Ashby Frank
Mandolinist, Singer, Songwriter

Well, good review anyway!
Check out the review of the new Mashville Brigade CD on the Bluegrass Journal.com!

Well there’s not much to talk about for this week. We had a fun show in Dallas at the Historic Sons of Hermann Hall on Saturday. I found out that the Hall, that’s over 90 years old, was originally a club for German immigrants that had recently settled in Texas. Over the years it’s changed a good bit and anyone can join. There are some very nice folks there, and they’ve had some great music ring through the walls of that place over the years I’m sure.

Tomorrow I’ll be on my way back home to perform at the Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver Bluegrass festival in Denton, NC. As you might have read in the article I put up there, this was the first Bluegrass Festival stage I ever performed on, so it’s very cool to be coming back there for the festival. Should be fun!

Now I sleep.

Home again…

Left Nova Scotia in a little bit of snow, had a long travel day.
Now I return to Nashville and something’s a bit off.
Hannah Montana and Snoop Dog have taken over my TV and the CMT awards, and it’s in the low 30′s here. Did I come back to an alternate universe or something? Oh well.

I can’t say enough about how nice everyone up in Nova Scotia was. We had some very gracious hosts that are very hard workers when it comes to promoting Bluegrass up there. You guys would be so surprised at the number of fans Bluegrass and Country music has in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and on Prince Edward Island. It’s great to go up there… such a rich cultural history and sense of community. Makes me want to learn to speak French so that I can understand the other half of the conversations.

Anyway, I’m going to record some vocals on the new Special C record tomorrow, so wish me luck! I’m pretty fried from the travel this weekend. We’ll see how it goes…

I can’t tell you guys how happy I am with the way this CD turned out! If you like traditional Bluegrass Music with a little bit of a contemporary edge, I think you’ll be very pleased with it as well!
Click here for a review from the Bluegrass Blog.

The good news for today is that the AshbyFrank.com store is now taking orders for the new project! Click the “Buy Now” button below to make sure you’re one of the first to own the brand new Mashville Brigade CD!

Howdy folks, just wrapped up my last day of pickin’ on the new Special C album. Only thing left to do is sing.
I snapped a few pictures that I’ll put up here soon. In the meantime, check out an article by Brance Gillihan on the Bluegrass Blog about the new Mashville Brigade “Smash Hits of Bluegrass” CD by clicking right here: Mashville Brigade: Bluegrass Smash Hits Volume 1

Another day in the studio….

Here’s the pictures from the last part of the cruise, and our last port town of Saint Kitts. Wish I was still down there!

Well I’m finally getting to do what I like to do during this time of March every year…watching the ACC tournament.
My hometown team, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, didn’t make it past the first round, but it’s still entertaining.
I remember a couple of times back in North Carolina when I was a kid, this was the week that we would get our “big snow” for the year. 1993 stands out in my head because that’s the year Georgia Tech beat UNC for the ACC championship, then UNC won the national championship a few weeks later. I think I sat up in my room and watched basketball on my little TV all weekend long and then occasionally go outside and roll down the hill on some kind of sled.
We’ve been recording all week long, had two shows in town, and I’ve been kinda sick with some sort of bronchitis, so I’m pretty tired.

The stuff we have so far sounds really good, so it’s worth it. It’s just tiring and I wish I wasn’t still kinda sick.

I’m also pretty excited about a couple of recordings that I got to hear over at my buddy Ronnie Bowman‘s house the other night. Both of them were produced by Ronnie, but they’re both very unique and equally awesome. One of them is by Junior Sisk and Rambler’s Choice, and the other by Melonie Cannon. They should both be released in the next few months.

I must say, Junior and Melonie are both good friends of mine that I’ve performed with a couple times, so I’m a little biased, but they’ve both really given some great performances for their new albums.

Junior, Ronnie, and the band, have put together one of the best traditional Bluegrass recordings that I’ve heard in a very long time. If you’re a fan of Bluegrass, and gritty real life singing and songs, you will love this new CD. Junior is the real deal, and one of my favorite singers in the world. I’m honored that they decided to record one of my songs on the album that’s called “I Did The Leaving for You”. I remember writing that song in the parking lot of a Hardee’s in Pikeville, Kentucky. It was snowing and I was going to Pikeville to record on my friend Dan Wells’ album and I was a little bit early to check into my hotel room, so I sat there are wrote a song in the parking lot after I ate breakfast. Anyway, I hope this CD establishes Junior as one of the best traditional singers and writers in the business, he deserves it.

Melonie’s CD is way more “contemporary” or whatever you want to call it, I just call good music “good music”. I was honored to get to play on one track on the CD, that’s actually a duet with Willie Nelson. I’m just doing a little bit of backup mandolin stuff, but it sure is great to get to be on a recording with Melonie and Willie Nelson. Wow. There are so many good songs and amazing performances on this CD, it should do really well for her. This is another MUST HAVE if you like good acoustic music.

