Someday I'm going to list all the live shows where I wish I could have been a fly on the wall, and this would definitely be on there. There something about guitar pyrotechnics in front of a three-man percussion section in a tiny venue that I find completely irresistible.
Most people, myself included, discovered Tommy Bolin as the poor sap who had to replace Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple. Although his background was far different than the other nine previous or current members of the band, he brought an incredible talent to a band that, unfortunately, only had one album left in them. Prior to his stint in Purple he was in the Boulder-based Zephyr. After their second album, he struck out for New York and got wrapped up in the fusion scene, culminating in the creation of his own band, Energy, which never had an official release. Nevertheless he was able to make connections through his contributions to albums like Billy Cobham's Spectrum before becoming one of Joe Walsh's numerous successors in the James Gang, which brings us to the time of this recording.
Tommy always liked to get back to Colorado (with apologizes to a similar-titled album by Zephyr) during his busy touring and recording schedule. The entire lineup of Energy (minus the keyboard guy) joins him on this recording, plus an additional drummer and an assorted-percussion person, resulting in a juiced-up rhythmic spin on various classics of jazz fusion and the blues, with a couple Bolin originals thrown in for good measure.
More adventures awaited the band members heard here. Bassist Stanley Sheldon would put everyone to shame when he appeared on Frampton Comes Alive. Jeff Cook would go on to work for Capricorn Records and probably spends a great deal of time telling people he was not a founding member of Alabama (different guy with the same name). After two albums with the James Gang, Bolin himself joined Purple on the recommendation of David Coverdale. Within a year, the band had split apart, leaving Bolin and bassist Glenn Hughes left to fend for themselves. Bolin launched the Tommy Bolin Band in 1976 and released a single album before dying of a heroin overdose at the end of year. Thankfully, the Tommy Bolin Archives have cranked out a ton of demos, live recordings and other unreleased materials from his relatively brief but diverse career, so I've got plenty more Tommy Bolin to listen to for the foreseeable future.
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