Frank Marino
Encyclopedia
Frank Marino born November 20, 1954, in Montreal
, is the guitarist and leader of Canadian
hard rock
band Mahogany Rush
. Often compared to Jimi Hendrix
, he is acknowledged as one of the best and most underrated guitarists of the 1970s.
trip, a myth Marino has always disavowed, and still does so now on his personal website. His playing, however, is explicitly inspired by Hendrix (on the Gibson
he is described as "carrying Jimi's psychedelic torch"), and Marino is notable for strong cover versions of Hendrix classics such as "Purple Haze
". He has been criticized by some as a Hendrix clone. Marino himself claims that he didn't consciously set out to imitate Hendrix's style at all: "The whole style just came naturally. I didn't choose it; it chose me."
Mahogany Rush was moderately popular in the 1970s. Their records charted in Billboard
, and they toured extensively, playing such venues as California Jam II
(1978). Toward the end of the 1970s, the band began to be billed as "Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush." Not much later, Mahogany Rush split up and in the early 1980s Marino released two solo albums on CBS
. The band reformed and continued to perform throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1993, Marino retired from the music industry.
Marino returned in 2001, inspired in part by a fansite, www.mahoganyrush.com: "I always knew we had fans, I just didn't know I'd find half a million of them on the Web," he said in an interview with Guitar Player
in 2005. He released Eye of the Storm, and went on tour again, playing more improvisational shows. Frank is still active, recording and touring under his own name. He has also been involved in blues recordings with other artists as well, playing on tribute albums to Albert King
and Stevie Ray Vaughan
.
, Johnny Winter
, and Carlos Santana
. He plays blues, heavy metal, and improvisational styles; one of his notable tricks is playing (live) a lick as if it were played backwards, with the help of only a volume pedal and a delay. His style has influenced many guitar players, including Zakk Wylde
and Eric Gales
and Paul Gilbert. His tone is recognized by for instance Guitar Player, which called him a "full-spectrum guitar god," alongside Jeff Beck
, Eddie Van Halen
, and The Edge
.
He is noted for complicated set-ups; according to Guitar Player, he has "an entire pedalboard ... assigned to hold the expression pedals that control the parameters of the effects on another pedalboard." In the past, he has built his own amplifiers to achieve the right sound; he also uses Fender Twin
s. He currently uses a pre-amplifier he built himself, reminiscent of a Fender, and any available power amp, through a 2x15" Fane cabinet. Marino is a devoted Gibson SG
player and uses them with the original PAF pickups
and two with DiMarzio
humbucker
s. He also has an SG with single-coil DiMarzio pickups.
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, is the guitarist and leader of Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
band Mahogany Rush
Mahogany Rush
Mahogany Rush is a Canadian rock band led by guitarist Frank Marino. The band had its peak of popularity in the 1970s, playing such venues as California Jam II together with bands such as Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Heart....
. Often compared to Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, he is acknowledged as one of the best and most underrated guitarists of the 1970s.
Biography and career
After playing drums since he was five, around age 13-14 Marino started playing guitar. An often-repeated myth is he was visited by an apparition of Jimi Hendrix after a bad LSDLSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
trip, a myth Marino has always disavowed, and still does so now on his personal website. His playing, however, is explicitly inspired by Hendrix (on the Gibson
Gibson Guitar Corporation
The Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...
he is described as "carrying Jimi's psychedelic torch"), and Marino is notable for strong cover versions of Hendrix classics such as "Purple Haze
Purple Haze
"Purple Haze" is a song written in 1966 and recorded in 1967 by The Jimi Hendrix Experience and released as a single in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It appeared on their 1967 album Are You Experienced...
". He has been criticized by some as a Hendrix clone. Marino himself claims that he didn't consciously set out to imitate Hendrix's style at all: "The whole style just came naturally. I didn't choose it; it chose me."
Mahogany Rush was moderately popular in the 1970s. Their records charted in Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
, and they toured extensively, playing such venues as California Jam II
California Jam II
California Jam II, also known as Cal Jam II, was a music festival held in Ontario, California, at the Ontario Motor Speedway on March 18, 1978 and produced by Leonard Stogel, Sandy Feldman, and Don E. Branker. More than 300,000 people attended...
(1978). Toward the end of the 1970s, the band began to be billed as "Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush." Not much later, Mahogany Rush split up and in the early 1980s Marino released two solo albums on CBS
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. The band reformed and continued to perform throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In 1993, Marino retired from the music industry.
Marino returned in 2001, inspired in part by a fansite, www.mahoganyrush.com: "I always knew we had fans, I just didn't know I'd find half a million of them on the Web," he said in an interview with Guitar Player
Guitar Player
Guitar Player is a popular magazine for guitarists founded in 1967. It contains articles, interviews, reviews and lessons of an eclectic collection of artists, genres and products. It has been in print since the late 1960s and during the 1980s, under editor Tom Wheeler, the publication was...
in 2005. He released Eye of the Storm, and went on tour again, playing more improvisational shows. Frank is still active, recording and touring under his own name. He has also been involved in blues recordings with other artists as well, playing on tribute albums to Albert King
Albert King
Albert King was an American blues guitarist and singer, and a major influence in the world of blues guitar playing.-Career:...
and Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...
.
Technique and equipment
Besides Jimi Hendrix, Marino acknowledged the influence of John Cipollina, Duane AllmanDuane Allman
Howard Duane Allman was an American guitarist, session musician and the primary co-founder of the southern rock group The Allman Brothers Band...
, Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter
John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...
, and Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana
Carlos Augusto Alves Santana is a Mexican rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, salsa and jazz fusion...