Well it’s another week of recording for me starting tomorrow. I remember now that I have one more batch of cruise pictures to put up here, and I’ll do that ASAP.

Hope you folks have a good week. I’ll get some pictures from the studio up here as soon as I get them, too!

Busy week! Got home yesterday from two good gigs up north… but I haven’t had much time to rest since the long drive.
We’ve been recording all day today here in East Nashville at Brent Truitt’s studio. Going pretty well so far. I haven’t slammed my mandolin against anything or anyone. I still have some kind of a cold or bronchitis that’s wearing me down a little bit, but it’s all good. I’m going to be slammed this week, but I’ll try to find some time to post some updates.

By the way, before I forget to post it tomorrow, tomorrow night the Mashville Brigade will be Aaron McDaris, Randy Barnes, Josh Williams, and myself, PLUS a fiddler which might be Jim.

Ok, well back to the session.

Mashville went well considering the weather the other night. All of those guys are so much fun to pick with, and Jeremy did a great job sitting in on fiddle. By the end of the show, the illustrious orchestrator of the Mashville recording, Jim Van Cleve, had dropped by to drop off a copy of the rough mixes of the Mashville “Bluegrass Smash Hits” live album on his way home from the studio. I’m very pleased with the way it’s turning out. Especially since it’s a live album that we did in a short period of time. I think yall will enjoy it.

So I had a couple days off, which I spent mostly catching up on the bills, laundry, gym activity, and the news. I packed for the weekend this morning,  and then headed up to my bandmate Justin’s house on the other side of town for an evening of Special C practice for the new album.

We’re working up a few of my songs, which is pretty exciting for me considering I’ve never performed my own songs before. It’s going to be pretty diferent than any previous Special C record, but I think it’s going to work out really well.

Tomorrow it’s off to an even colder Indiana and Illinois for a couple of shows. It got down to 12(f) degrees here last night which is really cold for Nashville.

So everyone stay warm, and come see us if you’re near South Bend, Indiana  on Saturday, or Roselle, Illinois on Sunday. Check the Special C website for more info.

Arrived at the Station Inn at 10am, and we started recording “live” (without a crowd, but no overdubs) pretty soon thereafter. We tracked a ton of songs and had a lot of fun, but recording work is so mental and it tires you out pretty quickly. So 17 tracks later at 7pm, we were all dead tired… but we’re done! The project is going to be pretty cool, even if it is truly “live” rough spots and all.

So here I am, observing my normal hours of operation even though I’m very tired. I just went to Kroger for a late dinner that I had tried to resist eating thinking that I would go to bed early, picked up some shrimp that were supposed to be on sale, and when I got to the register, they were $15 when they were supposed to be $5. It turns out someone marked the wrong price and they really were supposed to be $15 dollars, but since they were marked that way I didn’t just get them for the wrong price, I got them for free! That made me very happy.

I’ve been reading news, blogs, and messing with pictures and videos hoping to get my camera working well enough to be able to upload things onto this site and YouTube often. Well I did work on that stuff for a couple hours, but mostly I’ve been researching the places where I’ll be going when I play on Rhonda Vincent’s cruise in a few weeks and learning about Saskatchewan where I’m going tomorrow (actually later today now that I look at the clock).

My flight leaves late in the afternoon tomorrow, and we’re getting picked up by a limo and taken to the Hotel Saskatchewan where I get to hide from the bitter cold for almost 3 days. Supposed to be the nicest place in the whole province. All of my friends in eastern Canada better read this and take note… you see how nice they’re going to treat us in Saskatchewan??? You wouldn’t want to disappoint us next time we come up there would you? hehe. I love all Canadans… yall know that.
Especially the ones that start speaking more and more french the later it gets in the night and by the time the night’s over, they merge two languages into one. I think my friend Carole knows what I’m talking about, right??? But anyway, this place is supposed to be real nice. It’s right down the street from the mall, casino, and downtown. Should be a fun place to hang out!

I’m really looking forward to playing with the symphony. It’s awesome to get to share the stage with great musicians, and so amazing to be singing and hear a whole section of instruments playing along with your voice. It’s going to be a fun trip as long as some very important part of me doesn’t freeze and fall off. I really need all my fingers.

I’ll try to keep messing with this site, and taking pictures and videos wherever I go. I think my buddies at the Bluegrass Blog are going to post something about the symphony show as well as the Mashville record, and they might put a link to this site in the article so I might get a huge batch of first time readers. If you’re one of them, WELCOME! Hang out, register, and tell me what you think!

Hopefully I’ll have net access in SK.

If not, I’ll post a recap on Monday.

In the meantime, here’s another video from last night… hope you enjoy it: