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Shake the devil
A collection of demos, outtakes, and alternate versions from the recording sessions that produced Tommy Bolin’s album Private Eyes will be released on February 12, 2021, via Cleopatra Records. It will be available on CD and as a gatefold album pressed on coloured vinyl (purple, white, and red to chose from). Both editions will feature the same tracklist:
Shake the Devil – The Lost Sessions
- Shake The Devil (Alternate Mix)
- Bustin’ Out For Rosey (Alternate Version)
- Hello Again (Outtake, No Strings)
- Gypsy Soul (Outtake)
- Sweet Burgundy (Alternate Version)
- Someday We’ll Bring Our Love Home (Instrumental Demo)
- You Told Me That You Loved Me (Instrumental Demo)
- Post Toastee (Acoustic Demo)
- Tommy’s Instrumental (Outtake)
- Gypsy Soul (Acoustic Demo)
- Gypsy Soul (Rehearsal Demo)
- Someday We’ll Bring Our Love Home (Instrumental Demo)
Preview clip for Bustin’ Out For Rosey:
The album can be preordered from the label or other sources.
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Japanese Dio Rainbow tribute show that is pretty much spot on:
https://youtu.be/FKpY1U-5CFo
January 20th, 2021 at 21:01Bolin’s best recorded work the Private Eyes album was. (Ok, Yoda, you can go now.) Teaser is nicely eclectic, but Private Eyes sounded like a band with a mission even though the songwriting was still refreshingly varied, yet unmistakably Bolin. It has aged extremely well and the Purple influence is evident, just listen to how much more dominant the organ is in the (very good) production compared to Teaser. I’ve never played the album to anyone who did not immediately like it, though Tommy Bolin’s name means very little outside Billy Cobham and DP diehard circles, sadly so. (If he had gotten his demons under control and a forceful manager, I could have seen him achieve a Peter Frampton type career, he had the
androgynous looks, the chops, the songwriting talent and a pleasant, immediately recognizable voice.)
Norma Jean Bell’s idiosyncratic sax und Reggie McBride’s propulsive bass playing are the icing on the cake. I’m happy this has come out, but the original album could do with a gentle and tasteful remix.
January 21st, 2021 at 03:53Great list, should add acoustic version of wild dogs.
January 21st, 2021 at 13:16I love PrivateEyes more than Teaser… one of the reason is “Bustin´” , fantastic tune with headlinin´ keybs aka Jon The Don or Colin Towns, itttttts so grooovy even (or so much) in 76, jazzy, rocky, bluesy or don´t know what of, im not educative at those fields. And vocals (remember The Dealer on “Come Taste…”)? The colour of his voice is so unique. Love it… oh so love it…
January 21st, 2021 at 15:43The time before the time of digital music. I hope the Corona virus will infect all computers systems and we end up like the 70s
January 21st, 2021 at 22:30Love that album. Just ordered the Red Vinyl since I have only ever owned this on vinyl since 1980 +/- when I got it new at “The Nice Price” that they sometimes used to put on records here in the states that were not big sellers. Nothing special about it except for the music, just a regular paper inner sleeve. (I did find a used copy recently with what I assume is the original Tommy wearing his T-Shirt sleeve at the local Punk Rock record shop) If they ever come out with a collected version like they did with Teaser I would like that on CD.
January 21st, 2021 at 23:00quel intérêt ???
January 22nd, 2021 at 19:22Does anybody know if this stuff is REALLY previously unreleased?
January 22nd, 2021 at 19:59During the 2000’s there was a steady flow of rare and unreleased stuff coming out from Tommy’s archives. Whips And Roses, Whirlwind, Naked, Snapshot etc. Is this a re-release of that stuff or what?
Private Eyes is a beautifully diverse album full of Tommys talents! This will be so interesting!!
January 22nd, 2021 at 21:45Apparently Tommy doesn’t play on the first 2 tracks. It are recordings Tommy used to add his guitar work to.
January 23rd, 2021 at 07:41Even in the former flurry of Bolin Archives releases (I think I have them all), the Private Eyes sessions remained undocumented. I always wondered whether the Bolin family maybe just didn’t have access to the CBS/Epic vaults. Apparently now they do.
It’s heartening that so many people here like that great album!
Weird, as I’m writing this, I’m listening to Robert Randolph. And though a (hell of a) steel guitarist, I hear Bolin in his playing. In Marcus King’s playing too (he even covers songs from Spectrum live). Tommy isn’t forgotten.
January 23rd, 2021 at 14:13@Blackwoody: Your Rainbow related post probably ended up here by mistake : – ), but since it is now here: Man, those guys do take it seriously (right down to the Rainbow arch lightshow) – and they do it exceedingly well! As close as you can reasonably get to the mid-seventies Rainbow experience. Domo arigato!!!
Of course, Blackmore’s intensive aural and visual onslaught with the Dio/Powell line up is miles away from what Tommy provided. The nice thing about Bolin’s Private Eyes was that you could play it to people with an outright disdain for DP/Rainbow AND THEY WOULD LIKE IT, bewildered by the later revelation that this was in fact a DP musician too.
My recollection is of course nowadays hazy, but I believe to reminisce that seduction manoeuvres with the fairer sex were greatly enhanced by Private Eyes while putting on Rainbow’s Rising (no pun intended!) was kind of self-deflating …
; – )
January 23rd, 2021 at 14:45Uwe Hornung @11,
Nice to see Robert Randolph mentioned. He lives a hop, skip, and a jump up the freeway from my home here in New Jersey. He hit the ground running out of nowhere, and upon buying his first album, I’ve been more than hooked. Was a treat seeing him in The Stone Pony in Asbury Park shortly thereafter his hitting the public eyes and ears.
By the way, love your breadth of musical knowledge. :>
Peace,
January 23rd, 2021 at 18:06Ted
@1 embarrassing 🙂
January 24th, 2021 at 12:30Even the clothes are too
ahahah
Oh my God..
@Uwe, actually I put that Rainbow tribute on this post on purpose. Reasons are that previous posts get less views as time moves forward, so obviously there would those that would miss seeing my youtube link who might otherwise have enjoyed seeing that band in motion!.
January 24th, 2021 at 14:55Another reason may be my imperative to go against the grain, & achieve a sort of juxtaposition between the RB English castle & the TB American shoeshine!
Ain’t I a stinker?!.
😁 🤘 🌈 🏰 🎸 🇬🇧 🆚 💉 💊 👢 🪕 🇺🇸
LOL, you are a stinker, but it’s good to have you around! I have a soft spot for insurgent activity.
To enhance your mole work against poor Tommy Bolin: The new Classic Rock Magazine (the issue edited by the Foo Fighters members, one of them turns out to be a huge Rainbow Dio-era fan) features a very good Rainbow article (among the best I have ever read) on the ill-fated LLRnR US tour and Dio’s eventual departure. Well worth a read, even I learned a few new things. Blackmore must have been a pest (out of frustration over lack of US success) even more than usual around that time.
Returning to the subject of music for, uhum, grown-ups of both genders without silly escapist dungeons & dragons lyrics and crafted by someone who does not feel compelled to ritually smash his instruments: I remember Tommy’s androgynous looks on the Teaser cover getting him a recommendation in a women’s lib publication in Germany (“Emma”, a word play on Emanzipation/emancipation), they had a yearly calendar book (“Emma Kalender”) where they had a few pages of album recommendations “Musik von Frauen für Frauen” (music from women for women) und there (s)he was, our Tommy (Tammy?) Bolin and her Teaser album. So feminine looks, great hair and an earring on a cover had led our women’s libbers to making clichée-entrenched assumptions, tsk, tsk, tsk. Being a real stinker myself, I could not help but write them that Sister Tommy was in fact a brother and that, no, the share of women having played lead guitar in Deep Purple was indeed less than miniscule.
They took Tommy and Teaser out of the recommendations list in the next year, how cruel. Me and my big smart-Alec mouth!!!
January 24th, 2021 at 20:27Received on Jan 25, 2021: I live in So. Cal. and ordered it directly from Cleopatra and they shipped it immediately. I did not expect it until Tuesday but it was at my door when I took the foster dog out Monday night. I did not get a chance to really absorb it but Side 1 is pretty much like the sample, differences but not a big change from the album….Side 2 is where it really gets going for me. Tommy’s Instrumental is nice. And he even gets a little country western twang going on during Someday on side 2. It is great for those that love the original album and want to dig a bit deeper.
January 26th, 2021 at 17:19@16 und @ a lot of posts, Herr Hornung: who the hell are you? Hats off. Seriously. Attila
January 26th, 2021 at 19:14Attila: Just a 60-year ancient, German litigation attorney in an international law firm who in his spare time plays bass in a band, hanging on to his former rock musician career dreams. And who turned Purple fan in 1974/75 as a teenager. I never got to see them then, sadly so, as we lived in Kinshasa, Congo, in the mid-seventies. (I still have reptile pets, so some things from Africa obviously stuck!)
