Artist:     Frank Bey

Album:     Back in Business

Label:     NOLA Blue

Release Date:     9.21.2018

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BUY DIGITAL

BUY PHYSICAL

At 72 years old, Frank Bey returns to do what he does best: sing. Bey is four-time BMA nominee who cut his teeth in Otis Redding’s band, been acclaimed by many as one of the best soul-blues singers of our time, but due to failing kidneys and unkind circumstances, he’s been on the brink of poverty too. Hopefully this new recording will spin it back in a positive direction for him. He certainly made a smart move in enlisting producer Tom Hambridge and recording in Nashville with some of the players Hambridge has relied on for his Grammy-winning Buddy Guy albums. Hambridge either wrote or co-penned with Richard Fleming six of these eleven tunes as well.

Several other songs were written by Bey’s Philly band guitarist Jeff Monjack and there’s a cover of Mighty Sam McClain’s “Where You Been So Long” too. Some of the songs are autobiographical, tracing back to Bey’s roots in Millen, GA. Others, like the opening title track, hail his passionate return to music, and what he hopes will be a new documentary film (more on that later). This collection of songs is meant to showcase Bey’s deep, resonant baritone voice, his storytelling skills, and his relaxed vocal approach. Following the opener, he tells a tale of a disreputable character from Georgia in the “Gun Toting Preacher.” He then delivers dramatic soul blues in “Take It Back to Georgia.”

Monjack’s “Cookie Jar” has a few salacious lyrics and is propelled by horns and Rob McNelly’s guitar. The smoldering ballad, “The Half of It” calls to mind classic Bobby Blue Bland and is one of the disc’s major highlights. He stays in a similar vein for a charged reading of “Where You Been So Long.” As he moves through the disc, there’s some tasty keyboards from Marty Sammon, who along with Hambridge on drums and Tommy MacDonald on bass, hold down the rhythm section. Horns grace three of the tunes, some have background vocalists and Rob McNelly is the guitarist throughout. “Better Look Out” finds Bey in jump blues with Sammon pounding the piano. The half-topical, half-romantic pop song “Ain’t No Reason” is a clever take on current divisiveness. Bey sounds a bit like Bill Withers on another love song, “Blame Mother Nature.” Monjack’s “Give It To Get It” is a terrific blues song with a blistering McNelly lead and soulful backgrounds from Wendy Moten. The autobiographical bookend closing slow blues of “Yesterday’s Dreams” typifies Bey’s nickname “Southern Gentleman of the Blues.” His last line, “The Blues is my life today” just reverberates with conviction.

Upon release of this album a Kickstarter campaign will begin to fund a documentary on Bey’s life. Filming began two years ago, and scenes have been shot in four locations. Funding is needed to complete editing and post-production work.

Fifty years in, Frank Bey has never sounded better.

—Jim Hynes