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Reviews
Review of "The Heart of
the Flower"
from Dirty Linen, June/July '96
©1996 Dirty Linen
Bob Franke The Heart of the Flower [Daring CD3016 (1995)]
Sing Hallelujah, the great storm is over! A new release finally from Bob Franke, poet and
songwriter. Although he is best known as a singer's songwriter, Franke's own versions are
quietly beautiful. His songs have great words and nice tunes; many feature Franke's sly
humor or a touch of the Divine (if not both). Franke's version of his own "Hard
Love" is on this album along with many others, particularly a gorgeous retelling of
the story of Jonah, "Waiting for Nineveh to Burn." (WD)
Review of "The Heart of the Flower"
from Sing
Out!, Vol. 40, No. 4
©1996 Sing Out! Corporation
This represents Franke's most "commercial"
release, with full professional production by Mason Daring. Being a folkie at heart,
Daring tastefully layers just the right amount of accompaniment. Of course, the
contributions of instrumentalists Nina Gerber, Cary Black and Billy Novick further enhance
the production.
Franke is one of the very few songwriters who can weave
religion into his songs, as he does in "Eye Of The Serpent," without sounding
like he's proselytizing or dogmatic. His songs form compact moral dramas equally
appropriate to atheists, Christians or Buddhists.
Franke has re-recorded here his well-known "Hard
Love", long out of print, although now covered by about a dozen other performers.
While his voice has never sounded better, it lacks the edge of pain that once accompanied
this song. Still, even amid 10 other fine gems, "Hard Love" alone justifies the
cost of the CD.
"Waiting For Nineveh To Burn" brilliantly
reconstructs (deconstructs?) the Biblical tale, rife with Franke's trademark irony.
"Krystallnacht Is Coming" chillingly details the slippery slope we may be
sliding down toward the loss of civil liberties, or perhaps civility in general. No Franke
recording would be complete without one double-entendre humorous song, supplied here by
"Helicopter Simulator" which, as he describes it, is "a song about mid-life
crisis management."
The recording concludes with the hymn-type song Franke
writes so successfully, "Trouble In This World (It'll Be All Right)." From the
sorrows and angst of the previous songs, this one shines bright with hope. Daring's
production really blazes here as the song builds.
Unlike many singer-songwriters, Franke has never quested
after commercial success as much as an honest hearing of his songs and message. This
deserves that honest listening as it embodies Franke at the epitome of his musical
journey.
--Rich Warren
The 30th Anniversary Concert
Franke's Folks
Friends and Admirers Gather to Pay Tribute to the Songwriter
by Scott Alarik, The Boston Globe, January 19, 1996
Most people have to die before anyone throws a soiree like
this for them. Tomorrow at 7:30pm, a group of folk all-stars gathers at Sanders Theater to
honor 48-year-old Bob Franke on his 30th anniversary as a folk singer. Fellow songwriters
Tom Paxton, Noel Paul Stookey, Jack Hardy, Linda
Waterfall, Lui Collins, Mason Daring, Lorraine
and Bennett Hammond, and Geoff Bartley will perform some of their own songs and, in the
highest honor one songwriter can pay to another, also sing versions of Franke songs, many
of which have become standards in the modern folk canon. Franke will perform as well.
Another cause for celebration is the recent release of
"The Heart of the Flower," his first release on Daring Records. It is his
prettiest record to date, thanks in no small part to Daring's sublimely sensitive
production. It shows Franke at the peak of his considerable craft, brimming with the wise
and spiritually generous songs for which he is best known, along with wrenchingly
convincing topical songs and sugared by a hilarious cyber-blues and the adorably
bubble-gum-corny ode to his wife, "Christine '65".
It may seem curious for such a fuss to be made for an
artist who has never had a mainstream hit, never won a Grammy, made the cover of Rolling
Stone or even sung a duet with Willie Nelson. But success is measured differently in folk
music than in commercial pop. His songs have been covered by a myriad folk performers,
among them such diverse artists as Tony Rice, June Tabor, Stan and Garnet Rogers,
Priscilla Herdman, Gordon Bok and John McCutcheon. But Franke is counted among today's
best folk songwriters for deeper reasons that say much about how folk's standards differ
from those of the music industry.
