Preston Frank: Patriarch of the Frank Clan

Visit FloridaCajunZydeco.com Preston FRANK Patriarch of the Frank Clan

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Nathan Williams, Jr., aka Lil’ Nate

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update! 9

ZYDECO AND CREOLE MUSIC in Louisiana can be traced through the family trees that pass this music down from generation to generation. That’s multiple generations of ground-breaking musicians who developed this music and continue to push its boundaries today. In Southwest Louisiana, the Frank family is one of the best-known zydeco and Creole music families, and rightly so. Keith Frank has ruled the zydeco dancehall circuit in southwest Louisiana with this dancefriendly zydeco anthems and reputation as the best of the best. But he comes from a family of Creole musicians with strong ties to the Creole tradition. His father, Preston Frank, is one of the elders of today’s zydeco music and established himself as a traditional zydeco artist at the intersection of Creole roots music and contemporary zydeco.

If you were to ask what family names influence contemporary zydeco, the answer might include — in alphabetical order — Ardoin, Broussard, Carrier, Chavis, Chenier, Delafose, Frank and Williams. Each family has

contributed to the zydeco music legacy in multiple generations. But if you also ask which family name today covers traditional Creole music with up to four generations of family members actively performing it on stage together, that would narrow the field down to Frank. “My dad’s

Keep in mind these families grandfather was a are often related through more fiddle player and than just music. Accordionist and vocalist Mary Jane Broussard, for example, comes from a long line of Creole musicians in the Ardoin and he played with Dennis McGee. My grandfather played accordion but I never Frank families. Her uncle on her heard him play.” father’s side was accordionist — Preston Frank Alphonse “Bois Sec” Ardoin, and on her mother’s side her uncle was fiddler Carlton Frank, mentioned later in this story. Her son is zydeco musician T-Broussard.

The Frank family, from the small rural community of

Rendered from a photo by David Simpson, Eunice, LA

Rendered from a photo by David Simpson, Eunice, LA

Soileau (pronounced “swallow”) in Allen Parish, is one of the great Creole musical families. According to Michael Tisserand, author of The Kingdom “I don’t play that new zydeco or Acadian music. I play Creole zydeco. It’s in between both of them. It’s got a good drive and a good swing to it.” — Preston Frank of Zydeco, Preston Frank, father of Keith Frank, can trace his musical lineage at least as far back as his great-grandfather Joseph Frank Jr., an accordion player, and his great-great-grandfather, Joseph Frank Sr., who played fiddle. Neither ever recorded. His great-uncle, Carlton Frank, was one of the last Creole fiddlers of that generation.

According to Preston Frank, “My dad’s grandfather was a fiddle player and he played with Dennis McGee. My grandfather played accordion but I never heard him play. He saw me when I bought my accordion. He played music, but some of it… he just let it all go. If you don’t practice, it leaves, you know? You gotta keep working at it. If you don’t

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work at it, it leaves.”

“My mom and dad never did speak Creole French, always English. I learned French after I had got more grown like 18, 19 because my grandmother on my mom’s side couldn’t speak English and my grandfather on my daddy’s side couldn’t speak English. To get your point across, you had to learn how to speak French and Creole in order for them to understand you and talk to you. So, that’s what

made me more interested in trying to learn, because my grandmother would cook food for me in the evening-time when I got off of work and I had to tell her what I wanted for food. I learned it quick. It didn’t take me long to learn how to say some of the food stuff.”

“I bought some records to try and learn but what I was hearing was not the same thing I was doing on accordion. My dad helped me to learn to like the way I played the accordion, because he knew the music and I didn’t, “I bought some records because I had never even listened to it. He helped me and he would show me. I’d go to work in the daytime and in the evening time, I’d come back home to try and learn but what I was hearing was not the same thing I was doing on accordion.” — Preston Frank and I’d go meet him and he’d show me some songs, step by step. He showed me step by step and I learned from what he had showed me, and I’d go back home and practice, practice, practice. The only thing I was doing was, I was memorizing the

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song, what he had showed me. I’d just memorize it and, sometimes, I wouldn’t quite get what he had showed me the night before and then, go back the next night and get some more. That’s how I learned to get to where I could understand him, go listen to him and what he had showed me, step by step. I’d just memorize what he was showing and from there, I started doing this stuff on my own.”

