Ex-bandmates to pay tribute to Tommy Bolin, Boulder’s guitar god

“It’s 1975, what do you think these musicians were doing?” asked longtime Boulder resident Michael Drumm. “Cocaine. People were going wild. It was part of the whole rock ethos.

“Any city you went to, the roadies would help find drugs. Tommy Bolin started dabbling in heroin when he was living in Boulder and (Deep) Purple enabled him to afford it. (Deep Purple bassist/singer) Glenn Hughes became his partner in crime.”

Music fans who weathered the late 1960s to mid-’70s are still emotional about guitar prodigy Tommy Bolin dying of an overdose at age 25. Boulder — his “hometown,” as younger brother Johnnie Bolin referred to the city — was especially rocked.

More than 40 years later, the memory of Tommy Bolin — who co-founded Boulder’s Zephyr, and went on to play in the James Gang and Deep Purple — lives on. Already in Iowa’s Music Hall of Fame (1999) and the South Dakota Rock and Roll Music Association Hall of Fame (2017), Bolin will be inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame next year.

To help with what his friends call “re-energizing” his legacy, tribute act Tommy Bolin’s Dreamers — a “supergroup” of Bolin’s former bandmates — will perform songs from Bolin’s catalogue at 8 p.m., Friday at the Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St.

Because if Tommy Bolin was still around…

“He’d be Eric Clapton,” Chuck Morris said, finishing the sentence.

The president and CEO of AEG Live Rocky Mountains was best buddies with Bolin. “His second solo album was ready to explode. If he was alive for that second album, that would’ve broken him.”

“He was so sweet, but he had his demons like many people do,” said Morris, who’s been sober himself for 30 years. “It was rock ‘n’ roll, and in those days, the drugs were so much worse.”

‘Hound Dog’ by Elvis Presley

A 5-year-old Tommy Bolin saw Elvis Presley in concert May 23, 1956, with his blue-collar father Rich Bolin in Sioux City, Iowa.

“My dad was a factory house worker,” said Johnnie Bolin in a phone interview from Sioux City. “He didn’t want his boys to follow in his footsteps.”

Rich Bolin splurged on musical instruments for his three boys, to harsh criticism of friends and family.

“My dad had these big dreams,” Johnnie Bolin said. “He spent a lot of money getting us expensive stuff. People would tell him, ‘You’re a fool to spend money on those kids. They’re not going to amount to nothing.'”

Rich Bolin didn’t care. He dressed Tommy in Elvis garb and knew he would rise above the stockyards of Sioux City.

“He wanted to be a star, he wanted to be Elvis,” said Boulder’s Drumm, who co-founded Tommy Bolin’s Archives in 1995 with Johnnie Bolin. “Well, he won the talent lottery. He was a genius. A natural and entirely self-taught. He could pick up any stringed instrument and blow away a crowd.”

Tommy was forced to cut his hair short in high school and was discouraged from pursuing music, so he left for Colorado at age 16 with the blessing of his parents.

“People always asked why my mom and dad would let him go so young, but they believed in Tommy,” Johnnie Bolin said.

Tommy formed the band Zephyr in Boulder in 1969, and that’s when Drumm, a college freshman at the time, first met the then-18-year-old wunderkind, at a Zephyr show at the University of Colorado’s Glenn Miller Ballroom.

“Zephyr blew my mind,” Drumm said. “They were Boulder’s version of Jefferson Airplane, or the Grateful Dead.”

Boulder was a playground for some of ’70s rock’s biggest names, its hills dotted with homes of Dan Fogelberg, Joe Walsh, Richie Furay, Stephen Stills, Jock Bartley and more.

“It was a magical time in Boulder,” Drumm said. “Boulder had two years where it was so hip and creative and it pulled all these rock stars here. It was an industry hot spot.”

AEG’s Morris bailed from grad school at CU to dive into the music industry. He booked local bands at The Sink — where Flash Cadillac & The Continental Kids got their start and later went on to star in “American Graffiti” — and Tommy Bolin was a regular performer.

Morris moved on to running University Hill’s now-defunct Tulagi rock club, where legends like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, The Dirt Band, Eagles, Earl Scruggs, Bonnie Raitt and more would play shows.

“Tommy hung out at Tulagi’s with me all the time,” Morris said during a recent interview at his office in Denver’s Santa Fe Arts District. “There was a country band up there for local talent night and Tommy said he wanted to play with them. At this point, he was already starting to become a big star, so the band was blown away.

“He walked up to the steel guitar on stage. You know how hard it is to play that instrument? He had played it a little before, but that night it sounded like he’d been playing it for 20 years. He was a genius.”

Bolin formed the popular band Energy after leaving Zephyr and saw success opening for major blues acts at Tulagi. After Energy split, Bolin went on to join the James Gang for two albums, replacing Joe Walsh, then came back to Boulder to focus on his solo career.

“Tommy really wanted to be the leader of a band,” Morris said.

Meanwhile, he’d jam with iconic musicians at Tulagi — ranging from blues and jazz genres, to rock and country.

“I mean this kid was 22 or 23 and he could play jazz with the best musicians in the world,” Morris said.