As Paxton put it from his Long Island home, "In our
terms, it's a hit song when it really enters the tradition; when you hear that it's being
passed along from singer to singer, that people who may have no idea who you are have
taken it into their lives. They can identify with the feelings in the song, the words and
melody fit, and it tastes good to sing it. Bob writes like that, like an ordinary
thoughtful man who has turned to song to express himself."
Many of Paxton's classics fit that folk-hit criterion, as
do many of Franke's: "Thanksgiving Eve," "Hard Love," "For
Real", "The Great Storm Is Over", "Beggars to God." A central
reason they have attained that status is that his own experiences, struggles and spiritual
life as a Christian are so present in his songs. He has written liturgical works that are
performed at church services, and many of his humanistic ballads and uplifting anthems are
used for weddings, funerals, christenings, and other life benchmarks. No charts exist to
track this kind of hit.
Jack Hardy, who founded New York's influential Fast Folk
Musical Magazine recording series, cited this as more than enough reason to honor Franke
this way.
"His songs come out of a tradition and are written
with an awareness of the myth and ritual folk music is part of," he said. "He's
aware of the religious overtones of his writing, aware of the traditional ways people use
music for ceremonies and rituals in their lives. So a lot of Franke's songs are used that
way. You can't measure a song a couple chooses to sing at something as important as their
wedding in terms of units sold. That's a whole different realm of success."
Connecticut songwriter Lui Collins also praises the measure
of Franke's success, and further cites the great value of his songs as tools people use in
their own healing process. Again, units sold can't measure that.
She said, "He's so strongly himself in his songs, and
so fearlessly himself, that it allows me to walk into that place of being who I am. He
dares to speak of such important things that it's really an inspiration to me. Bob is
willing to say what he believes without worrying about what people think of him, so
willing to put his spirituality out there on the line. I think people can hear that. If
folk music is music that speaks to what is real, not to what is going to sell records, Bob
does that."
As for Franke himself, he does not speak of fans, but of
communities of like-minded people he is happy to serve with his music. He talks about
songwriting not in terms of stardom, but as his job; not about his songs' commercial
potential, but of the value they may have for people in their own lives.
"The distribution system of music in this country
tends to select for songs that are a mile wide and an inch deep," he said. "But
folk music selects for songs that are deeper, songs that mean something to people, that
they can use. I'm always thinking, am I communicating something with this idea? What
always I hope for in my shows is the center of attention not being me, but a spot
somewhere between me and the audience."
Franke's Heavenly Lyrics Strike a Chord with Folk Brethren
by Daniel Gewertz, The Boston Herald, January 17, 1996
Bob Franke came from a time when folk singers didn't make
money, they made a difference. "Money and record sales didn't cloud the picture. We
tended to honor the best among us," said the man respected as New England's finest
philosophical songwriter.
A dozen folk singers will honor Franke on his 30th
anniversary in music at Sanders Theater on Saturday. The concert will include two
troubadours far more famous than the evening's namesake: Tom Paxton and Noel Paul Stookey
(of Peter Paul and Mary).
"It's his integrity," Paxton said of Franke.
"I always think of Bob as if Emerson and Thoreau had picked up acoustic guitars and
gotten into songwriting. There's touches of Mark Twain and Buddy Holly in there,
too."
Though he's an unknown in wider circles, on the folk
circuit Franke songs such as "Hard Love" and "For Real are considered
classics. Instead of ending a concert with sing-alongs by Woody Guthrie, some area shows
have closed with Franke's anthemic "The Great Storm Is Over" or his prayerful
"Thanksgiving Eve."
Franke, 48, is an oddity even by folk's non-mainstream
terms. He came to Cambridge from Michigan as a seminarian, and there's still a hint of the
pastor in his music. "I'm an artist first, but an artist who is biblically
rooted," he said.
"I'm a Christian songwriter who's appalled by
right-wing Christianity. I've entertained the fantasy of going into contemporary Christian
music, but each time I do, something in me says, 'No, that's the devil talking,'" he
said, half-joking.
One of his first musical parishes was Boston Common, where
he was a street-performer in the '70s, often singing the blues. In the '70s, Franke also
became founding director of "Saturday Night In Marblehead," the weekly
coffeehouse nearing its 20th year. Up until a decade ago, Franke worked as plant engineer
of Harbor Sweets, a Salem candy company. A Peabody resident, his connections to the North
Shore are many. He is artist-in residence at the Church of Saint Andrew in Marblehead.
