulted in a most impressive album that showcased Bolin's playing at his creative peak.
1973 found him as Domenic Troiano's replacement, who had replaced Joe Walsh, in the James Gang. He had two records with this band: Bang! in 1973 and Miami in 1974.
After the Miami tour, Bolin wanted out of the James Gang. He went on to do session work for numerous rock bands and also with a number of Jazz artists. Bolin is featured, for example, on Alphonse Mouzon's (of Weather Report) album Mind Transplant. He also toured with Carmine Appice and The Good Rats.
Bolin signed with Nemperor records to record a solo album. His main idea was to bring in a vast array of musicians drawn from all the session players he had known. With the encouragement of friends and colleagues, Bolin decided to do his own vocals on this album as well. Session players on this record included David Sanborn, Jan Hammer, Stanley Sheldon, Phil Collins (of Genesis) and Glenn Hughes (of Deep Purple), to name a few. During the recording of this album, he was contacted to replace Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple.
In the start of 1975 Bolin contributed some studio guitar assistance to Canadian band Moxy during the recording of their debut album; the original and obscure vinyl LP for Moxy is especially sought after by die-hard Bolin fans these days. Later in 1975 saw the release of Bolin's first and highly anticipated solo record, Teaser (on the Nemperor label), and Deep Purple's Come Taste the Band (on the Purple label). The Deep Purple world tour that followed in 1975 and 1976 allowed Tommy to showcase one song per night from Teaser.
