COME TASTE THE BAND

When Tommy Bolin entered Deep Purple everyone was very curious how he could replace Ritchie Blackmore's seat, a really big task indeed... Tommy Bolin made his first steps with James Gang, where he played a mix of hard rock with southern rock (together along with Joe Walsh - Eagles - ) and had some success, but his real exposure was his participation at the critically and commercially acclaimed ,Billy Cobham's album, Spectrum(1973). Worthy of mentioning are his two personal albums, Teaser and Private Eyes. It is there that he showed his real abilities and also a lot of flexibility as a guitarist...anyway, at Come Taste The Band, Tommy Bolin gave a breath of fresh air to a band that was close to disband. I like this album for its diversity and variety, while from one hand we have the almost classic Deep Purple sound (Coming home), then we are given a blast of high energy and a mix of hard rock with funk (Gettin' Tighter), an excellent soul gem with piano and vocals which leads to an energetic jam (controlled one to be honest) and ends with one of the most beautiful ballads Deep Purple ever written (in my opinion, of course), where Coverdale and Hughes really shine... Come Taste The Band really had the dynamics to give Deep Purple a new ressurection, but the problem was that the spark called Tommy Bolin was so much drug abused, that in some concerts could not even play his guitar (in some places he was given b class heroine, which caused him partial palsy of his left hand...it is sad to read and know such things for a then young man and a real talent...anyway), so time for Deep purple was limited as was for Tommy bolin too, who passed away a year later... It is a 3.5 stars really, but consindering that it had no follow up to prove the dynamics mentioned above, I will give the 3 star rating.