Frank loves music: listening to it, selling it, writing it and performing it.
He played bass in high school. In 1987, he joined a band called Stentorian, touring the US and Canada. By 1989, he had become a father (daughter) and formed Love, Survival & Drive, a Texas band that did well and produced a
self-released project. In 1994, the band changed its name to The Love Revival and headed to Los Angeles.
If this sounds like the typical wanna-be story, it is, with another child added to the mix. Los Angeles may be the show business capital of the world, but for Frank, it was a lesson in poverty and struggling to support his kids. Frank learned a lesson that many talented people do, it is better to be a big fish in a small pond than one of a million fish in the ocean. While in Los Angeles, Frank drove a taxi, he was an extra on movie and TV sets, and appeared as Barney and a Power Ranger at kids parties. One day, even though he had just landed a gig at the famous Troubadour, Frank packed up the GEO Metro and headed back to Texas.
Frank got hired at a Guitar Center in Houston. Six months later, he was managing the store. He was now divorced with two daughters. Then he met a single mom and upped the daughters to three. Frank’s a sucker for a sweet face!
After three years with Guitar Center, Frank moved to the marketing department at Southwest Wholesale. He began with new accounts, but Frank wanted to do more. Rap music from Houston was starting to get national attention and Frank and Southwest were front and center. Then Frank had an idea – could he do the same with Texas music?
Pat Green, Cory Morrow, Kevin Fowler and Cross Canadian Ragweed were playing all over Texas to big crowds, selling a ton of CDs at shows, but they didn’t have retail distribution. Frank went after these new Texas music artists for distribution. During this time, Frank assisted Shane Media in helping put together the Texas Music Chart.
With organized airplay at reporting stations to now talk about, Frank developed store displays, endcaps and Texas music sections at retailers like Wal-Mart, Wherehouse and a host of independent music stores. After the first year, sales on these Texas music artists were up 290%!
Early one Friday morning in 2003, Frank walked into Southwest Wholesale to be told that it was the end of the line for the company. The bank had cut off operating money. Thinking of the musicians first, Frank spent two days organizing artist inventory and contacting the bands to come get their CDs.
Frank then joined the Smith Music Group in Fort Worth to continue the work of spreading the Texas music gospel. At Smith, Frank has lots of great music to work on. The Smith Music Group distributes the Live at Billy Bob’s Texas line of DVDs and CDs, as well as a lot of the top Texas and Oklahoma-based acts like Stoney LaRue, No Justice, Micky and the Motorcars, Brandon Jenkins, Bart Crow, Johnny Cooper and Jay Boy Adams, and also the pre-Universal South catalogue of Cross Canadian Ragweed and the pre-Mercury catalogue of the Randy Rogers Band.
Frank also started writing songs, including “Choices” with Cory Morrow (on Cory’s Nothing Left To Hide CD). And then with the help of Keith Gattis, Frank decided to record some of his own music, which he presents for you now. Frank has a full and interesting life, always focused on music. Now that two of his daughters are about to graduate from high school, this single dad can concentrate on making music and keeping the flag of independent music from Texas flying high.
