HALL of FAME INDUCTEE

JOE L FRANK

1989 Inductee

Joe L. Frank
(April 15, 1900-May 4, 1952)
1989 Inductee (John Herbert Orr Pioneer Award)

Limestone County native Joseph L. “J.L.” Frank was the first major promoter and manager on the country music scene in Nashville, Tennessee.

Born in Mount Rozell, Frank grew up in Giles County, Tennessee, near the Alabama border. He worked in the steel mills of Birmingham as a young man before moving to the coal mines of Illinois. At the age of twenty-three, Frank headed for Chicago, where he eventually became a booking agent for radio stars Fibber McGee and Molly, Gene Autry and other popular entertainers of the day.

During the mid-1930s, Frank relocated his base of operation to Louisville, Kentucky, briefly promoting Autry before the singing cowboy’s move to Hollywood. He also booked such acts as fiddler Clayton McMichen and Frankie More and His Log Cabin Boys, a country act that included Frank’s son-in-law, future Grand Ole Opry star and “Tennessee Waltz” songwriter Pee Wee King. When King went out on his own, Frank continued promoting him around Knoxville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region.

In 1937, Frank helped secure King and his band, the Golden West Cowboys, a coveted spot on the Opry. By this time, Frank had already met country singer Roy Acuff while working in the Knoxville area. In addition to helping Acuff follow King’s example on the Opry in 1938, Frank suggested that Acuff change his band’s name from the Crazy Tennesseans to the nobler-sounding Smoky Mountain Boys.

Frank’s talents as a promoter included determination as well as a professional sense of showmanship. The so-called “Flo Ziegfeld of Country Music” was instrumental in elevating Opry acts from small-town theaters and schools to the larger big-city auditoriums, and he promoted the early careers of such future country music superstars as Eddy Arnold, Ernest Tubb and Minnie Pearl. His detailed and thorough behind-the-scenes work was every bit as significant to their success as the sold-out package shows he organized.

Grand Ole Opry veteran and fellow Alabama native Alton Delmore of the legendary Delmore Brothers once described Frank as “a clean-cut, neat fellow, handsome fellow, with a little mustache and a big Texas hat. … He always had his heart in his work, and he always had a good word for the down-and-out musicians. … He was an excellent promoter, and he knew just what he wanted and he always got it.”

As a songwriter, Frank wrote the country music standard “Chapel on the Hill” as well as “Sundown and Sorrow” and “My Main Trail is Yet to Come.”

At the peak of his career, Frank grew ill during a business trip to Chicago in 1952 and died at the age of 52. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1967.

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