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ARTISTS Released May 7th DECOR011CD (décor records) “the greatest songwriter you never heard” Jim Dickinson on Bob Frank There are times when records take on a life (or spectral presence in this case) of their own. Decor Records (Richmond Fontaine, Mark Eitzel) is proud to release, World Without End, a terrifyingly unique collection of ten original murder ballads by Bob Frank and John Murry recalling true-but-forgotten tales of murder, death and suicide from the annals of a dark American past, is a case in point. Produced by Tim Mooney of American Music Club and is mastered by Matt Pence of Centro-matic, South San Gabriel. World Without End has drawn comparisons to The Gun Club, Handsome Family, Willard Grant Conspiracy and the darker macabre dwellings of gothic noir, yet in Frank and Murry we have a songwriting duo that have produced a work of staggering originality, a record that will be forever etched in the memory. Released in the US in late 2006, the album has already received glowing reviews. UNCUT Magazine has already called it “a dazzling collection of blasted country folk and grimly haunting murder ballads, shot through with harrowing images of death, damnation and eternal suffering, Legendary producer Jim Dickinson (Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Big Star) describes the record as “timeless as death” and Frank as “the greatest songwriter you never heard”. On the evidence of this, Jim’s right on both counts” Allan Jones editor UNCUT Rolling Stone US’s main writer David Fricke wrote in the April issue "World Without End is all bullets, blades and guilt without end…. With his low, hanging-judge drawl, Murry sounds as severe and modern as Leonard Cohen, while Frank sings with a deep, gritty authority that may remind you of Warren Zevon \ if you don't already know Frank's solo work, including his magnificently stark 1972 Vanguard LP, Bob Frank.” Bob Frank, hailing from Memphis, Tennessee is a well kept secret. After living and writing songs in Nashville in the sixties with John Hiatt, he released a solo record in 1972 on the legendary Vanguard Records and shared the stage with Tim Buckley, and Townes Van Zandt. He affiliation with the label was short lived after an outspoken Frank dissed label boss Seymour Solomon at a NY publicity show and that was that and he quit music. Thirty years later he produced a second album produced by the aforementioned Dickinson and a greatly missed performer was once again back on the scene. Half the age of Frank, John Murry, born in Tupelo, Mississippi is a direct descendent of William Faulkner. He has been a longtime member of The Dillingers and Lucero and has just recorded a Waylon Jennings tribute album with Chuck Prophet. World Without End is a séance, a chance to sit around the table with the perpetrators and victims of these vivid stories. With each song a ghost steps forward to speak of terrible misdeeds, either endured or performed. In stark, brutal reality these heinous tales of death, torture, and revenge are unflinching in their recollection. There is no exaggeration, no holding back, and hardly ever any remorse. As American lore idolizes such violent characters, so to does Frank and Murry by giving them a platform to reflect on their actions. A Klansman glories in a lynching whilst the lynched man reciprocates. A criminal brags of his suicide denying a sheriff that bravado of doing so. The settings may be a hundred and fifty years old but these stories are strangely familiar and starkly highlight that murder is in everyone of us given the right circumstance. These are songs not from the rich tradition of murder ballads but a collection of original songs and stories interwoven into an historical context that feel like they have been part of the cannon for entirety. As Frank notes, “We were going to do an album of old murder ballads, songs that already existed. Like “Omie Wise” and “The Banks Of The Ohio” but when we started to record them we realized it didn’t work. They had been done too many times. So John says, we’ll have to write all new songs and make ‘em sound old.” Listen to tracks here |
