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Awhile back, tape-trading buddy Hugh got to talking with a local craftsman (who we’ll call Joseph) about music & live tapes when the craftsman volunteered that he had taped one concert in his lifetime and it was of a guy named Bob Frank. This immediately piqued Hugh’s interest.

“You mean the Bob Frank who recorded ‘Judas Iscariot?’”

“Yeah, that’s the one. I’m surprised you’ve even heard of him.”

As it turns out, Joseph and Hugh had both been introduced to the music of Bob Frank in the early ’70’s when legendary Midwest DJ Clive Clifford played “Judas Isacariot” on “Beaker Street,” the free-form rock program on KAAY, a 50,000 watt AM blow-torch out of Little Rock, AR. At the time (1972), Joseph had been traveling the country in a van with his “old lady” and all his earthly possessions, including a reel-to-reel recorder which he used primarily for playing tapes of free form radio broadcasts when he happened to be traveling through any particularly desolate area. Selling his crafts for gas money, Joseph and female companion ended up in Houston for a short spell and noticed an ad in the local free press stating that Bob Frank would be performing at the now legendary Old Quarter — a Texas breeding ground for folk and blues where folks like Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle cut their teeth. Joseph wandered into the bar, asked if he could set up his recording gear to record the show to provide some entertainment on his future journeys and share with friends. No problem. The term “intellectual property” wasn’t a part of the hippie troubadour vocabulary. That night a live Bob Frank concert was performed in front of about 6 patrons and a rolling tape machine.

Not much is known about Bob Frank. He had one album released on Vanguard in 1972. Not many outside of the “Beaker Street” signal range have given a thought to rather unique talent in the last 28 years — a man who wrote a song about a dope-smoking Jesus and his wine guzzling disciples — who suggested that Judas had the greatest faith — who wrote another song called “Wino” with so much conviction that you just knew it had to be autobiographical. Maybe Bob Frank is a virtually ”nobody” in the annals of folk music, but those that have been exposed to the Vanguard album almost unanimously regard it in good favor.

Back to nowadays. Hugh asks Joseph if he still has the tape.

“Yep.”

“Would you mind making me a copy?”

“No problem.”

And naturally, Hugh passed on his story of his find (as well as a copy of the tape) with much enthusiasm to me.

The tape is a genuine previously-undiscovered artifact containing about a dozen Bob Frank compositions that don’t appear on the Vanguard album (plus most of the ones that do). More important, it gives some insight to who Bob Frank, the man, actually might have been. We know from his between-song commentary that he did, indeed, have a taste for wine. There is a loneliness that envelopes his voice and a weariness that is undeniable. While most of the performance can be tossed off as the drunken ramblings of an obscure folkie —a hobo with a guitar and a few off-beat stories to tell — there is a defining moment when Frank hits life’s proverbial nail square on the head. And despite his inability to properly navigate the lyrics, he does endure to the end, completing the song after several false starts and some blown (and re-sung) lyrics.

Introduced as “a song I wrote… not really a song… more like a poem… and excuse to drink a lot,” Frank stumbles through “The Face on the Barroom Floor,” stopping periodically along the way to remember lyrics and guzzle some wine. “The Face” is the perfect metaphor for all that exists in life that has a beautiful and an ugly side to it — which includes the music industry as we know it today. In the last 28 years, these words have been heard by 6 patrons in a Houston bar and two aging tape collectors. So copyright laws be damned, if I don’t reprint it here, this man’s testimony is likely to become nothing more than just the song on the barroom floor.

Tolliver hung around the bar with a lot of money to spend.
Walked in late one evening and ordered a shot of gin.

He turned to the fellow beside him and said, “You wouldn’t think
“I was once a man that spurned the taste of drink.”

Then he drained his little jigger and lit a cigarette,
And when he ordered another shot, his eyes were red and wet.

“’Twas a year ago last spring,” he said. “She swore she’d be my wife.
“The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known — in my whole life.”

Then he polished off his second glass and ordered up a third.
He drank it straight and he drank it fast and he sculptured every word.

“When she met me, I was an artist,” he said, “and she inspired my soul.
“Now she’s left me and I’m just a ginsot, and I live from this little glass bowl.”

Then he lifted up his shot glass and ordered it filled with gin.
Gulped it down, clenched his teeth, and ordered it filled again.