. He plays blues, heavy metal, and improvisational styles; one of his notable tricks is playing (live) a lick as if it were played backwards, with the help of only a volume pedal and a delay. His style has influenced many guitar players, including Zakk Wylde
Zakk Wylde
Zachary Phillip Wylde , best known by the stage name Zakk Wylde, is an American musician, songwriter, and occasional actor who is best known as the former guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne and founder of the heavy metal band Black Label Society. He was the lead guitarist and vocalist in Pride & Glory,...
and Eric Gales
Eric Gales
Eric Gales is an American blues-rock guitarist, originally hailed as a child prodigy. Gales has recorded ten albums on major record labels, and has done session and tribute work...
and Paul Gilbert. His tone is recognized by for instance Guitar Player, which called him a "full-spectrum guitar god," alongside Jeff Beck
Jeff Beck
Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...
, Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen
Edward Lodewijk "Eddie" Van Halen is a Dutch-American guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead guitarist and co-founder of the hard rock band Van Halen, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...
, and The Edge
The Edge
David Howell Evans , more widely known by his stage name The Edge , is a musician best known as the guitarist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist of the Irish rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 12 studio albums with the band and has released one solo record...
.
He is noted for complicated set-ups; according to Guitar Player, he has "an entire pedalboard ... assigned to hold the expression pedals that control the parameters of the effects on another pedalboard." In the past, he has built his own amplifiers to achieve the right sound; he also uses Fender Twin
Fender Twin
The Fender Twin is a guitar amplifier made by Fender. It was introduced in 1952, two years before Fender began selling Stratocaster electric guitars. The amps are known for their characteristically clean tone....
s. He currently uses a pre-amplifier he built himself, reminiscent of a Fender, and any available power amp, through a 2x15" Fane cabinet. Marino is a devoted Gibson SG
Gibson SG
At the launch of the SG in 1961, Gibson offered four variants of the SG; the SG Junior , the SG Special, the SG Standard, and the top-of-the-line SG Custom. However, Gibson's current core variants as of 2010 are the SG Standard and the SG Special...
player and uses them with the original PAF pickups
PAF (pickup)
P.A.F. or just PAF is the world's first humbucker guitar pickup, invented by Seth Lover in 1955 as an engineer for Gibson and began use in mass production guitars in 1956 or 1957. However Rickenbacker and Gretsch had developed humbucking pickups also...
and two with DiMarzio
DiMarzio
DiMarzio, Inc. is an United States manufacturer best known for its revolutionary direct-replacement guitar pickups. The company also produces miscellaneous guitar accessories, such as cables, straps and hardware.DiMarzio became known for its Super Distortion model, which was the first after...
humbucker
Humbucker
A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pickup, first patented by Seth Lover and the Gibson company, that uses two coils, both generating string signal. Humbuckers have higher output than a single coil pickup since both coils are connected in series...
s. He also has an SG with single-coil DiMarzio pickups.
Solo
- The Power of Rock 'n' Roll (1981 CBSColumbia RecordsColumbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
) - JuggernautJuggernaut (Frank Marino album)Juggernaut is the second solo studio album by Canadian rock guitarist Frank Marino, released in 1982. The original Mahogany Rush drummer Jimmy Ayoub was replaced by Timm Biery for this album.- Track listing :All songs by Frank Marino....
(1982 Columbia RecordsColumbia RecordsColumbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
) U.S. #185 - Full Circle (1986)
- From the Hip (1990)
Other recordings and collections
- April Wine-the whole world's goin' crazy (1976)
- Nanette Workman ( album recorded but never released) (1976)
- California Jam II (6 CD set) (1978)
- Billy Workman:same (1979)
- Fit for A. King (various artists) (1980)
- V X N (1985)
- Metal Giants (various artists) (1988)
- Guitar Speak II (1990)
- Hats off to Stevie Ray (various artists) (1993)
- Bryan Lee: Live at the Old Absinthe House Bar Friday Night (1997)
- Bryan Lee: Live at the Old Absinthe House Bar Saturday Night (1998)
- Best of the Guitar Slingers (various artists) (2002)
- Live and Loud (various artists) (2002)
- Rock Thunder (various artists) (2002)
- Bryan Lee: Bryan Lee's Greatest Hits (2003)
- Rockin' 70s (various artists) (2004)
- Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir & the Jubilation Big Band - I'll Take You There (track 9) (2005)
- Revolution - A Rock and Roll Tribute to The Beatles (various artists) (2005)
- Doc Rock presents Classic Rock Weekend (various artists) (2006)
- Vargas Blues Band - Flamenco Blues Experience (track 2) (2008)
- Nos stars chantent le blues à Montréal - track 5. Who do you love? - Jonas (avec Frank Marino) (2010)
Tribute
- Secondhand Smoke: A Tribute to Frank Marino (tracks by George LynchGeorge Lynch (musician)George Lynch is a hard rock/heavy metal guitarist best known as a member of the band Dokken, his own bands Lynch Mob and Souls of We.-Pre Dokken:...
, Ronnie MontroseRonnie MontroseRonnie Montrose, is an Amercian rock guitarist who has headed his own bands as well as performing with a variety of musicians, including Sammy Hagar, Herbie Hancock, Van Morrison, The Beau Brummels, Boz Scaggs, Beaver & Krause, Gary Wright, Tony Williams, The Neville Brothers, Dan Hartman, Edgar...
, James ByrdJames Byrd (guitarist)James Byrd is a guitarist from Kirkland, WA who came to prominence in the metal scene in the mid-1980s with the band Fifth Angel, considered a pioneer of the early Power Metal movement...
, and others) (2005)