Died On This Date (December 4, 1976) Tommy Bolin / Rock Guitar Great
themusicsover Tommy Bolin
August 1, 1951 – December 4, 1976
Tommy Bolin was an up-and-coming rock guitarist in his early 20s when he got the call to play in the post-Joe Walsh James Gang. Up until that point, he had be playing around with various musicians in the Denver area, most prominently, in a band called Zephyr. After two albums with the James Gang, Bang! and Miami, Bolin left to do session work. In 1975, Bolin recorded his first solo album which found him backed with by a stellar line up of musicians. That list included Phil Collins, Glenn Hughes, David Sanborn and Jan Hammer. It was around that time that he got the call to join yet another band, Deep Purple. The end of 1975 found the release of both Bolin’s first album, Teaser, and his Deep Purple album, Come Taste the Band. Bolin soon hit the road with Deep Purple, but reports began surfacing that his growing dependency on heroin was hindering his guitar playing. Following the Deep Purple tour, Bolin went to work on his second album, Private Eyes. What followed was a tour that found him opening for Peter Frampton and Jeff Beck. On December 3, 1976, Tommy Bolin performed one last show in front of Beck. The next morning, his lifeless body was found in his hotel room. Cause of death was presumed to be the result of heavy drug and alcohol usage causing his throat muscles to close up, thereby suffocating him. He was just 25.
What You Should Own
Eric Woolfson was a much respected Scottish musician, songwriter and singer who is best remembered as one-half of the driving force behind the Alan Parsons Project. Woolfson started out mostly as a songwriter, penning songs for the likes of Marianne Faithfull, Peter Noone and the Tremeloes. In the early ’70s, he got into artist management, guiding the careers of Carl Douglas of “Kung Fu Fighting” fame and an up-and-coming producer, Alan Parsons who had previously engineered the Beatles’ Abbey Road and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. In 1975, the two began collaborating creatively and the Alan Parsons Project was born. Over the next decade, the group released such popular prog rock albums as I Robot, Pyramid and Eye in the Sky. Overall, they sold in excess of 40 million albums. By the early ’90s, Woolfson and Parsons parted ways with Woolfson moving into musical theater. Woolfson was later diagnosed with cancer and died from the disease on December 2, 2009. He was 64.
Nat Kipner was an Australian producer and songwriter who also had his own label, Spin Records, during the ’60s. His was the first label to sign the Bee Gees to a record deal. He also produced hit records for the band. As a songwriter, he found success with “Too Little Too Late,” the 1978 #1 duet for Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams. Nat Kipner was 86 when he died of congenital heart failure on December 1, 2009.