“Her face haunts my dreams at night and fills my days with doubt,
“And I’ll never know a healthy life til I’ve drawn this demon out.”

Then he pulled a broken brush from his coat, and a tube of crimson paint,
And on the bare wood floor in front of the bar, he knelt and began to paint.

“This is the woman who kissed me,” he said. “This is the woman who lied.
“This is the woman who found my heart, and drove a knife inside.”

Then he rose and drank his final shot and staggered out the door,
And we all crowded around to see what he’d painted on the floor.

And mingled there with the ashes, the beer stains and the dust,
Tolliver left her portrait, in the colors of blood and rust.

Some said it was the face of a saint. Some said it was the face of a whore.
That’s how she was painted that night, on the barroom floor.

Well, that’s the song, and that's the atricle it appeared in, back in 2000. Actually, that's the song all right, but it's got the wrong title on it. Should be "Tolliver's Face." That's what Bob calls it.

But let’s go back to the beginning.

It all started back in the spring of 2001, when Bob was at Jim Dickinson’s place down in Mississippi. They were were making that CD, Keep on Burning, and Mary, Jim’s wife, got an email from a guy named Jeff Brandon. Jeff had seen Bob at this show that all these guys had just done at the Overton Park Shell there in Memphis, and he had heard that Bob was at Dickinson’s, and that they were doing some recording, and Jeff wanted to know if he could come to the session. This wasn’t going to happen, but Mary printed his email for Bob, and he took it back to California, and got in touch with Jeff over the Internet. Jeff had all sorts of interesting information about Bob Frank, and even knew about this website in Norway where there was a whole page about Bob and his mysterious persona. The site still exists, and is run by Alf Storrud.

Bob went to that site and found out he was dead. Needless to say, this had a somewhat sobering effect on Bob.

Now read this email from Alf Storrud, in Norway. Alf has a copy of that same tape that Hugh, Bill Glahn’s tape trading buddy, gave a copy of to Bill. Alf calls it “the live boot.” It’s that tape that somebody — Bill calls him Joseph — made of Bob when he was playing at the Old Quarter in Houston one night back in the summer of 1973. Apparently, it’s been circulating around the world, while Bob was digging holes in the ground.

Hello Bob,

Imagine my surprise when I opened my mail this morning. After trying – like quite a few others – to find out where that singer named Bob Frank disappeared to, I find that he has mailed me! Great hearing from you!! I have not received the previous mail – but the server here at the University of Oslo have been acting strange for some time – It has placed some messages inside others – maybe that is what has happened.

Maybe you could repost the mail?

My page about you is extremely sketchy – but there was not much info to be found – I would be happy to put up more information !!

Are you still writing? Both the Vanguard album and the live boot are among my all time favourites – and after making this small site I have found that I am not alone. A lot of people treasure that album – and almost everybody is pestering Vanguard about re-releasing it.

Any chance of a new album?

All the best

Alf Storrud

Now read this email from Shane Virone, in Pennsylvania.

Bob,

I just received an e-mail from Alf Storrud about your webpage. Let me just say how happy I am to see you're doing well and still recording. Over the years I've just assumed you've turned into a Jackson C Frank type figure, homeless or something. Great to see you're still making music.

I've always been a fan of your work since I was going thru my parents' old record collection when I was 15... "Bob Dylan, hmm... kinda strange and what the hell is he talking about... Townes Van Zandt... eh, not bad. Bob Frank, what's this... wow, this is rather good." Thankfully I've changed my opinion of Dylan and Van Zandt over the years, but I managed to wear out my parents' copy of your album. There was just something so pure and simple about those songs, they manage to pull me in at that young age.

Anyway, I'm ranting now. Alf mentioned that he's sent you a copy of that 1972 performance at the Old Quarter. Turns out I was his source for that recording. From Alf's letter to me it sounds as if you might be interested in tracking down the original reel-to-reel tape? Thing is, I'm still 3 degrees removed from the original taper. Still, I hope I can help you with that.

