Name? Bob Frank Birthday? May 14, 1953 Hometown? Shaker Heights, OH High school? Shaker High School, class of 1971 Current band? Blue Lunch Other bands? Hotfoot Quartet, Macaw, that’s about it though I did spend about a year playing in Mike Petrone’s classic-rock band at the Little Bar Downtown. Instruments you play? I play guitar in Blue Lunch. I also play harmonica, mandolin, and banjo Talk about your gear, favorite instruments, why you like or use certain things. I use four guitars with Blue Lunch. The rest of the guys think I’m crazy for hauling them around but it’s the only way I can get the sounds I want for the multitude of styles that we play. My primary is a Gibson ES-5, a large, hollow-bodied guitar. I also use a Gibson Les Paul (a 1957 re-issue), a Fender Stratocaster (a 1982 first year Custom Shop), and a Fender Telecaster set up for slide. It’s a Mexican-made Tele with a humbucking pickup in the neck position. I use one of three different amps, depending on the size of the venue. For larger rooms and outside gigs I use a VistaLux VLTP212, a copy of the 1950’s era low-powerd Fender Twin. For most clubs I use a VistaLux VST210, a copy of the 1950’s Fender Super Amp. For smaller clubs and for school gigs I use a 1962 Fender Deluxe the one with brown Tolex covering. With all three amps I use an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Digital Reverb. I’ve tried Fender tank reverbs but I get too many reverb crashes with them. The Electro- Harmonix is the least obnoxious digital reverb I’ve tried. I don’t use any other effects or pedals. Sometimes I bring my little Epiphone Mandobird and use that at shows. I have about 12 other guitars and try to use all of them at various times. I also have a Bacon Blue Ribbon Banjo and a Ratliff Mandolin that I love. Age you started playing? I was 14 when I took up playing blues on the harmonica. I was 18 when I got my first guitar. I started playing the mandolin at 16 but I didn’t get serious about it until a few years ago. At home I mostly practice the mandolin. Influences? So many. In the blues field I’d have to name T-Bone Walker and Robert Lockwood as most important for the guitar. Also Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Robert Nighthawk, Freddy King, BB King and dozens of others. And I can’t forget my lansman, Mike Bloomfield. As a kid learning the harmonica I idolized Little Walter, of course, both Sonny Boys, Sonny Terry, Paul Butterfield and Mr. Stress, too. For bluegrass there was Bill Monroe, Ralph & Carter Stanley, Red Allen, Lester & Earl and so many more. I also love some of the real old-timers like Charlie Poole and Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers, Riley Puckett and Doc Boggs. In the rock field I’d have to mention Keith Richards, who’s playing I love, Lowell George, Robbie Robertson, and Eric Clapton. I’m also very influenced by the great song stylists like Sinatra, Dinah Washington, and my favorite ballad singer, Johnny Hartman. I listen to a lot of jazz, a lot of saxophone players. Some of my favorites are Coltrane, Rollins, Ben Webster, Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, Eddie Harris, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Sonny Stitt, and my all-time favorite, Arnett Cobb. A special influence is Roland Kirk, who I had the chance to see many times. Roland Kirk proved that jazz and showmanship are not mutually exclusive. Also, I’ve spent much of my time listening to and studying pre-war blues. So let’s include the “heavy hitters” like Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Tommy Johnson, and Son House. Also Tampa Red, Carl Martin, Big Boy Crudup, Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Blake and dozens more. Who are your heroes? First and foremost would be my dad, Theobald Frank, the most intelligent, moral man I ever knew. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Raul Wallenberg, Oskar Shindler, George Washington, and Lincoln, deserve a mention. Obama too, I suppose, at least until he screws up. I also have to name Robert Lockwood, who was the best role-model for a musician I ever knew. Lockwood showed that playing the blues isn’t about being a drunk or a drug addict or living a dissipated life, it’s about what you feel and what you produce. Lockwood showed that you can be a decent person, a family man, a person of substance and still play blues effectively. He saw other great artists like Little Walter self-destruct and knew that wasn’t for him. In the end he out-lived nearly all his peers and left a legacy of love and great works. When was your first gig, and were you paid for it? A friend asked me to sit-in with his band at a dance at Heights High when I was about 15. I didn’t get paid. What is your favorite piece of music to perform and why? Usually it’s whatever I’ve most recently written. Right now that would be a song I wrote called “Barack Obama”, whose subject is obvious. My all-time favorite song to sing is probably “Little Maggie”, a Dostoyevsky novel in about 8 verses. Favorite venue to play? I like playing festivals the best. Locally, I always enjoy playing Wilberts, Fat Fish Blue, House of Swing, and the Harpersfield Winery. Who would you like to perform with? I would love to