Betsy Franck

Locals Betsy Franck and the Bareknuckle Band straddle the line between barroom blues and alt-country on Still Waiting, the group’s sophomore release. The centerpiece of the group is frontwoman Franck’s soulful Southern vocals, which are on par with those of veterans like two-fisted country femme Shelby Lynne and former Little Feat vocalist Shaun Murphy. With her guitar slug across her shoulder, Franck is a powerhouse singer whose rough-edged, but nonetheless comforting, singing conveys the multitude of emotions rumbling ‘round in songs like the forlorn “City of Gold” and the swooning “Low Down,” a doo-wop influenced cut backed by the guest horn section of saxman Randall Bramblett, jazz trombonist Kevin Hyde, and J.R. Beckwith of the Athens Symphony Orchestra.

But this is a band, not a solo project, after all, and each member of Franck’s Bareknuckle crew is given plenty of room to shine on the album, as well. Keyboard man Lefty Hathaway keeps the group’s soul influence in check with his meaty organ fills, while the rhythm section of drummer Mike Strickland and bassist Clint Swords are side by side with Franck in switching from shuffling jazz to hip-shaking R&B to modern country styles. The band shows it can jam, too, but keeps things tight as it wisely avoids lengthy, extended solos and other repetitive time-fillers. Still Waiting is a brief but strong, proudly “unfancy” outing by a group capable of playing the blues and exerting positive energy within the same three-to-four-minute block.
- Flagpole Magazine

Betsy Franck and the Bareknuckle Band do a playful, soulful style of Southern roots music, steeped in the ingrained sounds of Memphis, Muscle Shoals, Macon, Nashville, New Orleans and other historically musically-rich regional locales. Impressively, Franck and crew manage to blend it all together in seamless fashion on their new CD, Still Waiting. She has a terrific voice, bleeding humid weariness and sultry determination at once, and the tunes match it note for organic note. Definitely a group to watch. - Stomp and Stammer (Jeff Clark)

Betsy Franck and the Bareknuckle band are ready to take off

By Chris J. Starrs | Correspondent | Story updated at 11:52 PM on Thursday, May 11, 2006

In the five years that Betsy Franck has lived in Athens, she's recruited a variety of local musicians to back her in the Bare Knuckle Band, and she thinks she's now found the right combination of players to complement her bold, bluesy vocal style.

"There have been four different incarnations of the Bare Knuckle Band," quips Franck, a Virginia native whose former colleagues include members of the Southern rock band Grand Fury. "But the guys with me now are solely committed to this band. Up until then, I was basically calling people I knew to help me. It's good, finally, to have something solidified. It's exciting."

Franck and her band mates - guitarist John Wayne, bassist Nathan Swords and drummer Andrew Hammer - will showcase their combined talents with two sets tonight at Nowhere Bar. It's one of the first Athens shows for the group, which has played a handful of out-of-town gigs in anticipation of "hitting local stages again," she says.

During a recent engagement at the Georgia Theatre opening for jam band Melodious Ground, the Bare Knuckle ensemble worked through a set of original compositions grounded in traditional bluesology, with some gospel hues added for good measure.

Wayne's flashy slide guitar work recalls Buddy Guy meeting Duane Allman at the crossroads, while Swords' inventive bass playing meshes nicely with Hammer's solid beat. Bringing everything together is Franck's powerful voice.

Franck's current work stands in stark contrast to her 2003 album "Held Up By Progress," recorded at John Keane's studio in Athens. The seven-song release highlights Franck's bluegrass, honky tonk and country leanings.

"We're more bluesy," she says. "John is quite the slide guitar specialist and my (vocal) register is more in the gospel range - and we like to take a soulful turn now and again."

While Franck is the band's primary songwriter, she's been open to collaboration and hopes to be able to return to the studio soon to begin work on the follow-up to "Held Up By Progress."

"We're trying to find the time and money to record again," Franck says. "We're working on demos now and I hope to be able to work with John Keane again or David Barbe."

Also performing periodically in an acoustic duo with Kimberly Morgan (and joined occasionally by Wendy Musick of Southern Bitch), Franck appreciates the homegrown talent that has worked with her to this point.

"It's amazing to be in this town," she says. "It's so comforting to be amongst people who will work two or three jobs so they can concentrate on their main love - music. There are people here who I've admired for so long who come to sit on my back porch or play at my shows. I feel like part of a really important movement."

Betsy Franck and the Bare Knuckle Band

When: Tonight at 11

Where: Nowhere Bar, 240 N. Lumpkin St.

