The sad life of an influential folk singer began traumatically and
ended in obscurity. Throughout his life Frank was haunted with
misfortune and ignored tremendously. When he was eleven a furnace at
Cleveland Hill elementary school in Cheektowaga, New York exploded,
killing eighteen of his fellow classmates and leaving Frank with burns
over his body. It was here while he was recovering from his injuries in
a hospital, Charlie Casatelli, one of his school tutors gifted young
Frank with his first guitar which sprung his passion for music.
Greenwich Village's coffeehouse folk scene in the early sixties drew
Frank to New York. He met such names as John Kay, later of Steppenwolf.
A large insurance settlement he received after he turned 21 enabled him
to travel to London, and it was here he made his biggest impact.
He took up a flat with a then struggling folk singer Paul Simon in
London, who later was impressed enough to produce ten of Frank's songs
in a self-titled album. While Frank's voice was tremulously somber, the
quality of the compositions was often impressive, with a reflective,
melancholic touch that possibly influenced Simon himself and the likes
of Sandy Denny and Nick Drake. Although his first album was
well-received in the British folk community, he was unable to reproduce
a similar quality of material and crippled any attempt for a follow-up.
Combined with deepening depression, increasing stage fright, and an end
to his insurance settlement that had allowed him to live freely, he
decided a move back to the states in 1969, without releasing another
album.
Frank took a slow slide into despair as his depression grew worse.
Taking a bus to New York, he hoped to connect with Paul Simon again,
but with little luck began sleeping on the streets. He became a ward of
the state, and at times he was institutionalized. In 1977, with life
looking better, Frank tried to release a new album, but was promptly
dismissed by what publishers said was a lack of market appeal for his
music. Again he fell into a deep depression, and the injuries from his
childhood got much worse, once again he was hospitalized for both
physical and medical reasons.
That is until Jim Abbott, a local Woodstock resident and sympathetic
fan, rediscovered the aging singer from an inscription on an old album
bearing his name in a record store. He successfully made contact with
Frank and brought him out of a state housing project in the Bronx and
into a senior center in Woodstock. He resumed songwriting and
performing occasionally until his death on March 3, 1999.
