FRANK MARINO: guitar virtuoso

A Phil Brodie Band Profile Page

Frank Marino
Born : November 20th 1954, Montreal, Canada.

To say that Frank Marino excels in a live environment is a total understatement! The power of Frank "live" is the stuff of legend as everyone who has seen him will agree and he certainly lives up to his reputation on his latest album. Quote: “When I was a kid and I first heard Frank Marino, I was stunned. His technique and tone was smooth yet aggressive. He is a very powerful performer and was an inspiration to me at a critical time in my musical evolution.”~ Steve Vai

~ The Hendrix Experience ~
As Frank Marino And Mahogany Rush grew in popularity, the press naturally caught up with him. Amazed by his superb guitaring, having a strong Hendrix influence and finding out Franks earlier drug days which landed him in hospital; they came out with some incredible stories .."Frank Marino overdosed and awoke from a coma in the hospital and somehow became the spirit of Hendrix...", and "Frank Marino met Hendrix' spirit which entered him, endowing him with this amazing ability to play a guitar and magically now knows everything about guitars...". Later on the story changed into a version that said he was in a car accident, died and came back with Jimi Hendrix in his body. These press articles followed and dogged him throughout the 70s & 80's. The press didn't want to listen to the truth.
~ The Truth ~
As a very young teenager Frank did experiment with weed & acid, heavily ~ too heavily with LSD. His young brain could not handle it and he had such a terrifying trip, he ended up hospitalized. However this all happened in 1967, Frank was 13, Hendrix was very much alive. At the time Frank was quite a decent drummer and had never thought about the guitar. While in hospital he had a great fear of letting his mind wander back into the terrifying trip so needed to occupy his mind and the only thing in the relaxation room was a guitar, so he started to teach himself to play. He played it incessantly, and afterwards every single moment that he was awake he played it and played it. . He found the guitar a very soothing help and began to play Hendrix music because it matched perfectly to what he was going through at the time. Frank Marino has never taken drugs from that day on. "This experience became the basis of everything that I was to do in music, including the name Mahogany Rush, which was a description I would use to describe a certain sensation that I was having on the trip." Out of this bad experience the world got a true virtuoso.

Frank Marino
Set Up ~ Equipment
"I build my own amps, based on Fender amplifiers and I use any strong power amp available. For effects, I use mainly a Rev-7 for reverb, an SPX-90 for delay and flange, and assorted pedals like wah-wahs, fuzz-tone, and stuff like that. I'm not into high-tech guitar gear. I save that for the studio. In the studio I use Marshall as well. Live, I almost never use the Marshalls. I did get a few modified Marshalls from a guy in Sweden named Tommy Folkesson, and he does the best mods I've ever heard, if you want the Marshall sound. I will only use his Marshalls, but I also have an original slightly modded one from the 70's that I will also use from time to time. My guitars are primarily Gibson SG Les Paul's, 1961-1/2. I've got a few other models of SG, but they're all modded to play like the 61's. I use the occasional Strat and Telecaster, but I prefer the feel of the Gibson.
It's funny, but so many people hear my sound and think I'm playing on a Strat through a Marshall, but most of the time I'm not. As a matter of fact, most of the time I don't even use tubes... I use transistor-based power amps, like Crown. Even in the 70's, they thought I was using Marshalls for my live album when I was using Acoustic 270's, head and bottom. But now my modded pre-amp (which I do myself) is tube-based, and my power amp is still transistor. My pedals are less in number than they were in the old days... I used to have 22 of them on my board, and everybody used to give me grief over playing with pedals... now everyone plays with pedals and I hardly ever turn them on. But I mod each one of them myself... they just sound like crap out of the box, no matter which one you buy, it seems."
Asked his impression of some of the guitars that have come out in the last few years, like the Paul Reed Smith, Parker Fly, etc ... he replies
" I'm not impressed by them. It seems that they're all too heavy, too much lacquer, a lot of eye-candy and fancy electronics. If these guitars were really as good as some people would have us believe, there would be no market for the old ones. The fact that the old ones still command such prices today is a testament to the fact that they provide something unique and untouchable...a kind of intangible feel. Those instruments were built by people who simply wanted to build a better instrument, it seems. But today, builders are trying to build a more popular one, and somewhere along the line they either go too far on the features and not far enough on the simple feel. I've used some guitars from smaller companies with no name that virtually smoke the competition, but they don't get the ink. . . ."