THE PRESTON FRANK FAMILY BAND formed about 1977 as a way to bring the family together making music. Keith Frank actually got his musical start with the band when he was four years old playing drums. According to Preston Frank, “I wouldn’t say all zydeco music comes from families, but it’s better when the family is all together. I guess it’s about how you started. The Frank family has been doing it. That’s why I started my kids playing with me because we were all together. We were practicing and rehearsing right in the house. When the family is together, Keith plays guitar and Jennifer the bass and Brad drums. I got my grandson play scrub board with us now.”

1981 recording by Preston Frank and The Swallow Playboys

PRESTON FRANK RECORDED some in the early 1980s. The band was known as Preston Frank and the Swallow Playboys when it recorded the song “Why Do You Want to Make Me Cry?” in 1981, written by Preston and drummer Leo Thomas. Thomas made it his signature song. A vinyl album of seven songs by Preston Frank’s

Swallow Band and six songs by Ambrose Sam’s Old

Time Zydeco Vol. 2 was recorded and released in 1985 on Chris Strachwitz’s Arhoolie Records, the same label that discovered Clifton Chenier. The Swallow Band cuts featured Preston Frank on accordion, Paul Washington on bass, Leo Thomas on drums, Carlton Frank on fiddle,

Rodney Thomas on lead guitar, Hampton Frank on rhythm guitar, and Preston Frank or Leo Thomas on vocals. The tunes on this recording included “Shake What You Got,”

“Bals de Lake Charles,” “Mon Chere ‘Tite Monde,” “Tanta

Na-Na,” “Ton Aller La Bas,” “Font Kilo,” and “Why Do You

Want to Make Me Cry?”

At Rhythm & Roots: Fiddlers Kevin Wimmer and Ed Poullard…

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Preston Frank and Tara Nevins.

22 Visit FloridaCajunZydeco.com

ABOUT 1993, PRESTON’S SON, KEITH, entered the zydeco music scene as a solo artist with his own nouveau zydeco band, about the same time as the Ardoin brothers, Rosie Ledet and Beau Jocque. From then on, Preston Frank limited his playing to occasional festivals and special events, letting Keith carry the Frank family banner as a full time professional musical artist.

Keith pursued an electronic degree at McNeese University where he learned to master sound-mixing and recording techniques, and build his own recording studio to perfect the sound in his recordings. That was nearly thirty years ago, and Keith Frank has recorded more than two dozen albums, and created two labels for his music: one primarily contemporary zydeco for his band, Keith Frank and the

Soileau Zydeco Band, and one for R&B-focused album projects for the Soulwood Allstars and LA 26 (a reference to the Louisiana highway that runs through Soileau). Keith

Frank’s latest album of 20 songs released in 2018, Return of the King, features primarily Keith Frank and the Soileau

Zydeco Band tunes with two additional cuts identified as

LA 26 tunes.

For the past decade, Keith Frank and the Soileau Zydeco Band has performed only at select festivals and dance cruises, preferring to stay closer to home and family, and recording new music in his home studio.

Preston Frank says of his son, “Yeah, well, he does it all. He can do the nouveau zydeco, and then, he can play identical to like I play, which I can’t do quite the same like he does. He can do it any kind of way that it needs to be done. The old-fashioned or the new one, or La La, it’s all the same to him.” [See Florida Cajun Zydeco Update #88 (May 2020) for a complete story on Keith Frank.]

David Simpson, Eunice, LA

Preston Frank Family Band performed at Liberty Theatre in 2000.