Which is why he was enlisted to play guitar on jazz-fusion drummer Billy Cobham’s 1973 album Spectrum, which was pivotal in launching jazz-rock fusion. Tommy took off for Los Angeles for two years and caught the ear of Deep Purple frontman David Coverdale, who was impressed by Spectrum and recommended him to replace Ritchie Blackmore in British hard-rock act.

‘Comin’ Home’ by Deep Purple

“When Tommy was on the road with Purple, he brought me and mom and dad out to his show at University of Illinois,” Johnnie Bolin said. “This was after my dad got to see Tommy tour with the James Gang. He saw him on TV and he was so proud of Tommy.”

Johnnie Bolin said they stayed in a fancy hotel and rode around in a limousine. Hiss mom was so excited that she decided to drink for the first time.

“My mom had so much wine she thought we were in a big truck,” Johnnie Bolin said, laughing.

At the hotel, Johnnie Bolin said his dad parked himself on a patio, stared at the sky and waited for his son’s private jet to fly over him.

“My dad sat out there until he saw Purple’s plane,” Johnnie Bolin said. “Then he got to see his son play on stage with Purple.”

Morris remembers vising Tommy in Los Angeles while he was in Deep Purple.

“I have a picture of me passed out on his floor at his home in L.A. on his 24th birthday,” said Morris, flipping through his iPad. “That’s me, see me on the floor? That’s me passed out on his birthday. It’s hysterical. You can tell that’s me — I think I still have that shirt.”

Morris, Drumm and Johnnie Bolin said that Tommy’s exposure to that level of fame at age 24 was a shock. And his stint with Deep Purple was hard, Drumm said, as they ended the tour in England — before a crowd of fervent Blackmore fans — and by the end of the show, Bolin was booed off the stage.

“‘F—- this,’ Tommy said,” Drumm recalled. “He was more intent on doing solo projects, so after Purple, he focused on his own music.”

‘Post Toastee’ by the Tommy Bolin Band

Deep Purple broke up in 1976, so Bolin took the reins of his solo career. He’d come back to Colorado for shows, but Drumm hadn’t seen Bolin for two years. When Bolin returned to Denver to play Morris’ new club, Ebbet’s Field, rumors of the guitarist’s drug habit swirled and Drumm was afraid his old friend wouldn’t remember him.

“But when he walked in, he saw me and gave me the biggest bear hug,” said Drumm, pausing to collect himself over tears. He seemed sober, Drumm said. “He was very grounded, he was the Tommy I always knew. There are a few of us who have never gotten over his death.”

Johnnie Bolin, a drummer for Black Oak Arkansas for 30 years, performed with his brother’s bands a few times — one, he recalled, was an epic August 1976 date at Mile High Stadium, where they were on the bill with behemoth rock stars like Peter Frampton and the Steve Miller Band.

“He was a fun big brother,” Johnnie Bolin said. “We were pretty close. I think that’s why he wanted me in the group playing with him towards the end. He was very lonely. I think he needed me around. I think he wanted to be close to family.”

Tommy Bolin’s longtime girlfriend Karen Ulibarri ended up staying behind to date — and later marry — Deep Purple’s Hughes, which further depressed Bolin, his brother said.

With the release of his second solo album, 1976’s Private Eyes, Tommy Bolin ramped up for a 30-city tour opening for Jeff Beck.

“Tommy was right on the verge,” Drumm said. “Here he was, this shining comet.”

After the very first date of the tour in December 1976, Bolin was found dead in his Miami hotel room. Barry Fey, the famed late concert promoter, was Bolin’s business manager.

“I’ll never forget,” said Morris, thumbing through photos of Bolin. “Barry (Fey) was not a crier, he was a tough guy, and one night he called me. I thought he was laughing, then I realized he was crying.

“He finally composed himself and he said, ‘Tommy died.'”

Dreaming on

Drumm and Johnnie Bolin said they wanted to extend the memory of the guitarist, so they gathered a bunch of Tommy Bolin’s friends who played with him in the past, and plan to honor him at Friday’s Boulder Theater show. Johnnie Bolin’s house in Sioux City, the home where Tommy grew up, is a “museum” of memorabilia.

Drumm and Johnnie Bolin found guitarist Lucas Parker, 25, to channel Bolin for the Dreamers show. Parker “lights the place on fire and has a style that nobody else has,” Johnnie Bolin said.

Morris said he recently flew out to Omaha, Neb., for a rehearsal to see if Parker lived up to the hype.

“I closed my eyes and it was Tommy playing,” Morris said.

Stanley Sheldon, Tommy’s longtime bass player, who also was in Frampton’s band for years, will play at the show, as will Jock Bartley, Tommy Bolin’s replacement in Zephyr, and Bobby Berge, Tommy’s longtime drummer. Max Carl, of Grand Funk Railroad, and Jeff Cook also will perform.

Basically, it’s a big reunion of Tommy Bolin bandmates who will bring the Boulder guitar god’s tunes back to life.

“I loved Tommy, he was a great friend,” Morris said. “I want to keep his legacy alive.”

Drumm, who organized the Dreamers reunion show, calls himself Tommy’s biggest fan, and said he wants the world to keep listening to the guitarist’s music.

“He blew my mind so completely,” Drumm said. “What makes a great musician is the ones who play with emotion. It’s when their hearts come through their hands and they create emotion. That’s what Tommy was all about.”

Christy Fantz: 303-473-1107, fantz@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/fantzypants