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Frank Marino, together with his band Mahogany Rush, has delighted many over the years with his flying riffs and soulful melodies. Besides that wild guitar blues/rock of the '70s, his music has many sides, incoporating the weird, the electronic, with his own style. In my opinion, what he excelled at was taking Jazz to where Hendrix was just starting to before he died.
Jimi had been moving away from the bues/rock fusion feel towards a new expression of Jazz (which more suited his flambuoyant guitar style anyway). Being a Hendrix fan (or perhaps even devotee), Marino could not help but make that type of music his own, and now we have a wealth of Jazz/Rock fusion that even Jimi would have been proud of.
He is as good a guitarist as anyone, and it is a shame that talents like Frank, and other great axemen like Uli Roth, go largely unnoticed. Even Stevie Ray Vaughan slogged it for 20 years before David Bowie saw him play and asked him to perform at his party. Still, if Frank Marino was the most well known guitarist in the world, maybe this page would be called "Why Frank Marino is An Arrogant, Rich Schmuck" instead.....and the fact that so many people still haven't heard of him probably adds to mystique of this man, not detracts from what a great musician he is.
By the looks of things, you lucky Americans and Canadians will be able to see Frank live in concert soon. He has been doing a bit of recording, etc, but has decided to tour again soon - largely due to the fact that he had suddenly become aware of a whole lot of Internet activity regarding him. Since then, he has answered fans' questions, one of them being when he was going to tour again. He was hoping for late 1997, but if he isn't on tour yet, it will hopefully be in early 1998. I would really appreciate any info regarding his gigs - please e-mail me if you have any news.
Watch Out For These Other Marinos :
Here is a list of some other Frank Marinos on the Net. Also, at this point, should mention a British guitarist (sort of New Age/Rock instrumentalist) who goes by the name of "Marino", and please note that there is another Frank Marino (in the list) that has recorded and released material.
Conducting a search at Altavista for title:"Frank Marino" returned 5 hits to dedicated pages (with Frank Marino in the title). Of these few sites, 2 were official homepages (which is better than some of the big bands). These were:
Clarksburg City Council, West Virginia has a Frank Marino as one of the council members.
Here's one for Frank at a Las Vegas nightclub. I thought "Don't tell me he's doing an Elvis or Wayne Newton", but it's much worse than that:
"In the cosmopolitan tradition of the French cabaret, Norbert Aleman's 'An Evening at La Cage' take audiences into the quicksilver world of lipstick, high heels and nine button evening glove, but like it's namesake in Paris, the world of "La Cage" is one of illusion, where things are not always as they appear.
The illusion is carried off by nine female impersonators, headed by Frank Marino as Joan Rivers. But the illusions are more than precise re-creations - cast members seem to become the celebrity objects of their impersonations."
Mark and Frank Marino, Jazz musicians (apparently of the wild and hard-to-play kind). They're cousins, and Mark is the guitarist while Frank plays drums.
There's a Frank Marino Gallery in New York City.
A Frank Marino is listed in the 1983 Alumni of Franklin College, an American four year liberal arts college located in Lugano, Switzerland.
The Dominican Republic Presidential Election 1996 came up, but the link was dead so couldn't find out if it was our Frank who was running for President or not!
Frank was mentioned a few times in an online chat (which was basically an argument about Hendrix-like musos). It was pretty interesting, so I included an excerpt:
IAN: Let's face it, FRANK MARINO, DAVID TORN, CHRISSY HYNDE, and HENDRIX himself do not make you laugh as much as PHIL MINTON...HENDRIX would love the interpretations...
BERN: HENDRIX is lucky to be dead...MINTON makes me put skidmarks on my Hanes
IAN: Need some toilet paper?
BERN: CHRISSY HYNDE?
IAN: Yeah...Room Full Of Mirrors...ROBBIE McINTOSH sounds good on that recording but he's no FRANK MARINO or DAVID TORN...
BERN: MARINO, well he sounds like HENDRIX...
IAN: FRANK MARINO has heard that for 25 years, but don't worry...he's a little guy and probably cannot kick your ass...
BERN: Little guys carry guns...
IAN: That's your problem...
