Happy b’day, Mr. Frank
Blues community celebrates a deceased local legend
NORTHSIDE TAVERN, MARCH 22 — Saturday night, Atlanta’s blues godfather, Mr. Frank Edwards, showed he could still pack a room. And given that he’s been dead for a year, that’s saying something.
The crowd came to honor the blues performer everyone knew as Mr. Frank. A musician for some 80 years and a fixture at Northside and other blues spots around town, Mr. Frank passed away last spring, just two days after he turned 93. He gave his last performance, in fact, at his 2002 birthday party at Northside. So the dark, gritty bar at the rougher end of 14th Street was the obvious venue for Saturday’s 12-hour tribute.
Born in 1909 in rural Washington, Ga., Mr. Frank moved to Atlanta as a young man, soon singing and playing harmonica and guitar on the city’s streets with other bluesmen like Blind Willie McTell and Curley Weaver. He performed regularly throughout his life, cutting several records in the ’40s and making a 1972 album, Done Some Travelin’. Mr. Frank died as he lived much of his life, on his way home from a North Carolina recording session.
One year later, his tribute had to begin at 3 p.m. in order to accommodate all the bands that wanted to play. “All the bands said, ‘We’ll be there in a heartbeat.’ They wanted to be here. In fact, most of them were calling us,” said Kathryn Dudeck, whose musician husband Danny “Mudcat” Dudeck was a chief organizer of the event. “We couldn’t let the spirit die. Everybody here, everybody knew Mr. Frank.”
She didn’t exaggerate; the room teemed with Atlanta blues musicians, including Eddie Tigner, Neal Pattman, Cora Mae Bryant, Beverly Watkins, Little Brother, Little Pink Anderson, Johnny Knox, Cootie Stark, Donnie McCormick, the Breeze Kings, Sammy Blue, Delta Moon, Slim Fatz and many others.
Out on the patio, Northside regular Don Schellhaas commandeered the grill, turning hamburgers and barbecuing heaping piles of chicken, Mr. Frank’s favorite. Both supper and music got started about an hour later. Doors stayed open all afternoon, filling the place with the soft sunshine, cookout smoke and a perfect cross-breeze.
Inside, Mudcat kicked off the afternoon by showing a videotape of Mr. Frank’s final birthday party. People gathered to gaze up at the little TV, which overhung the very spot always reserved for Mr. Frank. His familiar face, on two-dimensional videotape, tinged the afternoon with a momentary melancholy. The balance of the event, however, was celebratory, a few hours carved out to recall the man’s life and stories and music, as spring bloomed just outside the door.
“You can still almost see him sitting there, drinking his usual Diet Coke, with the cherries in it,” said Kathryn Dudeck, laughing.
Tavern patron Tamara Link felt the loss especially keenly, having known Mr. Frank since her long-ago nights waiting tables at Blues Harbor. Link won’t ever forget one of the final performances of Mr. Frank’s long lifetime. She recalled sitting right on the stage to be as close as possible.
“Something that night was almost magical, just the way he was playing,” she said. “Knowing him as long as I had, knowing his talent, knowing his life — it was just one of most incredible musical experiences of my life. You’re just sitting there in awe. You could just look into his eyes and just feel the joy in him.”
The tribute, she said, felt pretty good, too. “It is, it’s really nice. It’s conjuring up a lot of nostalgic feelings.”
Proceeds from Saturday’s tribute will go to members of Mr. Frank’s family.