I’m also – Sigmund Freud could probably say a few words on that – a hopeless collector and completist, so even back in the 70ies I would spend my weekly allowance slavishly on all sorts of pre- and post-DP product. Artwoods, Santa Barbara Machine Head, Trapeze, James Gang, Captain Beyond, you name it, I had all that stuff already on vinyl as a teenager. And I made a habit of always studying sleeve notes and credits as well as devouring rock and pop magazines. My first rock gig – we had meanwhile returned to Germany – was on October 6, 1976, Rainbow on the Rising Tour in Frankfurt at the Jahrhunderthalle – with a hitherto unknown Aussie band as the opening act … their name was some silly letters combination I have forgotten and their lead guitarist wore a schoolboy uniform. Where are they now? Hopeless outfit, doomed to commercial failure.
January 26th, 2021 at 21:13@Uwe, my softest spot for Tommy is “People, people”, it gets to me every time I hear it!. But of course it’s not on this collection… So, as things stand, I like the “Post toastee” riff, it’s such an obvious nod to Clapton’s “Cocaine”, but what Tommy does with it is pretty special. The other track I fancy is “Someday we’ll bring our love home”. Not everyone will choose the same thing, we all chase our own personal pleasures in life.
January 27th, 2021 at 12:49What do you think of Astrud Gilberto’s “Quiet Maria?. 🎹🎤🎵🎶
https://youtu.be/mw8qWT_LKBY
That’s not “Clapton’s Cocaine”, but JJ Cale’s Cocaine, Herr Richmore, ich muss schon sehr bitten!
https://youtu.be/wNUJSuO-lgw
What’s next, “Clapton’s I Shot The Sheriff”? Go wash your typing fingers with soap and
do your primary resources research properly!
; – )
I remember ordering Last Concert in Japan in 1977 from an English mail order advertisement (no mention of overseas shipping) in the NME (it was the Japanese import, had just come out). For our younger readers here: This was BEFORE email, fax, PayPal, credit cards (at least for a student like me) or the Euro. I went to the bank, exchanged my weekly allowance and then some into English Pounds and handwrote them a letter (with neatly folded bills) whether they could bitte, bitte send me the vinyl to ze Reich – everyone laughed at me: “They will never send you anything, but take the money!” A few weeks later, British commercial sense and fair play prevailed and I had the album before me. And my favorite track was immediately Wild Dogs, that alone had made it all worthwhile. I had successfully entered the realm of international relations for the then already late Tommy Bolin!!! For years, I was the only one with that album, as the European release came only much later. I still have it, its grooves so worn you can almost see through it.
January 27th, 2021 at 21:40: – )
Where is my mind?. I guess I’ve had a senior moment from a tired old brain!…
January 27th, 2021 at 23:49I’ve just remembered…. Post Toastee predates Cocaine by a year!!! & yes of course Cocaine was written & released by JJ Cale before Clapton’s cover hit the charts.
Such is life. 👴🏻
That’s perfectly ok, Herr Richmore, nothing a ritual Seppuku – preferably performed with a Stratocaster neck featuring a scalloped maple or rosewood board at your discretion – could not help clear in the now warranted restoration of the tarnished family honour of your descendants!
January 28th, 2021 at 16:24@Uwe, your 44 calibre rock & roll hits me straight between the eyes (of fire), & you’re tearin’ out my heart… (feel like I been ripped apart!)… And I know I ain’t wrong, ’cause I’m free & I’m on my way…. into the shadows & out of the light… I’ve got the power!. 🧐⚔️🌈🎸🤘🤪
https://youtu.be/3BZKSQlNqa0
Yep… this could go on forever!.
January 29th, 2021 at 00:27Oh my, never the most tasteful of covers/sleeves, was it? Ritchie craved for mainstream acceptance, yet insisted on selling his product with a crass-gross cover like that. He should have learned from his role model Foreigner and their experience how an ill-chosen sleeve picture (Head Games) can harm sales.
I remember seeing it at the time as being nominated as one of the worst covers of that particular year. Probably the only thing the album was ever nominated for!
January 30th, 2021 at 01:08Uwe, I’ve read a number of reviews of the JLT Rainbow being compared to Foreigner, but I’ve never thought of them in that way.