have been guitarist/lead singer with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass boys. I also would have loved to have taken Robbie Robertson’s gig in the Band. And, if Roomful of Blues or Kim Wilson offered me a gig, I’d have to think long and hard about it. Artist you really like to listen to? Mostly older stuff: blues, jazz, bluegrass & old-time. At home I listen to a lot of classical music, a lot of Beethoven. New artist you admire? I don’t listen to much new stuff. What were your first three albums ever owned? I bought a few 45’s when I was very young. “Papa Oom Mow Mow” by the Rivingtons was probably the first one. They used to play it on Goulardi. “Meet the Beatles”, I think, was the first album I ever bought. Can’t remember the next two. Five CDs you can’t live without? 1. “Red Allen, Frank Wakefield & the Kentuckians” is my all time favorite album. I have it on vinyl & CD. 2. “Layla & other Love Songs”, Derek & the Dominoes. The greatest rock guitar album of all time. 3. “The Stanley Brothers & the Clinch Mountain Boys Original Mercury Recordings” I could easily substitute a number of different Stanley Brothers records but this is probably the best collection from their best era. 4. “Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues Singers” It still gives me the shivers. 5. “Beethoven 9 Symphonies” Any good recording. Most embarrassing thing in your CD collection? Just a lot of self-burnt cds with no writing on them so I don’ t know what they are. Favorite website? Bluelunch.com, what else? I do spend a lot of time on youtube, just like everybody else. Favorite movies? “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” is my all-time favorite. “The Maltese Falcon”, “Casablanca”, “The Petrified Forest”, “To Have and Have Not” & “The Big Sleep” (you can see I’m nuts for Bogart). Also “The Godfather”, The Godfather II,” “Usual Suspects”, “Goodfellas”, “Silence of the Lambs”, “La Dolce Vita”, “Annie Hall”. I just saw “Michael Clayton”, that was pretty great. Book that everyone should read? Catch 22, by Joseph Heller. It’s 1969, you’re 18 years old, and you have the opportunity to go to Woodstock. Would you go? Well, I was 16 and I DID have the opportunity to go, but I didn’t. I did go to the Ann Arbor Blues Festival a few weeks before and there are photos from it on our website, bluelunch.com My dad went with me to Ann Arbor and after what he saw there, there was no way my parents were going to let me go to Woodstock. I had quite a few friends who went, though. What do you do in your day job? I’ve been with Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio for 27 years. I’ve done about 3,000 programs and concerts in schools in Ohio and about a dozen other states. I also have a small (one- man) property management company and I take care of four commercial buildings in Stow and Euclid. Relate a funny or outrageous story from a gig. I’ve seen a lot of outrageous and ridiculous things in the years I’ve been doing this, but I can’t think of a more bizarre situation than four years ago when we played at one of the inaugural balls (the Liberty Ball, to be exact) at George Bush’s second inauguration. In addition to the absurdity of our being there to begin with, they had us play from 5:30 to 7:30 in the evening. They didn’t open the doors to the place until 7:00 and people didn’t get through the security until about 7:30. So, the Republican Party paid us a lot of money to play to nobody. It was a portent of things to come for that administration. Most tiresome request while playing out? Well, the worst is always, “Play something good”, or “Play something I know”. But really, we don’t hear that much anymore. I suppose I could do without requests for “Stormy Monday” and “Mustang Sally” for a while. Truth is, if someone does request them, we’ll usually do them. We don’t try to do “Brown Eyed Girl”, or “Margaritaville” anymore. Requests for “Electric Slide” I pretty much just ignore. Most unusual request while playing out? When I was playing with the Hotfoot Quartet a woman asked us to “play some Scarlatti”. I explained to her that we were a bluegrass band and that Scarlatti was an 18th century baroque composer and that it was out of our range but she insisted, “Oh just play SOMETHING by Scarlatti”, as if we were just being stubborn about it. My theory is that she’d somehow heard of Scarlatti and since we weren’t playing the pop music that she knew, then we must be playing Scarlatti. Favorite beverage at a gig? Occasionally I’ll have a beer or some Jack Daniels, but I usually stick with Diet Coke. Name two songs you’d love to see on your “To Learn” list: “Shiny Stockings”, and “Compared to What” Describe yourself in three words: Dedicated, determined, consistent. Those are the good ones. I’m sure my wife or the guys in the band could come up with some alternatives. What is your advice to up-and-coming musicians? Learn the basics. Learn the roots. Playing Guitar Hero is not the same as playing guitar. Practice. Oh, and don’t be so damned full of yourself…you’re not that good yet. Email address: Bfrank53@bluelunch.com |
| Welcome to Spotlight! ....the opportunity for local musicians to be placed front and center. Enjoy the show! 1/21/09 Vol. XVII |
