January 7, 2003

BOB FRANK'S STORY has all the makings of a classic comeback: a 30-year gap between his only two recordings; a gradual makeover from a stoner/alcoholic Southern hippie into a suburban, working-class family man with a Buddhist outlook; and a fine new CD, Keep on Burning, produced by the semilegendary Jim Dickinson (Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, Aretha Franklin, the Replacements, Big Star).

There's only one thing missing: any widespread realization that Frank had disappeared in the first place. Indeed, log on to www.bobfranksongs.com and you'll read, "You've stumbled onto the Web site of one of the most obscure songwriters on the face of the planet.... Bob Frank is so invisible, when he looks in the mirror, he thinks they woke up the wrong guy."

A Memphis native, Frank knocked around folk clubs during the 1960s and worked for a while as a contract songwriter at Tree Publishing in Nashville. He made one self-titled LP in 1972. It was well received by critics, and it could have launched Frank on a steadily rising career arc akin to those of such peers as Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. But he sabotaged his chances by blowing off a promotional tour and refusing to play songs from the album at a pivotal showcase at Max's Kansas City in New York. A few radio stations, such as KAAY in Little Rock, Ark., and KFAT in Gilroy, put Frank's "Judas Iscariot," "Memphis Jail," and "She Pawned Her Diamonds for Some Gold" into heavy rotation. But his label, Vanguard, cut him loose faster than George McGovern dropped Tom Eagleton, and Frank stumbled back into anonymity, confused and resentful.

"When I look back at that guy, he was drunk and stoned and very stubborn," Frank said in phone conversation from his home in El Sobrante a few days before Christmas. "I thought I didn't need a record company. I thought once I made a record, everybody'd hear about it, and it was all just gonna happen."

When overnight success eluded him, Frank moved west, played some gigs around the Bay Area with his aptly named band, the Hardheads, and eventually settled down to raise a family. But not without second thoughts. "I was constantly thinkin' if I didn't have these fuckin' kids I could be out there making a million bucks and being a big star and having women crawl all over me," he recalled. "But I had to get a regular job with a steady income and medical benefits."

While putting bread on the table by installing drainage systems, Frank continued to write songs, occasionally playing them at open mic nights, union rallies, Buddhist dharma retreats, and his daughter's modern dance performances. About a year or so ago, encouraged by family and friends, including cowboy singer Gary McMahon, he decided it was finally time to make another album. "I've gotten to the point where I feel I've gotta record as many of these songs as I can, one way or another, 'cause I've spent my whole life writin' 'em and it's kinda like what I'm all about," he said. "I mean my wife thinks they're great, but what fuckin' good are they if I never go play 'em for anybody and nobody's gonna hear 'em?"

Without any current contacts in the music business, Frank called up his old pal Dickinson, who agreed to cut the recording at his Mississippi studio on a shoestring, while bringing in his sons Cody and Luther (from the North Mississippi All-Stars) and a host of others to wrap a professional but relaxed sound around Frank's warm, unguarded baritone vocals. Although the song styles range from romantic ballads and talking blues to mariachi and honky-tonk, Keep on Burning is unified by a swampy Memphis country feel that Frank attributed to "the river and the humidity and the jungle down there" seeping into the music.

Featuring old songs and new, Keep on Burning opens with "Journey to Myself," which could be described as one of Frank's "dharma songs" about running battles with envy, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, and sloth, but he's couched it as an old-fashioned outlaw allegory. Sobriety and spiritual pursuits, Frank argued, have sharpened not softened his craft. "The whole time you're doing all this practice," he said, "all you're doing is becoming able to see things more clearly, so whatever you're looking at, whether it's somebody killing somebody else and going to jail or whatever, you're going to see it more clearly, and if you're really into expressing it, you're gonna be able to express it more clearly, so it's gonna have a better edge on it."

What has melted away is Frank's anguish about recognition and affirmation. At 58 and looking toward retirement from his day job, he says it's enough to make his CD available through his Web site and at his gigs. He plans to record another soon and get onstage more often, with more confidence.