I'm at school right now, but next time I'm home I'll go thru my records and see if I can find the address of my source. I think I still might have it, but if not, I know the city he lives in. I was able to get a message to him with just that information when I was originally trying to get in contact with him. Turns out that his friend was talking to an old mechanic in his town about bootlegging. The only thing this mechanic ever recorded was your show back in 1972. Hopefully my source can help you out, he was real helpful to me. There were some really great songs done at that show and now that I've finally made contact with you I'm hoping to hear some more of your work.

Well, I'll be in contact in a few weeks. Oh, and I almost forgot... this is a no brainier, but I want to order your two new albums.

All the best,
Shane Virone

And here's Bob's response:

Hi Jim,

Did you have an apartment in Houston? Did I eat dinner at your house one night? My memories of that town are a blur. I was drunk and stoned the whole time I was there. And it shows, on that tape of the Old Quarter gig. Shane Virone, who I think lives in Houston too, [Bob doesn’t know shit. Shane lives in Pennsylvania.] sent me a cd-r of it. So far I have not been able to listen to the whole thing. I have a lot of cassette tapes that sound almost identical to it. What sounds to some people like the world-weary voice of a guy who's been on the road too long I can more easily identify as a drunk guy mumbling his way through some songs, and trying to not fall off the stool....

Still, since the tape does exist, and since it was a live performance, as opposed to just me and Jack Daniels singing a duet in the garage, I think there is probably some merit in this tape you have. Tell me, is it a reel to reel, like a 7 and a half inch thing? Or what?...

...tell me some more about it. And then, maybe you can send it to me, if you want to.

Bob

Dear Bob,

It's great to hear from you! Yeah, I did have an apartment over a garage around back of a house and you did come over for dinner at least once, I think. You were traveling in a tricked up van with a woman named Dot, I think, and a child in diapers. We had some fun drinking and smoking and picking and singing. I wanted to get some of your songs down, hence the recording at the Old Quarter. It is a reel to reel tape, 7 or 8 inches. I no longer have a reel machine so I'm not sure what we have exactly. I'll see if I can come up with a machine and review it. I'll keep you posted and I'd be glad to send it to you.

I'm also interested in what you've been up to in the last 30 years, I guess. It looks like you have a CD out there with some new and old songs. I still have a couple of your songs burned into my memory due, I'm sure, to the miracle of recreational drugs. I'm playing even more now than ever, working in a couple of local groups and having a ball. I've settled here on the east coast and you obviously on the west but the country ain't really so big with this internet thing going.

Let's stay in touch and I hope you and your loved ones have a great Independence Day.

Jim Crow

wow, Jim. You have a great memory, for someone who lived through the sixties... you know what they say, if you remember the sixties, you weren't there... but from your letters, i can see you were there. so, you're an exception to the rule, i guess. That lady was named Dot, only she changed it to Deirdre. She is downstairs now talking on the phone to our daughter, Dawn, who was the child in diapers you refer to. Dawn is married to Hans, who is the webmaster of my site. We have three other kids, all grown except for Dan, who is 16…

Thanks for the emails. There's this folksinger down in Phoenix, Phil Shanks, who told me a story very similar to yours, but his was set in Colorado. Seems we met at a mutual friend's wedding and spent four days drinking and smoking and picking and grinning. He was also at the Festival at Eureka Springs. That was the Arkansas Folk Festival. [See photo on this page.]

Time flies, it's amazing we're still around to say it.

Bob

Yeah, they say the sixties lasted until 1974 and it was often a white knuckled ride but I do recall enough of those experiences with a grin. I guess I'm a psychedelic survivor. Reading your e-mail gave me chill bumps. I feel like I'm experiencing some sort of strange homecoming. It's pretty incredible that you and Dot are still together and with a nice family working together. I wish you the best with your family/cottage industry. If it was up to me, I'd say your songs will be successful but with the junk riding the air waves these days...who knows. I played "Canebreak" for one of the guys in our band the other night. A Jewish boy from Brooklyn, He listened closely and said, "Man, it sounds like you lived that song!" Not too far from the truth. By the way, Deirdre is a beautiful Irish name from Celtic folklore, Dot made a good choice. Tell her I said hidy.

Jim Crow

hey, Jim, this is really something. I mean, 6 months ago, I didn't even know this tape existed. I first heard about it on Alf Storrud's website over in Norway. He had a review on there of the Vanguard album and a "discography" of bob frank. The discography consisted of two items. The vanguard album and a live recording at the Old Quarter, from what he thought (and apparently everybody else thought too) was made in 1972. Well, it had to have been made in 1973, because that was when I played there. The album came out in '72, but I was in the woods in New Hampshire all that summer. I didn't go on a tour til 1973. I always was a year late and several dollars short...

Anyway, you sent me this tape. Man, think of it. Whatever they say about the internet, I don't see how this would have happened without it. At least, not this fast.

And where did you get these two pictures? The one of me at the Arkansas Folk Festival, and the one of what I guess is the Lamar Theater in Memphis?…

Man, it's a wonder we ever lived through all that shit. I got some great songs from it. But I had to get sober before I could actually do 'em up proper.

Anyway, Jim, thanks a million for this cd-r and this tape and these pictures. And don't forget to tell me where you got them from. Is that really the old Lamar theater in Memphis? Leonard's ought to be around there somewhere... best barbecue in the world, used to be. Things have changed down there, I think Leonard's went franchise on us. Still got Bozo's out by Brownsville. I'm going back there for the next album. Nobody can do it like Dickinson. This time he wants to take me to Sam Phillips studio and get Roland Janes involved. Roland used to be Jerry Lee Lewis' guitar player. Memphis might suck when it comes to a lot of things, but when it comes to eating barbecue and making records, nobody can touch 'em.

Bob

Bob, I guess you're one up on me as I couldn't remember the year ('72 or'73). I recorded the tape on a Sony reel to reel machine with the two small mics that came with it, as I recall. I had wanted to learn some of your songs which weren't on the Vanguard record after hearing you at the Arkansas Folk Festival, where I took the photo (I was tripping). You suggested that I record the Old Quarter show so we wouldn't have to write it all down, etc. The photo of the Lamar was stuck in the cd sleeve by my friend Hugh Harris from Little Rock who is the guy that passed a cassette tape to this Bill Glahn way back when. Hugh recently took the tape reel and dubbed the recent generation cd-r for us. Yeah, this is really crazy how it has all come back around. I had no idea the recording had made the rounds like it has. I'm glad I hung on to that tape after all these years and I'm glad for you to have it now.

Jim Crow

So there you have it. It all comes back around like this to Bill Glahn, who wrote that article in Live! Music Review.

Bob got ahold of Bill through Shane Virone. And Bob got ahold of Shane through Alf Storrud, and he got ahold of Alf through Jeff Brandon.

And that’s why I say, the whole story started when Jeff emailed Mary Dickinson, mother of Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, that email asking her if he could come to the session that they were doing in Jim’s barn that time, the one that resulted in Keep on Burning. Jeff didn’t make it to the session, but he and Bob struck up a good friendship and the last time Bob saw him and his beautiful Italian wife in a club on South Main that used to be a whorehouse, across the street from the old train station, he gave Bob an espresso coffee pot, a tiny little thing, and a tiny little cup and saucer to go with it. This little outfit is what keeps Bob awake long enough to finish those songs it takes him so long to write…

Here’s one more from Jim Crow, sort of wind out the story:

…..I'm still working on finding a reel to reel tape machine so I can be sure what's on the tape labeled "Bob Frank". When I do, I'll send it on to you. I'll send my request to Vanguard even though I still have my copy of the old LP. Stay tuned...

Jim Crow

Well, that rounds out the story of the musical version of that song about “Tolliver’s Face.” But what about the poetry version? What happened to the lyics, all alone, out on a sheet of paper, somewhere in the West?

That’s another story.

And here it is. Told as only Bill Glahn can tell it. This article appeared in Big O in August, 2002.

Back in 1972, Bob Frank released his first record, a fantastic piece of Southern folk music on Vanguard Records. Although several Vanguard executives requested that he play material from the album at the record release showcase concert, he refused, stating that he only wanted to perform his newer material. Vanguard subsequently “tanked” the record, refusing to promote an album by a songwriter who wouldn’t use his concert performances to “sell” material that they now owned.

Was this an act of self-sabotage by an artist with a fear of fame? Or was it the act of a songwriter who viewed his songs in different terms than purely commercial ones? This week I got my answer.

