Frankie Standalone, a man of very few words... You see, some people are just meant to be alone… Frankie was born somewhere in the backwoods outside of Lafayette, Louisiana… That’s about all I know about the man who stands alone… Frankie doesn’t speak much to anyone… A loner of the worst kind… Most people find Frankie unbearable to be around… But I found Frankie, underneath the rough façade, was a genuine, honest, and hard working person… But he wouldn’t let anyone know the truth, unless you were meant to know…
“My Pa? What the hell do you want to know about him? He was the meanest son-of-a-bitch you’d ever meet. He spent his days working and his nights drinking.”
Frankie was the only son of a carpenter/brick layer… His mother had left the two when he was only 3 years old… And his Pa was not the loving kind, if you know what I mean… But the one thing that Frankie did get from his father was his love for music… As a boy, he would sit home and listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the music box, while his Pa would drink moonshine right out of the Jug… At an early age, Frankie knew that he wanted nothing more than to be a player… His favorite instrument was the Peddle Steel Guitar… He loved the way the notes seemed to carry on forever… It touched something deep down in his soul…
He bought his first Peddle Steel from Old Man Johnson at the age of 15… It was missing a peddle but that never stopped Frankie from learning the instrument… Over a period of several years, Frankie ended up getting pretty good, and so he set off for his 1st audition… He ended landing the gig with Luke Brower and the Wild Stallions… But like most of the gigs that he would get, Frankie was fired for his lack of personality, to say the least… And his lack of respect for others was more than those boys could handle… So they had to part ways, but his growing musical ability was hard to deny, and he always ended up getting a gig shortly there after…
Frankie’s next gig was with Sammy Halo and the Night Owls, but that didn‘t last too long either… You see, Frankie, like his Pa, was a drinking man and most of his problems lied with this fact… While on the road with the Night Owls, Frankie’s misfortunes became painfully obvious to Sammy… And on a dare, he polished off a full glass of Rot Gut Tequila… The thing is, Frankie had already had about 7 Jack and waters, his favorite… Well, one thing lead to another, and he ended getting into a argument with another guy sitting at the bar… Keep in mind, this was a couple of hours before the show started… The next thing he knew, the guy hit old Frankie in the back of the head with a beer bottle… “Oh you dirty son-of-a-bitch.” He ended up throwing this poor fellow through the front door of the establishment, knocking down the waitress, who was also the daughter of the local sheriff…
After spending the night in the drunk tank, Frankie woke up to a splitting headache and a bad case of the Runs… But when he got back to the bus, Sammy pulled him aside to give him the “We have to talk” speech… Frankie knew this all too well, but something was different this time… He truly seemed sorry for what had happened… This was a turning point for the young musician… He was given a few bucks and a bus ticket back home… As fate would have it, when he got home, he scored a gig with Laurie Mitchell… An up an coming artist with the look and talent to boot… Had he still been on the road with Sammy, he would have missed out on the gig that would finally get him the respect he’d been looking for… So the fight that landed him in the Hoakie was worth every trip to the toilet…
Once on the road with Laurie, his attitude began to change, and for the 1st time in his short life, people began to warm up to old Frankie… As warm as he would let them anyway… I mean, he was still Frankie Standalone… His chops were coming together during this time… He began to catch the eye of some producers looking for some fresh studio musicians… When he wasn’t touring with the band, Frankie was picking up some professional studio gigs in New Orleans…
One gig in particular, he was flown to Nashville to play on a album for a young singer/songwriter by the name of Floyd Lukas… While playing on this session, he was befriended by a the audio engineer by the name of Lou Lewis… The two guys hit it off immediately… They became drinking buddies, and every time that Lou needed Steel on a record, Frankie was the 1st guy he would call… Although he never moved to Nashville, Frankie spent many a night there with Lou… Partying all night with some big shots in the industry… It was at one of these late night parties that Frankie got the bug to move out West… From Lou Lewis of course… So Frankie gave his notice to Laurie and followed Lou to “The Land of the Slippery Side Streets.”
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