Bob Franke (b. 1947, Hamtramck, Michigan) is an American folk singer/songwriter. He began his career in 1965, while a student at the University of Michigan, and performed at The Ark, a coffeehouse in Ann Arbor. After graduating from Michigan in 1969 with a degree in English literature, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, planning to attend Episcopal seminary. He left school to pursue a musical career, and has lived in New England ever since, currently residing in Peabody, Massachusetts. In...
Bob Franke (b. 1947, Hamtramck, Michigan) is an American folk singer/songwriter.
He began his career in 1965, while a student at the University of Michigan, and performed at The Ark, a coffeehouse in Ann Arbor.
After graduating from Michigan in 1969 with a degree in English literature, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, planning to attend Episcopal seminary. He left school to pursue a musical career, and has lived in New England ever since, currently residing in Peabody, Massachusetts.
In addition to his performing career, he teaches songwriting workshops and in 1990, wrote a set of songs for a ballet based on The Velveteen Rabbit. In 1999, the young adult novel Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger, in which Franke's song of the same name features heavily, was published.
Franke, a liberal Christian, often covers spiritual and personal themes in his songwriting. His song Alleluia, The Great Storm Is Over was written shortly after his young daughter's orthopedic condition was diagnosed, and he has said that he composed the song while working at a chocolate factory, and that the rhythm of the song was based on the rhythm of the machines. Love Bravely, Elizabeth is addressed to the same daughter, and the songs on his album, The Desert Questions, were written after his divorce.
His 1989 album Brief Histories has as its theme the history of Salem, Massachusetts, with songs about the witch trials, the Salem Willows amusement park, and Alexander Graham Bell.
Some of his writing is quite political: the song Kristallnacht Is Coming on his album The Heart of the Flower draws parallels between the Holocaust and Americans' attitudes towards immigrants during the 1990s, and El Niño (on The Desert Questions) protests Proposition 187.
On the more humorous side, his I'm A Mainframe, Baby is an innuendo-laden hokum blues song using technology as a metaphor. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
