Aug. 18, 1973: Piano man Frank Hermann

 

One of the most unforgettable characters I’ve ever met.

Aug. 18, 1973 

A Legend Comes Home to Play Piano 

“Gin and tonic,” Frank Hermann muses as the drinks arrive, “that’s what Fats Waller used to drink. He killed himself drinkin’ booze.”

          That launches the elf-like pianist into a Fats Waller story that he picked up from his New York City manager, Mort Browne, the man who got Glenn Miller’s orchestra arrangements published.

          “Mort invited Fats Waller up to his office to talk about publishing his songs,” Frank relates, “and Mort bought a bottle of gin to make him happy. He sits down and Mort pours him a shot of gin and Fats gets up and leaves.

* * *

“MORT CALLS up a friend trying to find out what he did wrong and the guy tells him: ‘You don’t pour Fats a shot. You gotta give him a glass or he’ll walk out on you.”

          There’s a warehouse of anecdotes like that in Frank’s 39 years of picaresque existence, beginning in an orphanage, going through a teenage gang, featherweight boxing, the Army paratroopers, friendship with the old Road Vultures motorcycle club and a couple down-and-out periods as a Bowery bum.

          In between, he’s been a $200-a-week nightclub pianist, helped found the rock band Elephant’s Memory and written songs so sweet that he’s been called the Stephen Foster of Delancey Street. One of his tunes was played at Tricia Nixon’s wedding.

          “A guy came in with the words,” Frank says, “and he needed someone to write music. I was makin’ $15 a week then and I was desperate for anything.

          “I asked him what’s it called and he says: ‘Pretty Thoughts.’ ‘Pretty Thoughts!’ I said. ‘What kind of thing is that?’

* * *

“I WROTE IT in 10 minutes, but the words aren’t strong enough so it didn’t go anyplace after they played it at the wedding. How about that, from Bowery to the White House in three years.”

          Back in Buffalo a month now, Frank still hasn’t settled, much as he’d like to. He hasn’t a permanent address, he hasn’t any money and he has no job, though he’s looking for all three.

          He has no piano either, but there’re four of them around town that he can use. This time he’s prevailed on the management of a downtown music store to let him play a gleaming new concert grand.

          This afternoon he’s wearing what someone calls his “eternal gig suit” – a navy blue blazer, gray pants, a white shirt and tie – and he’s summoned a couple friends, Ann Rysig and Dixie Knapp, to hear him play.

* * *

“THIS IS how well I read music,” he says, tinkling out a children’s piece called “The Magic Christmas Tree.” Reading music is a new thing for him, but ever since he’s played piano, he’s had an amazing capacity for figuring things out by ear.

          “I was in the Methodist Home for Children in Hamburg,” he says, “and I was almost 7 or so. They gave everybody 15 cents every Saturday to either go to the show or do somethin’ in the arts and pay the teacher.

          “They noticed I always hung around the piano, but I wouldn’t go up and play it. Well, one day they took me up and the first song they showed me was ‘Old Black Joe.’

          “The teacher played it for me once and said: ‘Now, Frank, that’s your first lesson.’ And I sat down and played the same thing. Four weeks later I played my first recital.”

          He goes into a happy, easygoing gospel number called “John, The Great.”

          “I wrote this on Duke Ellington’s piano,” he chuckles, “while he wasn’t there.”

          His songs are sectional, the sweet music box parts breaking into romping chords. Some sound like Stephen Foster compositions, others like Cole Porter ballads from the ‘30s and ‘40s.

          “I’m really soft at heart,” he says.

          He writes songs continually, sometimes two or three a day. There’s one he just wrote for his grandmother and grandfather – he pulls the music out of his inner coat pocket – called “To Heaven and Back,” peaceful as a country meadow.

* * *

“THEY WERE the ones who adopted me out of the orphanage,” he says. “They gave me the best of everything. I had seven footballs and six softballs. I was gonna be the greatest athlete that ever lived.

