From Tree Publishing to Vanguard Records to obscurity—this film explores Bob Frank's life as a singer/songwriter. He's been called “an outlaw songwriter's outlaw songwriter” in Pitchfork, praised as “magnificently stark” in Rolling Stone, and dubbed the “best songwriter you never heard” by Jim Dickinson. About all this, Bob says, “You can do anything you want with this story, you can say ‘that's the individual artist’ or ‘that's the guy who don't know what the fuck's going on.’”

Folksinger Bob Frank was born and raised in East Memphis. After serving a tour in Vietnam, Frank got his start in the music business as a contract writer for a Nashville publishing house. He didn’t find success in publishing but he did find a record deal and made his debut release in 1972 for legendary folk/blues/roots label Vanguard. A notorious debut concert at Max’s Kansas City abruptly ended that record deal.

Though he wouldn’t have another release for 30 years, his songwriting output was unabated, and he created a huge library of home recordings. While Bob had all but disappeared from the music business, his songs were recorded by Jim Dickinson, Chris Ledoux, Gary McMahan, Jerry McGill and others. In the early 2000s, he started recording again more officially and released a string of well-reviewed albums (A Little Gest of Robin Hood, Keep On Burning, World Without End, and more), and at the same time discovered that he had become a cult artist whose work and whereabouts were discussed by many a music connoisseur on the internet. Copies of his Vanguard album had become rare—an eBay treasure that might run you $100. In 2014, Light In The Attic teamed with Vanguard Records and re-released Frank’s storied debut. 

This current release, also distributed by Light in The Attic, examines the story of that debut and the life of the songwriter afterward, and includes never-before-released songs from the eras preceding and proceeding the cult Vanguard album. Bob died in 2019 at his home in El Sobrante, California, but not before sharing his thoughts on the titular film in this set: “I come off as just one more ordinary, fucked up mind!” He loved it.