Cost: call

Call: (706) 546-4742


Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 051106

- Athens Banner Herald (Athens, GA daily newspaper)

Betsy Franck & The Bare Knuckle Band
Held Up By Progress But Spoiling For A Fight
originally published December 29, 2004
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Athens songwriter Betsy Franck, at the tender age of 28, has a voice straight out of the Aretha Franklin School For Blues Divas and the ability to play more than just a little guitar in a growing range of styles that you would think are a music promoter's dream. Add to that her perpetually positive personality, and you get the feeling that surely Franck is someone that the music industry and the listening public should take into their hearts, minds and homes.

Jolynn Still

Betsy Franck
She may be humble about her impressive talent, but she's not coy about her ambitions, which are the same as those of most up-and-coming musicians. "My main vision," says Franck, "is to be able to go on tour and get paid enough to live on, doing what it is that I love to do the most."

Now that Franck has the bold and brassy seven-track, country/ Southern rock album Held Up By Progress under her belt, she's stepping into the ring to see how far her gloves-off approach can go. Like many of Franck's past live shows, the album features a mix of old friend Bric Friesland's fast-pickin' bluegrass and now-departed Athens band Grand Fury's rocket-fueled Southern style to back her smooth strong voice and evocative lyrics.

Held Up By Progress is no backyard production either, having been recorded and co-produced by local maestro John Keane (R.E.M., Indigo Girls, Vic Chesnutt, Cowboy Junkies, Widespread Panic, etc.). Ring-ins include Matt "Pistol" Stoessel on pedal steel, Matt Dawson (Summer Hymns) on bass for the laid-back-Latino-rhythm of "Salt On Skin," and, like he often does with local folk rock or bluegrass bands, master fiddler David Blackmon also lends a deft touch.

Surely two of the things to look for in a performer are a defined sound and career staying power and that's what Franck says she's working on in Athens, which she refers to as her "woodshed."

While the album has a depth of meaning that indicates the maturity of her soul, Franck is quick to point out that she doesn't want to get pigeonholed into the country-rock genre. Her natural style is actually improvised gospel-blues; that's what she began singing as a child in Asheville, NC. "I'd like to be able to appeal to the world music scene," she says, "and to make music that didn't just pertain to one particular area and one particular group of people."

It was in Asheville, however, that she met Friesland, her musical partner-in-crime. "I'm blessed," says Franck, "to have Bric Friesland as a right-hand man… he's an amazing mandolin player and he has such a strong bluegrass affiliation that it was easy to follow his lead."

Franck says that the decision to work with bluegrass and Southern traditions was one born of the need for discipline and refinement. "I think it's kind of like classical music in that it's a roots music [style]," she says, "so I felt like, if you can pick with the best of the bluegrass pickers, then there's not much else that you can't do. It felt like a harder thing to do. So I felt that if I was able to step up to the challenge, that it would be something that all of those boys would be interested in doing."

While Franck chose to be a musician and make this album, there is a sense that it has brought her much frustration. This is evident in the title Held Up By Progress, which hints at the year and a half it took to finish the album. Then there's the first track "Halogen Mystery" which mirrors her life paying her dues and having to "work for the man" - in Franck's case is a local coffee shop - to pay the bills. "That's a theme that I'm taking from the way everything seems in life," says Franck, "and maybe that's a phase that I'm in right now. It just seems that the more you do, the longer it takes to get to where you're going. I've kind of settled into the frustration now. It's become a helper in songwriting and actually paying dues is something that helps, as far as having something to bitch about and something to sing about. So it's not something that pains me - it's something that I'm trying to use to fuel my fire to continue."

One frustration that Franck finds less easy to accept is the difficulty of building a dedicated band, and Franck is not the first singer-songwriter in Athens to know that frustration. "That's the main part that is proving to be frustrating," she says, "because everybody in this town has their own thing going on with a lot of different commitments and so no one seems to be available for one sole commitment."

But the difficulty in holding on to a group like her Bare Knuckle Band, as they appear on the CD, may also create opportunities for Franck: "I'd like to be able to find different musicians to accent different genres of music, while at the same time [I'll] hold on to the core that Bric and I have because the Bare Knuckle Band is still a huge dream."

Franck also admits that as a musician who needs to eat, she'd happily join the ranks of the guns-for-hire and work on other people's projects for a while, especially if it means the chance to get experience touring. As far as becoming that musician who can earn her living on the national touring circuit? "It's in reach," says Franck, optimistic but realistic. "I can see the light at the end of the tunnel - but I'm definitely still in the tunnel."
Ben Gerrard WHO: Betsy Franck, Park Bench Trio, Lake City
WHERE: Tasty World
WHEN: Friday, January 7
HOW MUCH: $5
- Flagpole Magazine