Dragonfly

Hey there Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew is spinning some pure psychedelic fire right now with "Dragonfly" from Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush off that 1976 album IV. This one hits different, man, like a secret message from some distant sky that just sort of floats in and takes over the whole room. Frank himself has talked about how this track came together in about five minutes flat. No big production meetings or stacks of notebooks. The band would walk into the studio with nothing written, and he'd say give me a few minutes, then lay down something new on the spot. "Dragonfly" was just one of those jams that happened the night they were recording, same as most everything else on the record. It is that freeform spirit that makes it feel so alive, like the music is still deciding what it wants to be while you are listening.

The album IV itself got some rough treatment from the critics back then, but looking back it stands as a real masterstroke. You get the hard rock licks, the bluesy feel, and those psychedelic flourishes all mixed together, and "Dragonfly" sits right in the middle of it as a fan favorite that never really went away. The lyrics paint this picture of a giant blue-green sentinel sweeping in from some rusty sky, collecting souls and laying the earth to rest. It is eerie and graceful at the same time, with that rush of wings so distant you almost have to lean in to catch it. Frank has said the songs just told him what to do once the tape was rolling, and for this one that meant bringing in a mellotron that happened to be sitting in the studio. Moody Blues and King Crimson vibes, sure, but it fit the moment perfectly and gave the track that extra layer of atmosphere without ever feeling forced.

What makes the story even better is how Marino has always pushed back against the myths that followed him around. There were those wild rumors that he went to the hospital and got visited by the spirit of Jimi Hendrix or something. He has called that completely preposterous more than once. He was in the hospital in 1968, Hendrix passed in 1970, and the whole thing just does not add up. The truth is a lot more grounded and a lot more interesting. Born Francesco Antonio Marino in Montreal in November of 1954, he started out on the drums as a little kid. Then around age thirteen or fourteen he got deep into the acid scene of the late sixties, like a lot of young people did, and one of those trips landed him in the children's ward for a stretch. There were no drums lying around, but there was a guitar in the day room, so he picked it up to keep his mind occupied and keep from sliding back into that overwhelming experience.

That hospital stay is where the whole Mahogany Rush thing really began. He has explained that the name itself was not some clever band idea cooked up later. It was the words he used to describe the sensation of the trip itself, those mahogany rushes. When he started jamming with people after he got out, he would tell them he was playing Mahogany Rush music, meaning the kind of psychedelic stuff that matched what he had gone through. His mother saw how the guitar was helping him and went down the street to buy a 1961 SG from a neighbor for a few bucks. That became the instrument he has stuck with ever since. He would even play it with his teeth against the amp early on just to hear the sound in his head. Before long he was doing church gigs and parade floats, covering Hendrix, the Doors, Cream, Pink Floyd, and a few originals of his own, pulling together different players until the classic trio with Paul Harwood on bass and Jimmy Ayoub on drums locked in.

By the time he was sixteen he had already recorded the debut album Maxoom, which came out a couple years later on a small label. The whole style just came naturally, he has said. He did not set out to copy anybody. The Hendrix comparisons followed because he did that material so well, and he even dedicated an early song called Buddy to him after Hendrix passed, but the myth got way out of hand. He was anti-establishment from the start, the kind of hippie rock and roll biker spirit that did not want the commercial machine, yet the labels kept signing him because the live shows were packing places. For IV they were on Columbia, and he still produced it himself with the same no-preproduction approach. That spontaneous energy is exactly what you hear in "Dragonfly," the kind of track that rewards repeated spins because it never feels locked in.

If you want to dig deeper into the whole catalog and the stories behind it, the official site at mahoganyrush.com has the full discography, including the IV page where you can check out the lyrics and credits. There is also the Official Frank Marino Facebook page where the latest updates get posted, and the official Instagram for photos and clips from the road. Fans keep the conversation going on the Mahogany Rush Live fan site, which tracks the old tour history and the IV era shows, and in the active Frank Marino and Mahogany Rushers 2 group where people trade stories about seeing the band back in the day. The Zoo Crew will keep spinning the deep cuts and the forgotten gems right here on THE ZOO, so stay tuned and keep those dials locked in for more of that freeform album rock that never went out of style.