Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 1973, Early Show
Thorton is best known for the song "Hound Dog." She had a hit with it in 1952, before Elvis Presley's version. Her version sold half a million copies, which was a remarkable amount back at that time. She's also well known for a song she wrote, "Ball and Chain," after Janis Joplin did a great version of it in the late 1960s. Her time in the spotlight in the 1950s didn't last long, since she only had that one hit. But in the 1960s and into the 1970s she had a career revival playing in blues and/or folk clubs and festivals. At the time of this concert, she was about 46 years old.
Here's her Wikipedia page:
Tommy Bolin was born and raised in Iowa, but his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, in his late teens. He began playing in local bands. One of them, Zephyr, released a couple of albums, and toured nationally, though they didn't have any hits. After that band broke up around 1971, he joined a couple other short-lived bands, and wrote a lot of songs. In 1973, he joined the James Gang (after Joe Walsh left) and dominated it, writing nearly all the songs for two albums. By 1975, he'd left the James Gang and joined Deep Purple for about a year. He also released solo albums in 1975 and 1976. But he died of a drug overdose at the very end of 1976.
Anyway, the reason I mention all this about Bolin is because it's relevant in explaining how his involvement with Thornton came to be. In 1972 and 1973 especially, Bolin was at loose ends and living in Boulder, often without a band. During this time, he developed a good relationship with Chuck Morris, who owned the Ebbets Field venue (and a couple more in the area). Often, when blues musicians were passing through town and were lacking a backing band, Morris would get Bolin and/or some of Bolin's friends to provide the backing. (Bolin would make the drive from Boulder to Denver in less than an hour.) Or sometimes Bolin would just ask to sit in. In this way, he played with many musical greats, including Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, and Chuck Berry. Usually, these big names would be greatly impressed by Bolin, who was far from being just an inexperienced local musician.
It seems none of these shows pairing Bolin with these blues legends were recorded... except for this one with Thornton, somehow. I don't know if this was broadcast on the radio at the time, like other Ebbets Field shows, or if just got luckily recorded by the venue anyway. Bobby Berge and Stan Shelton rounded out the backing band.
Chances are there was little to no practice between Thornton and the backing band beforehand. You can hear at times where Thornton starts a song and just expects the other musicians to figure out what's going on and join in. But it's also clear that she respected Bolin's lead guitar playing, as can be seen by the space he was given to solo, especially with the two instrumentals at the beginning. (If anyone knows the names of those songs, if they have names, please let me know. I also had to figure out the names of the other songs. Please let me know if I got any of them wrong.)
Surprisingly, not only was Thornton a great blues vocalist, she could also play drums pretty well. That's her playing a short drum solo near the end of this recording.
This album is 46 minutes long.
01 Instrumental Jam (Tommy Bolin)
02 Blues Shuffle [Instrumental] (Tommy Bolin)
03 Blues with Intro (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
04 Little Red Rooster [Early One Morning] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
05 Rock Me Baby (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
06 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
07 Shake, Rattle and Roll - Hi Ho Silver (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
08 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
09 Ball and Chain (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
10 Hound Dog (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
11 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
12 Swing It on Home - Drum Solo (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
13 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
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