Frank Marino
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Frank was born Francesco Antonio Marino on November 20th, 1954 in Montreal, Canada. His father is Italian and his Mother Arabic. He stayed in school to 7th grade and did a short stint in military school. He was involved with the school band as a drummer, but the heady hippie days got the better of him, as we have read, he was hospitalized at the age of 13. Luckily for him and us while in hospital the true love of the music totally took over from the drugs. At 14 he had his band.. Mahogany Rush, playing covers. Franks influences were Hendrix, The Beatles, The Doors, Quicksilver, Santana, Johnny Winter, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and most of the late sixties artists that had a psychedelic flair. Also Pink Floyd and older Bob Dylan, among others. They brought their first album out 'Maxoon' when Frank was only 16. The Band went from strength to strength through the 70's,80's till '93, They were one of the first bands to achieve International stardom, playing to huge crowds in Japan, Germany, England, Sweden and across the globe. In 1993 Frank walked away from it all. He got fed up with the money making hypocrisy within the music business. He went home from his never ending touring to start a family. He has 3 young daughters. After a 5 years break he returned to the music scene. It is a more relaxed Frank who we can now see, who has no need to chase the business this time round and can pick and choose when he plays.

Mahogany Rush


A Phil Brodie Band Profile Page Frank Marino Born : November 20th 1954, Montreal, Canada. To say that Frank Marino excels in a live environment is a total understatement! The power of Frank "live" is the stuff of legend as everyone who has seen him will agree and he certainly lives up to his reputation on his latest album. Quote: “When I was a kid and I first heard Frank Marino, I was stunned. His technique and tone was smooth yet aggressive. He is a very powerful performer and was an inspiration to me at a critical time in my musical evolution.”~ Steve Vai ~ The Hendrix Experience ~ As Frank Marino And Mahogany Rush grew in popularity, the press naturally caught up with him. Amazed by his superb guitaring, having a strong Hendrix influence and finding out Franks earlier drug days which landed him in hospital; they came out with some incredible stories .."Frank Marino overdosed and awoke from a coma in the hospital and somehow became the spirit of Hendrix...", and "Frank Marino met Hendrix' spirit which entered him, endowing him with this amazing ability to play a guitar and magically now knows everything about guitars...". Later on the story changed into a version that said he was in a car accident, died and came back with Jimi Hendrix in his body. These press articles followed and dogged him throughout the 70s & 80's. The press didn't want to listen to the truth. ~ The Truth ~ As a very young teenager Frank did experiment with weed & acid, heavily ~ too heavily with LSD. His young brain could not handle it and he had such a terrifying trip, he ended up hospitalized. However this all happened in 1967, Frank was 13, Hendrix was very much alive. At the time Frank was quite a decent drummer and had never thought about the guitar. While in hospital he had a great fear of letting his mind wander back into the terrifying trip so needed to occupy his mind and the only thing in the relaxation room was a guitar, so he started to teach himself to play. He played it incessantly, and afterwards every single moment that he was awake he played it and played it. . He found the guitar a very soothing help and began to play Hendrix music because it matched perfectly to what he was going through at the time. Frank Marino has never taken drugs from that day on. "This experience became the basis of everything that I was to do in music, including the name Mahogany Rush, which was a description I would use to describe a certain sensation that I was having on the trip." Out of this bad experience the world got a true virtuoso. Set Up ~ Equipment "I build my own amps, based on Fender amplifiers and I use any strong power amp available. For effects, I use mainly a Rev-7 for reverb, an SPX-90 for delay and flange, and assorted pedals like wah-wahs, fuzz-tone, and stuff like that. I'm not into high-tech guitar gear. I save that for the studio. In the studio I use Marshall as well. Live, I almost never use the Marshalls. I did get a few modified Marshalls from a guy in Sweden named Tommy Folkesson, and he does the best mods I've ever heard, if you want the Marshall sound. I will only use his Marshalls, but I also have an original slightly modded one from the 70's that I will also use from time to time. My guitars are primarily Gibson SG Les Paul's, 1961-1/2. I've got a few other models of SG, but they're all modded to play like the 61's. I use the occasional Strat and Telecaster, but I prefer the feel of the Gibson. It's funny, but so many people hear my sound and think I'm playing on a Strat through a Marshall, but most of the time I'm not. As a matter of fact, most of the time I don't even use tubes... I use transistor-based