IN EARLY 2000, the Frank Family Band assembled for a performance in Eunice’s Liberty Theater with Preston Frank on accordion, Keith Frank on guitar, Jennifer Frank on bass, Brad Frank on drums and Carlton Frank on fiddle. About a year later, the album, The Masked Band (The Creole Connection), was released featuring the Preston Frank Family Band. While it is out of print today, the album project received critical acclaim receiving

mostly five stars from people who have purchased it. Some standout tunes from that recording include “Went Down to the River,” “Madeleine,” “Games People Play,” “Creole Music,” “Co-Fa,” “Jolie Bassette,” and “Jongle á Moi.” This is one collection of traditional zydeco tunes I highly recommend if you can find it on CD.

Here is what one reviewer had to say about the album: Keith Frank masquerades as the leader of this top-notch zydeco band. This is the newest Frank family project marking a return to their Creole roots with a combination of English & Creole French lyrics and traditional Creole Frank Family Band The Masked Band CD reinstrumentation. This lease in 2001 represents the extended, multigenerational Frank family coming full circle. This album is musically inclusive, as

opposed to ‘retro’. Carlton Frank emerged from retirement to play fiddle, an instrument all but nonexistent in contemporary zydeco. With varying instrumentations, classic songs and bright new originals, The Creole Connection serves to include the entire Frank family in its delivery of ‘holistic’ zydeco to a listening public beyond Louisiana to the rest of the world. — David M. Stalcup

In 2003, Preston Frank entered the recording studio again and released Preston Frank and Family: Born in the Country.

“When you hear Preston Frank singing ‘Creole Man,’” commented Cajun fiddler Dirk Powell, “you sense instantly that he embodies the best of what that statement means: an openness and generosity of spirit, an inseparable bond with his culture, a mix of humility and expressiveness that makes his music sparkle. His driving accordion licks grab you. His vocals growl. His rhythms get your blood pumping.”

The album gives listeners a generous helping of a rare

commodity these days: real Creole music, with deep roots in rural Soileau where Preston Frank was raised. His own song, the title track “Born in the Country,” a tribute to the Creole life, sung in both French and English, received a lot of airplay on Southwest Louisiana zydeco radio shows. Creole fiddler Carlton Frank, Preston’s uncle, is featured on the majority of the CD’s songs. His style of bowing is both raw and tender at the same time: it’s a beautiful sound that makes Creole music unique. Keith Frank, who recorded the CD in his Soulwood Studios and released it on his Soulwood Records label, plays guitar. Preston’s other children (and

members of Keith’s band) are also part of the family band: Jennifer on bass and Brad on drums. Demitric Thomas is on scrubboard. Whether it’s the joy of “Hippy Ti Yo” or the heartache of “La Valse de Meche,” Preston Frank’s vocals, as well as his accordion, powerfully convey the emotions of the music and the lyrics. Other songs include “Tante Na Na Waltz,” “Amedie Two-Step,” “My Chère ’Tit Fille,” “Bye, Bye Rosa” (with a segue from “Joe Pitre a deux femmes”), “Two-Step de Tante Na Na,” “My Jeune Cousine,” and “Zydeco Party.” “TwoStep de Vieux Temps Soileau” and “The Soileau Hot-Step” are Rendered from a photo by David Simpson, Eunice, LA instrumentals.

Carlton Frank played fiddle in Preston Frank’s bands for nearly four decades.

Rendered from a photo by David Simpson, Eunice, LA

CARLTON FRANK, one of the last of the oldtime Creole fiddlers, died February 5, 2005 at the age of 74, leaving a void in the family band that hasn’t been filled by a family member. Performing at Balfa Heritage Week in 2006 with fiddler Ed Poullard, Preston Frank and Ed Poullard have forged a musical team that has

Ed Poullard and Preston Frank perform regularly at festivals together.

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lasted since. The duo have become a fixture at festivals like Rhythm & Roots, Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Week, Jazz Fest, Blackpot Festival, Virginia Key GrassRoots Festival, the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival, and Grassroots Festival in Trumansburg, NY, among others.

Music reviewer Dan Willging described Ed Poullard and Preston Frank as “vibrant elder statesmen of old-time Creole zydeco music,” and sees them as last links to zydeco’s pure past.