"I write a hymn-length piece every year," he said.
On his new album, "The Heart of the Flower"
(Daring/Rounder Records), Franke's "Krystallnacht Is Coming" poignantly connects
California's Proposition 187, the scapegoating of illegal Mexican immigrants, and Nazi
anti-Jewish sentiment.
"There's a prophetic dimension to my music, so
sometimes my art is disturbing, Yet I could not write such tough songs if I weren't firmly
grounded in a sense of forgiveness." Instead of preaching fire and brimstone, Franke
ponders fear and foibles. A love of 19th century poetry is apparent in his words. His best
songs are essays on faith, love, marriage and alienated life. And he is capable of pointed
humor.
A host of folkies will sing his songs on Saturday: Linda
Waterfall, Jack Hardy, Lui Collins, Lorraine Lee, Bennett Hammond, Geoff Bartley, Lynne
Saner and Mason Daring.
"I find great comfort in his songs," said
Collins. "They teach me about myself and the world. His work is inspiring, but so is
the way he lives his life. Compassion is the essence here."
A Night to Sing the Praises of Bob Franke
by Scott Alarik, The Boston Globe, January 22, 1996
CAMBRIDGE--What makes a song a hit? These days, the only
measures seem to be units sold, chart placement, number of recorded versions. In folk
music, however, there is another kind of hit: songs that travel from person to person,
often without knowledge of authorship; songs that are truly taken into the lives of
people. Saturday, an impressive parade of gifted folk artists gathered at Sanders Theater
to honor Bob Franke, a local songwriter they clearly feel writes hits like that, on the
occasion of his 30th year in folk music.
Each act did one Franke song, one original. Lorraine and
Bennett Hammond set the stage wonderfully, explaining that what binds all Franke's songs
is that they are all somehow about love, then offering their own reflective "Love Has
a Life of Its Own."
As the evening convincingly displayed, the love in Franke's
songs moves far beyond the dating-and-mating love in so much of today's pop. Tom Paxton
sang Franke's sublime meditation "Thanksgiving Eve:" "What can you do with
each moment of your life/But love till you've loved it away?"
Franke's keen craft was wonderfully displayed. Lui Collins
sang a starkly pretty cover of his classic "For Real." "There's a hole in
the middle of the prettiest life," the chorus began, ending with, "Let's be kind
to each other/Not forever but for real." Jack Hardy's dusty gravel-road voice held
the perfect menace for Franke's "I But A Little Girl," at once a ballad about
the Salem witch trials and an essay on the fearful toll of unchecked power. Lynne Saner's
cover of "Predictions," about the silent spread of AIDS, was devastatingly soft
and stark.
Other songs were clearly chosen to honor Franke's
Christian-based humanism, from Collins' pretty "Step into the Water" to Noel
Paul Stookey's very funny warning about computer-dependent lifestyles.
Speaking of Franke's willingness to take chances, Paxton
offered a brand-new wincingly authentic original about a man slowly falling backward into
the fog of Alzheimer's disease.
Linda Waterfall nearly stole the show with her infectiously
joyful anthem "Love Out of Nowhere," and a hilarious satire of a redneck whose
sexist posturing suddenly dissolves into new age psycho-speak (she's at Johnny D's
Tuesday).
Longtime local folk favorite Geoff Bartley offered insight
into his old friend's roots with a tight, bluesy howl of Franke's 1973 "Breakthrough
Angels." A cinematic original about Noah's Ark perfectly mirrored Franke's
spirituality.
In a strange way, though, there was not enough Franke to
the evening. He did not appear until nearly the end, and there was a certain coffeehouse
clubbiness in talking about him; as though it was assumed everyone in the audience knew
him. It would have been nice to learn more about what it was in these songs that so moved
his fellow songwriters.
Franke obviously wanted the songs to speak for themselves,
and that was eloquent testimony. Joined by Stookey and deft guitarist Mason Daring, who
produced his wonderful new disc "The Heart of the Flower," Franke sang a
powerful feminist-fired hymn, a deliciously silly love song for his wife, and, joined by
all, his much-covered anthem "The Great Storm Is Over." The crowd was singing
along to his guitar introduction, proving how much they had taken his music as their own.
As Franke sang for a quiet second encore, "There are songs that sing us all." It
is perhaps enough to know that such songs are still being written.
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