power amps, like Crown. Even in the 70's, they thought I was using Marshalls for my live album when I was using Acoustic 270's, head and bottom. But now my modded pre-amp (which I do myself) is tube-based, and my power amp is still transistor. My pedals are less in number than they were in the old days... I used to have 22 of them on my board, and everybody used to give me grief over playing with pedals... now everyone plays with pedals and I hardly ever turn them on. But I mod each one of them myself... they just sound like crap out of the box, no matter which one you buy, it seems." Asked his impression of some of the guitars that have come out in the last few years, like the Paul Reed Smith, Parker Fly, etc ... he replies " I'm not impressed by them. It seems that they're all too heavy, too much lacquer, a lot of eye-candy and fancy electronics. If these guitars were really as good as some people would have us believe, there would be no market for the old ones. The fact that the old ones still command such prices today is a testament to the fact that they provide something unique and untouchable...a kind of intangible feel. Those instruments were built by people who simply wanted to build a better instrument, it seems. But today, builders are trying to build a more popular one, and somewhere along the line they either go too far on the features and not far enough on the simple feel. I've used some guitars from smaller companies with no name that virtually smoke the competition, but they don't get the ink. . . ." SHORT BIOGRAPHY Frank was born Francesco Antonio Marino on November 20th, 1954 in Montreal, Canada. His father is Italian and his Mother Arabic. He stayed in school to 7th grade and did a short stint in military school. He was involved with the school band as a drummer, but the heady hippie days got the better of him, as we have read, he was hospitalized at the age of 13. Luckily for him and us while in hospital the true love of the music totally took over from the drugs. At 14 he had his band.. Mahogany Rush, playing covers. Franks influences were Hendrix, The Beatles, The Doors, Quicksilver, Santana, Johnny Winter, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and most of the late sixties artists that had a psychedelic flair. Also Pink Floyd and older Bob Dylan, among others. They brought their first album out 'Maxoon' when Frank was only 16. The Band went from strength to strength through the 70's,80's till '93, They were one of the first bands to achieve International stardom, playing to huge crowds in Japan, Germany, England, Sweden and across the globe. In 1993 Frank walked away from it all. He got fed up with the money making hypocrisy within the music business. He went home from his never ending touring to start a family. He has 3 young daughters. After a 5 years break he returned to the music scene. It is a more relaxed Frank who we can now see, who has no need to chase the business this time round and can pick and choose when he plays.
		DISCOGRAPHY LPs 1973. MAXOOM 1974. CHILD OF THE NOVELTY 1975. STRANGE UNIVERSE 1976. MAHOGANY RUSH IV 1977. WORLD ANTHEM 1978. FRANK MARINO & MAHOGANY RUSH LIVE 1978. CALIFORNIA JAM II 1979. TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED 1979. GUITAR WARS 1980. WHAT'S NEXT 1980. FOURTH DEGREE BURNS 1981. THE POWER OF ROCK AND ROLL 1981. SPEAKER DEATH 1982. JUGGERNAUT 1987. FULL CIRCLE 1988. DOUBLE LIVE 1988. METAL GIANTS CDs 1973. MAXOOM 1974. CHILD OF THE NOVELTY 1975. STRANGE UNIVERSE 1976. MAHOGANY RUSH IV 1977. WORLD ANTHEM 1978. FRANK MARINO & MAHOGANY RUSH LIVE 1979. TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED 1980. WHAT'S NEXT 1981. THE POWER OF ROCK AND ROLL 1982. JUGGERNAUT 1983. THE RETURN OF THE BIG TWO 1987. FULL CIRCLE 1988. DOUBLE LIVE 1990. FROM THE HIP /GERMANY 1992. HARD ROCK HEAVY HITS 1995. UNIVERSE 1996. DRAGONFLY: THE BEST OF FRANK MARINO & MAHOGANY RUSH /RAZOR&TIE 2000. STORIES OF A HERO 2003. RealLIVE APPEARED ON 1978. CALIFORNIA JAM II 1980. FIT FOR A. KING /BLUESBUREAU 1988. METAL GIANTS 1990. GUITAR SPEAK 11 1993. HATS OFF TO STEVIE RAY 1997. BRYAN LEE LIVE VIDEOS 1975. DON KIRSHNER'S ROCK CONCERT 1977. MIDNIGHT SPECIAL 1978. CAL JAM 2 1979. LETE SHOW BROMONT, QUEBEC 1983. CHICAGO COLONY THEATER 1986. SAN JOSE 1986. TORONTO 1986. NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL 1992. CANADIAN TELEVISION 1992. COACH HOUSE 1993. MUSIQUE PLUS 1992. HENDRIX WEEKEND 1998. OTTAWA
	~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I think Frank has to be one of the most unappreciated guitarists in history, (too many musician's musicians are). He certainly is one of the very few out of the 1000's of guitarists that has that true "WOW" factor when you listen to him. Having seen him play live very recently (July 30th 2005) in Holmefirth, UK, I was left nearly without words. His SG & he are like one. His long haunting solo's talk rich and strong from his soul . He totally gives his whole self to the music and the music is him. One of the most stunning performances I have had the pleasure to loose myself in for a long time. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Visit FRANK MARINO and Mahogony Rush