Ed Poullard was born in Eunice, but moved to Beaumont, TX with his family when he was an infant. He learned to make music from his father and grandfather, absorbing the sounds made by working men and women in their spare time at the dances, parties and celebrations. Poullard started on drums and guitar before moving on to the more traditional accordion and fiddle. He kept his day job as a cabinet maker while he worked on his music. Along the way, he studied with Creole fiddle legend Canray Fontenot.

When Ed Poullard plays accordion, he’ll be playing his

Rendered from a photo by David Simpson, Eunice, LA

Ed Poullard is Preston Frank’s main fiddle partner these days.

own handcrafted accordion. Cajun and Creole musicians got their accordions from Germany until a U.S. embargo was placed on German goods in World War Il. Some Louisiana musicians then began making their own.

It was Poullard’s brother, Danny, who suggested he combine his skills in woodworking and music to make accordions, and Ed was inspired to try to make one for his

Photo by Nick de la Torre, Houston Chronicle

Ed Poullard tests one of his hand built accordions. In 2007, the Houston Chronicle featured Poullard in a story about his handcrafted accordions.

daughter. Poullard began learning the craft in 2003, taking cautious steps in approaching the intricate wood cuts involved, and learning from other accordion makers like Larry Miller of Iota, LA and Jude Moreau of Grove, TX. “I was afraid to lose my fingers,” he said. Persisting, Ed Poullard became the first Louisiana Creole to master the craft of accordion making. His instruments are functional “It took me a while to get my own technique.” works of art, each an amalgam of — Ed Poullard gaily patterned bellows, polished metal struts, mother-of-pearl buttons and beautiful dark wood.

“It took me a while to get my own technique,” he says. A lifetime of craftsmanship in woodworking and cabinetmaking didn’t completely prepare him for the challenge.

“It’s time-consuming, difficult, precise,” he explains. The fact that each accordion is made up of more than 600 pieces, and that the result must also be in tune. “This

is a pretty complicated little box. If this is not functional or operational to do what it is designed to do, all you have is a box.”

For the past two decades, Poullard has Ed Poullard and fiddle student Daniel Chevalier been one of the preeminent advocates of Creole fiddle, performing and teaching at festivals, giving workshops, and continuing as a torchbearer of his mentor, Canray Fontenot. He has taken up a cause to cultivate the next generation Creole fiddle masters. Growing up in a musical family of multiple accordion players, Poullard started on accordion until an injury to his right hand prevented him from playing. His father had him try playing his

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grandfather’s fiddle, and that’s what got him started with the fiddle. His mother was related to Fontenot, and arranged to get him lessons.

Now, a lifetime of musical experience are being passed to his students. While fiddle in Creole music isn’t “A song may not have always recognized as much had any rhyme or as the accordion, it has an historical role. “It has the sound, the texture, the slide. There is nothing reason to it depending on how crooked the tune might have been.” that can replace the fiddle — Ed Poullard player.”

Ed describes the roots of Creole music as being ‘crooked.’ “Most of the songs have been around for a long time but there may be syncopation differences depending on how the artists may have learned the piece.” Ed explained. Furthermore, “a song may not have had any rhyme or reason to it depending on how crooked the tune might have been.” As the music became commercialized

and the touring zydeco bands began to form, it was recognized that many of the Creole tunes would not work for “Ed Poullard and the dancers. To bring the music Preston Frank are to the public at large, the songs were changed to structure them in a way that the instrumentation could be played in unison and in one rhythmic structure. the “vibrant elder statesmen of oldtime Creole zydeco music.” — Dan Willging

The music continues to move away from the traditions as many of the younger artists don’t have the French language on which the music has its foundation. The younger generation has to be reached for the music to survive. Ed and Preston are “purists at heart” but won’t interfere in what those young people are doing because they are the ones carrying the music into the future and keeping it alive.

Contemporary zydeco has become a blend that includes rap, rock, and rhythm and blues mixed together. Ed and Preston agree: the music has to grow if it is to survive. 