Drifter: The Short But Sweet Story Of Deep Purple’s Tommy Bolin.
One of the greatest (and most crudely underrated) guitarists of the seventies is a man who replaced Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple, Domenic Toriano in James Gang, made a few great solo records and played on ‘Spectrum’, an album by Billy Cobham (which was the album that got him spotted by Deep Purple).
Original Deep Purple guitarist and founder Ritchie Blackmore, was not interested in how Deep Purple’s musical sound was evolving (which was heavily influenced by Glenn Hughes, who replaced Roger Glover), and quit the band after a final show in Paris (April 7 1975). Deep Purple was rapidly destroying itself, and a result of Blackmore’s departure, organist Jon Lord also wanted to leave. Lord attended and played a jam with Deep Purple, which featured Bolin, and he enjoyed it.
The band’s first duties were concerts to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia, which at the time was a military dictatorship. Jakarta had never seen a world famous rock band before. In the band’s convey, were more than just cars. Military tanks were also on show, driving with the band, escorting them if you will. They were hired to perform one concert, which held 25,000 people, but ticket sales were in excess of 120,000. They also sold an extra night. Security dogs were let loose, and Glenn Hughes can remember seeing “Kids and people with limbs being chewed on… it was like World War Five… it was horrific”. To sum it all up, a crew member died as a result of an ‘accident’. Band members believed he was murdered. Bassist Glenn Hughes and his friends, as well as Deep Purple’s manager were arrested for murder.
The band were forced to perform the extra night. Jon Lord: “I think we played forty minutes, with our heads down, tears in our eyes”. Fans didn’t really like new guitarist Tommy Bolin. Bolin was subjected to verbal abuse onstage. Bolin was taking more and more drugs, and was becoming more dependent on heroin. Drummer Ian Paice “One of those guys you knew were never gonna be fourty years old” says of his old bandmate. After Deep Purple’s split, Tommy made some excellent solo albums, and in support of one of them, Private Eyes, Tommy toured opening for Peter Frampton and Jeff Beck. Bolin’s final show was December 3rd 1976 in Miami. That night he also posed for his last photo, backstage with Jeff Beck. The photo appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine.
Hours later, December 4th, Tommy died in his hotel room from an overdose of heroin, alcohol, cocaine and barbiturates. He was twenty five years old. Dean Guitars have manufactured a tribute guitar to Tommy, with the album art for Teaser as the body’s paint job.
Vale Tommy, your guitar work will live on forever.
Text Copyright Jakam Kourasanis 2016. Originally published by Odious Agenda Publishing for Odious Magazine — http://www.odiousagendapublishing.com/webzine/odiousmagazineissue1.pdf
