MTV didn’t kill radio – just a generation of listeners. If we’ve learned any big lessons from the visual/video-spectacle era in music, it’s that our brains are better equipped than the Hollywood technologies were able to deliver. The synaptic connections between sound and vision were (by and large) best left to the human ear. When we listen - we see, touch and breathe the information received in sound. More often than not, adding media to finished art (rather than use it in conjunction with) narrows the experience for the witness (consumer). How often have you read a terrific novel and, despite the efforts of A-list studios, directors and players, been disappointed in the movie?
Why Bother
One of the seemingly ever-shrinking choices of reasons to even bother turning on the radio is the continued presence of word/sound maestro Joe Frank. For more than forty years Joe has been telling little stories, continuing dramas, anecdotes, poems, songs and other rants – joined by a select group of actor/friend/performer/Buddhist monk/dramatists. The words and rhythm of his narratives are meticulous and inspired – if this was a book, you’d read it. But then you wouldn’t be informed by Joe’s dry, yet musical voice from somewhere off the pages of a Raymond Chandler story.
Let’s assume that the majority of radio listeners are still driven by a cultural/genetic passion for music. Joe Frank seems to believe this anyway; his narratives are interlaced and back-dropped with the music of Miles Davis, Can, Tangerine Dream, Air and Antonio Carlos Jobim with masterful production. Careful - or you might miss the fathomless, deep, dark inflection or pause - the critical moment of noir-narrative.
Born in Strasbourg, France near the border of Germany in 1938, Joe Frank lived in his place of origin for less than a year. Being Jewish, his family fled to America, settling in New York City; and so the Joe Frank story has been told from here in the United States.
Having studied at Hofstra University and later at the Iowa Writers Workshop, Frank returned to Manhattan to teach English at the Dalton School, when he became interested in radio.
Only The Shadow Knows
If there’s a living embodiment of the tough, cool, dark late-night DJ heading home just before dawn, into the subways of NYC with a head full of questions and a burning need to get it off his chest...it’s Joe Frank. In the 70’s he volunteered at the Pacifica Network station in New York, WBAI; doing a late-night free form show with improv actors and live music. In 1978 he moved to Washington, DC to co-anchor for the weekend edition of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”, Frank’s first paying radio job. During this time he also wrote, produced and performed in eighteen dramas for NPR playhouse.
In 1986 he moved to Santa Monica, CA where he wrote, produced and performed a weekly, hour-long program “Joe Frank – Work in Progress” for NPR affiliate KCRW. He stayed at KCRW until 2002, following “Work in Progress” with “Somewhere Out There” and “The Other Side”, a series including excerpts from Jack Kornfield’s Dharma Talks at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Ironically, Kornfield’s contrasting tone (and surprising humor) became a favorite of Joe Frank listeners. The two have never met or spoken.
It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane…It’s A Bird
If that voice sounds somehow oddly familiar, it’s because Joe Frank has voiced over countless different media bits throughout his career and has had a significant influence on artists in various media – David Sedaris and Ira Glass have both cited Frank as an influence. Filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Mann, David Fincher and Ivan Reitman have optioned or bought stories from his radio shows. He continues to write for his website as well as the stage.
Frank has a comprehensive member’s website offering a variety of packages with downloads and access to all of his 230+ hours and growing, body of work including film shorts and other extras. But first if you can - try to catch him on the radio; his work continues to be played on NPR affiliates all over the US. Here in Chicago it’s WBEZ 91.5, Sundays at 11pm – an ideal time of the week for transformation through reflection.
Touching on themes as widely cast as Holocaust experiences to Raymond Carver-like slices of life-minutiae; using an array of voices from sultry, agonized noir-actresses, neurotic mid-life actors, sinister French prestidigitators, to the beatific musings of Jack Kornfield, all wrapped up in and punctuated with the raspy, philosopher/gumshoe patter of Mr. Frank himself – the show is a key-hole to the light in the darkness.
Scott Cramer - Scott lives in Chicago and is an insufferable know-it-all on certain topics. He writes fiction (primarily short stories) much of which ...
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