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BOB FRANK SONGS RECORDED BY OTHER ARTISTSBLUES AND SOUTHERN ROCKJim Dickinson A couple of Bob’s songs — “Wild Bill Jones” and “Last Night I Gave Up Smoking” — have been recorded by Jim Dickinson. Jim’s version of “Wild Bill Jones” (James Luther Dickinson, Atlantic, 1972) "stands as one of the great testaments not only of rock 'n' roll but also of its ancient and unfathomable roots," according to Nick Tosches (Where Dead Voices Gather). And on Jim's new CD, Free Beer Tomorrow (Artemis, 2002), he put his version of "Last Night I Gave Up Smoking." Jim’s played with everybody from Aretha Franklin and Ry Cooder to the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. It was Jim’s keyboards that wafted Dylan into a grammy award here a few years ago. Dickinson is not only a unique recording artist, he’s also one of the greatest producers of authentic American music that ever stepped into a studio. If you want proof of this, just order a copy of Bob’s new CD, Keep on Burning. Jim produced it, and his sons, Luther and Cody, of the famous blues/rock group, the North Mississippi Allstars, are playing on it, as well as a lot of other authentic musicians from Memphis and north Mississippi. Hidden in it somewhere are three-fourths of Jim’s old Southern rock group, “the band that nobody can find.” PSYCHEDELIC/STONER/BLUESROCK ECSTASYThe New JPT Scare Band These guys recorded “Wino,” and it sounds like Jimi Hendrix meets Bob Frank. We’ll let ‘em speak for themselves. Here’s an email Bob got from Jeff Littrell, their drummer: COWBOYSChris LeDoux For all you Country and Western fans, here’s a hot link for you. Chris LeDoux, the famous Country Western star, World Champion Bronc Rider, and renowned sculptor of cowboy art, sings “Six Bucks a Day,” on his new anthology album. It’s an old cowboy song that Bob wrote about thirty-five years ago. Not many people know that Chris actually started his recording career singing a bunch of Bob Frank cowboy songs, such as “Six Bucks a Day,” “The Buckskin Lady,” “Montana Rodeo,” “Horses and Cattle” and “Tom Horn.” Everybody knows how Chris got famous back when Garth Brooks mentioned his name in a hit song. Garth said something about “listening to a worn out record of Chris LeDoux,” and right away, ten thousand people went out and started buying Chris LeDoux records. This was great for Chris, but it didn’t do much for the guy that wrote the song that Chris was singing on that old worn out record — the song Garth was listening to when he got inspired to write that line. For many years now, the listening public has been asking this question: “What exactly was the song that Garth was listening to when he wrote that hit song about Chris LeDoux?” Well, the listening public need worry no more. They can rest easy tonight, safe and secure in the knowledge that we now know for sure exactly what that song was. And who wrote it. It was the same song that Chris is singing on his anthology album — “Six Bucks a Day.” And if you don’t know who wrote it by now, you ain’t been paying attention. You might wonder, if you ever heard Chris sing "Montana Rodeo," why it sounds different from the way Bob does it. That’s because Chris learned it from Gary McMahan. More on him below. Gary McMahan Gary McMahan, the yodeling buckaroo from Colorado and one of the greatest singing cowboys in America today (Chris LeDoux calls him “our cowboy Bob Dylan”), has always liked Bob Frank’s cowboy songs, ever since he first heard Bob sing “The Buckskin Lady” at the old Exit/Inn in Nashville back in ’72. At that time, Bob didn’t really think “The Buckskin Lady” was all that great a song. The only reason he was singing it was because Clete Haeget had requested it. Then Gary McMahan got ahold of it. All of a sudden, there was this beautiful yodel, right smack dab in the middle of the chorus. That’s the way Gary McMahan is. He sings a lot of Bob Frank songs, but he always rewrites them to his own taste and usually throws in a yodel or two here and there, just touching ‘em up with a running iron, so to speak. Still, he’ll be the first to tell you,“Yep. Got this song from Bob Frank, the best natural songwriter I know.” On Gary’s first album, Colorado Blue, he sings an old hitchiking song of Bob’s called “My Good Samaritan,” where a hippie and a cowboy have a little run-in up in the snowy range, backed up by Elvis’s old group, the Jordanaires. Bob says this song never sounded so good until Gary sang it. The whole last verse is pure Gary McMahan. Check it out. Gary’s got his own label, Horseapple Records, and if you haven’t heard him sing the one he wrote about the ape that broke horses, (“The Best Cowboys Ain’t Always Human”) you’ve just been wasting your time. A couple of other Bob Frank songs that Gary has recorded are “Horses and Cattle” and “Montana Rodeo.” The Starlite Ramblers That one song of Bob’s, “The Buckskin Lady” — they call it the Colorado National Anthem — that’s been recorded by three different artists, including an old Colorado bar band, The Starlite Ramblers, who did a really pretty version of it back in the early eighties, on an album of theirs that was recorded live at Apple’s, in Longmont, Colorado. I think that group’s extinct now, and as far as I know, the only way you can get ahold of that old album of theirs is through the underground railroad.
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