          “I fought featherweight for four years, fought in the Buffalo Athletic Club. I lost only three fights and I was only knocked down once.

          “Tommy Paul was my manager, he was the featherweight champion of 1939, (actually 1932) and everybody said our styles were similar. He never put his hands up.

          “Why’d I quit? I walked over to a piano after one of my fights and started playin’ and I said to myself I shouldn’t be boxing, I should be doin’ this.”

          Then he had a stretch in the paratroopers right after the Korean War.

          “All I wanted to do was jump outa airplanes,” he says. “It’s the best high in the world. Better than motorcycles. Motorcycles are second.”

* * *

BACK IN BUFFALO, he played everything from polka band music to cocktail jazz. One of his solo appearances was a Road Vulture wedding reception. But usually he had a group of his own – piano, bass and drums. One of his favorite gigs was Victor Hugo’s on Delaware.

          “Frank always had this kind of elegance about him,” a drummer who worked with him in the mid ‘60s recalls. “Even if things were going bad for him, he’d always show up in a suit and tie.”

          He plays a song that sounds like “Love Story,” only prettier. (“I wrote that two years before the movie came out,” he says, “but now nobody wants to use it.”) and then launches into “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

          “There was a guy in a bar in New York,” he relates, “and it was closing time and they couldn’t get him out. They tried everything. So finally I say I’ll get him out. And I play this song. The guy gets up, puts 25 cents in my cup and says: ‘I love my Lord, man, I love my Lord.’ And he split.

* * *

“I’LL PLAY one song by the greatest piano player that ever lived, Willie ‘The Lion’ Smith,” he says, moving into “Sweeter Than Sweetest,” with tons of tasty left-hand chords. “I was supposed to have a style like his, but mine’s a bit simpler, to say the least.”

          Since he returned to Buffalo last month, he’s made a connection with South Buffalo booking agent Cliff Carr, who’s going to use one of Frank’s songs for his own group. But that still doesn’t give him a regular gig.

          “I wish I could get a job,” he muses, “like at Victor Hugo’s again. I wanta play in some place like that from Monday to Thursday, then weekends play in some place that wants to hear some old-fashioned piano playin’. I’m tired of playin’ for myself.” 

The box/sidebar 

It Takes More Than Talent 

          “I had the talent and I thought that’s all you needed to make it in New York City,” piano player and songwriter Frank Hermann says.

          “I hit the Bowery twice. I just had no place to go. And that’s where you go when you have no place to go, nothin’ to do. I had a great desire to live, but I didn’t wanta ask anybody for help.”

* * *

BUT HE HAD some good days in New York too. A well-paying gig across the river in New Jersey that included a brand new sports car. And he helped form the rock band Elephant’s Memory, though he quit before the group started working with ex-Beatle John Lennon.

          “Rick Frank, the drummer, and I helped start it,” he says. “We had piano, bass and drums and we’d go to every club that had a band, sit in for a while, knock ‘em out and leave.

* * *

“BUT WE WERE scufflin’ and I thought we were goin’ nowhere. I missed two rehearsals. Somethin’ was tellin’ me to get out, so I did.

          “I called ‘em up a while ago and played a song I wrote for ‘em. They said they’re gonna have a new album called ‘Out in the Streets.’ I told ‘em that’s a good name, but it’s not for me any more. I been in the streets all my life.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: Frank Hermann at the piano in his eternal gig suit with an admiring lady, Dixie Knapp.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Frank went back to the streets of New York, where an accommodating bar in Greenwich Village provided a seat at the keyboards, but his luck stayed hard. When he materialized here again in the early 1980s, I had a spare bedroom and a soft spot in my heart for strays. There was an upright piano in the living room, which Frank put to the test, along with my liquor cabinet. Fortunately, my Elmwood Avenue carousing buddy Kim Ziegler thought he was cute – they shared an attraction to motorcycles and substance abuse – and she took him in. Ultimately, he returned to New York and seems to have gotten lost in the mists of history.