Bob Frank isn't totally unknown. John Hiatt tells of an obscure Memphis folkie named Bob Frank, who was the driving influence for Hiatt to pursue a career as a songwriter/performer. In Robert Gordon's book, It Came From Memphis, Jim Dickinson tells of a song called “With Sabers In Our Hands”, recorded by Jerry McGill at Sam Phillip's studio. “If the South had had that song, they would have won the war.” Gordon assumed the song was an old traditional piece, and Dickinson didn't mention that it was actually a song written by Bob Frank. So Bob Frank got no mention in Gordon’s widely-read book. Apparently, Bob Frank is just destined for obscurity.

Others in the Memphis area have referred to Frank as “the Bob Dylan of the South.” But any comparisons with Dylan can stop with such testimony and Frank’s Vanguard album. Bob Frank wouldn't release another record for 30 years. No fame. No fortune. No accolades from the critics. Just a lingering and uneasy thought among anyone who had ever heard his Vanguard record… “Whatever happened to Bob Frank?”

Several years ago a tape trading buddy sent me a 1973 recording of Bob Frank performing at The Old Quarter in Houston. Like at the album release concert, Frank paid little attention to the songs from the self-titled Vanguard album (although several do appear in the set). Instead, he performs a batch of (then) new material, including a fascinating unreleased tune called “Tolliver's Face.” I had written about that song several years ago in Live! Music Review. The last verse in that song described how a painting of a woman was viewed by some as the face of beauty and by others as the face of a whore. The impression left by Frank’s song was that it was probably the face of both. I compared the song to the music industry in my essay.

On the occasion of the release of Keep On Burning, Frank's first album in 30 years (produced by Jim Dickinson and featuring members of the North Mississippi Allstars), I exchanged some emails with Frank. I mentioned “Tolliver's Face” as being one of my favorite Bob Frank songs. Frank replied: “I was in this bar in Deadwood, South Dakota, back in, oh, say 1970, I think it was the Old Number Ten Saloon, the one Wild Bill got killed in, this place has so much shit hanging off the walls, you can't even see the walls. Buffalo heads, musical instruments, pictures, weapons, I don't know what all. And hanging up there among all this stuff was what looked like a portion of a floor that had been ripped up and nailed on the wall. It had this picture of a young girl on it, in red paint. Very pretty young girl, long curly hair, and the wood it was painted on was sort of a rust colored brown. It was the face on the barroom floor, cut out of the floor and hung on the wall.

“Well, me being drunk, as was my wont back in those days, immediately a song came to mind. Now, I knew there was already some poem about the Face on the Barroom Floor, but I didn't exactly recall what that poem was about… obviously a woman... but I didn't remember any of the lines... so I took it upon myself to do it my own way. And so, as me and my lady friend drove around Wyoming, drinking sherry and taking in the scenery, I wrote that little poem about Tolliver and the face he painted on the barroom floor. I actually mailed it back to the Saloon from somewhere down in Arizona a few months later, but that was the end of it....”

I told Frank that after my essay had been published I heard from one of the other writers for Live! Music Review. He had never heard of Bob Frank, but he had been to that saloon in the mid ‘70s, and the painting of "The Face" was hanging on the wall and right next to it was a framed paper with handwritten lyrics.

Frank: “I just figured they (the Saloon) read it and threw it away. Man, that is something like exactly what I wanted, but I never knew it. I never knew exactly what I wanted when I sent them the lyrics. I just wanted them to see the song. But that's it. That's exactly where those lyrics belong. On the wall next to the painting. Man, this is one of those weird things in life that really makes sense. I mean, nobody will ever know about this, but it just is sitting out there in Deadwood. A painting on the floor hung on the wall, and a song in handwritten lyrics in a frame beside it. This is poetry turned into reality, or vice versa... This is the kind of shit I used to live for. And the mystery of it is what makes it so enticing… Who painted that picture? Prob’ly somebody just like the guy that wrote those lyrics…”

Frank’s response is the perfect illustration of why artists create. For great art, the rewards are never measured in money. The reward is measured by the artist's ability to communicate his feelings. And if those feelings are communicated best on the wall of a saloon in South Dakota rather than on a tape rotting away in some record label's vault, that is reward enough for Bob Frank. So my question was answered. Bob Frank's refusal at his Vanguard showcase wasn't an act of self-sabotage. Like Tolliver's painting, it was the act of an artist who really did know the value of art.

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