January 31st, 2021 at 08:53I assumed that as RB was probably looking to replace GB, then maybe someone told him words to the effect of “Hey RB, there’s a band called Fandango playing nearby, & their guitarist is called Rick Blakemore!”. I could imagine RB being interested enough to go to the gig for a laugh… & then nicking their singer!. Anyway, whatever. They were interesting times… 🤓🌈
😁 Head Games & Straight Between The Eyes were headjobs?!!!. 🙈🙉🙊
@26, about that comparison. A few months back I went down the Rabbit Hole and decided to listen to all of the original Rainbow albums in order. It took a couple of weeks, listening on & off. Maybe the entire album, maybe just a side depending on available time and the GF being home (Not that she dislikes it per se, in fact she Really likes Whoosh!, but she is Marie & I am Donny in a non-sibling way). She was aware of what I was doing and we were house cleaning when I finished SBTE and then put on Bent out of Shape. I think it was during Track 2 when she asked me, and I shit you not, “Oh, we’re listening to Foreigner now?”
I completely lost it and doubled over in laughter. After I composed myself, I had to explain it to her and how it seems, based on her reaction, like RB may have actually gotten what he wanted. And that was the first end of Rainbow – Coincidence?
Today’s Lesson? Watch out what you wish for people, it just may happen.
January 31st, 2021 at 16:30Uwe@ 21,
I rather like the Cale & Clapton album The Road To Escondido with J.J. as producer. And that with a stellar array of supporting musicians.
Peace,
January 31st, 2021 at 20:31Ted :>
Yes indeed, Blackmore achieved what he craved in a commercial sense with the JLT Rainbow, beginning of course with Down to Earth & Graeme Bonnet. Show me a 70’s rock band that didn’t MTV ‘out’ in the hair metal guitar wankery era! There are still some wonderful songs & playing though on most ‘sell out’ 70’s bands material though. Just try to forget the appalling video clips & crass marketing hype, if we ever can forget. It does tarnish the music somewhat, it shouldn’t I know, but somehow it still permeates through it.
January 31st, 2021 at 21:44A shame really. Cheers.
@27, Oky doky then… I think JLT is a fine singer, however, he writes far to many sad, broken relationship based based songs. For instance, Truth Hurts from S&M is a pain in the neck. The tune is OK, but the words are a load of old tosh. On the other hand, Blood Red Sky from his excellent solo album Second Hand Life is fucking amazing, imho, & I don’t offer that opinion lightly!. By the way, am I the only one who looks at JLT & sees a resemblance to Joan Jett?. ✈️
February 1st, 2021 at 04:22Sir Blackwood @ 30 – Yes that old blues standard indeed, ‘since my baby left me’ etc. Whilst the lament has shared it’s fair share of grief over time, I fear the American side of it has always gone too far with it. But as they say, ‘that’s rock ‘n roll’. Never my cup of tea, however much better to listen to than ‘squeeze my lemons’ or ‘pump it till it’s cherry red’. Hang on those two are British are they not, what happened there then? Cheers.
February 2nd, 2021 at 20:30@31 MacGregor, well… when it gets that silly, then we turn to something a little more upbeat…. like this!:
https://youtu.be/QmElb7Y9Src
February 3rd, 2021 at 22:03@32 – Damn that is a fun BOC song. I am going to get that disc one day. And about my Rainbow comment earlier. JLT is a fine singer depending on what it is. I just meant that they went in a direction that may have been more popular in theory but at the expense of the earlier sound. I knew folks that would go see them live but didn’t buy BOOS. (BOOS. Huh, I never realized that before.)
And back on the original topic of the new album, has anyone else gotten it early yet? I had to listen to it in Headphones the other nite and the source tape shortcomings were much more apparent. I am still loving it, but I think that I will love it over speakers mostly going forward.
February 5th, 2021 at 20:39I just love the “Private Eyes” album. I really wish they could someday do a “Deluxe Edition” but I heard they can’t find the tapes. The album has a vibe throughout. He really lifts some Dr John here on “Bustin Out” 🙂 Not too long ago I realized that there are some similarities in Bolin’s playing and the live version of “In memory of Elizabeth Reed” by AB. Then when I hear Dimeola’s The Wizard” I hear similarities as well. Can’t prove who’s borrowing who as the dates don’t work out, but it’s interesting.
February 5th, 2021 at 22:11