Resume of Bob Franke

Bob Franke

Folksinger, Songwriter

Career Overview

Bob Franke began his career as a singer-songwriter while a student at the University of Michigan; upon graduation with an A.B. in English Literature, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has since made New England his home.

Bob has appeared in concert at coffee houses, colleges, festivals, bars, streets, homes and churches in 29 states, four Canadian provinces, and England, including a tenure as one of Boston's best street performers. His concerts have appeared in lists of the top five musical events of the year chosen by critics in the Boston and San Francisco Bay areas; he was nominated as an Outstanding Folk Act by the 1990 Boston Music Awards.

Radio Credits

Live radio credits include:

A Prairie Home Companion
A Mountain Stage
Our Front
Porch
Sandy Bradley's Potluck
Folk Scene
West Coast Weekend
Round for Glory

Workshops & Lectures

Bob has led workshops in songwriting at many festivals, including:

CDSS Folk Music Week at Pinewoods Camp
The Puget Sound Guitar Workshop
The Swannanoa Gathering
The California Coast Music Camp
The 1987 Philadelphia Folk Festival
The 1992 Kerriville Folk Festival.

He has lectured on the Blues at Boston University's College of Basic Studies, and participated in Blues workshops at the Philadelphia, Winnipeg, and SMU Eisteddfod festivals.

Recording & Composing History

In August of 1990 Bob wrote a set of songs for a ballet of "The Velveteen Rabbit," commissioned by the ODC Dance Company of San Francisco, and has composed three cantatas and a number of hymns for the Church of St. Andrews in Marblehead.

"Acclaimed by his peers as a songwriter's songwriter," (Sing Out!) Bob's songs have been recorded by artists around the world, including England's June Tabor and Roy Bailey; Canada's Garnet Rogers; Australia's Tracy, Munro, Tracy; and Claudia Schmidt, Sally Rogers, Tony Rice, Lui Collins, John McCutcheon, and the Patons in the US. Two of his songs appear in the top ten WERS-Boston's 1988 poll of all-time favorite folksongs.

His own albums are : Love Can't Be Bitter All the Time (1976, Fretless 116); One Evening in Chicago (1983, Great Divide GDSR 1766); For Real (1986, Flying Fish FF368); Brief Histories (1989, Flying Fish FF495); and In this Night (1991, Flying Fish FF70563/90563).

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