Frank Dean: Back in left field

Say what you want about Frank Dean, but he doesn’t rest on his laurels. His roots band Sindacato remains among the most popular acts on a local original-music scene otherwise populated by alt-rock hipsters.

Frank Dean’s new album, ‘… And Back Again,’ finds him once again stretching.

Rather than stick to a formula, however, the band has evolved in a series of interesting lurches. It began with contemporary folk, added some hotshot pickers to explore a bluegrass vein, then took a big turn with a gospel album recorded in the format of an old-time radio show.

Dean’s new album, … And Back Again, finds him once again stretching to realize some left-field vision, and finding the collaborators he needs to get the job done. The latest cast will host a release party at 7 p.m. Sunday at One-Liners Comedy Club in Greenwood. Admission is free.

Though released under Dean’s own name rather than the Sindacato brand, the disc relies on the band’s core members: bassist Gary Wasson, drummer Carl LoSasso and multi-instrumentalist Jon Martin. They step out of their usual roles, however, with Martin a particular standout on electric guitar. Joining them are Herb Clarkson on pedal steel guitar, Paul Ware on fiddle and harmonica and Middletown veteran Stasia Demos on accordion.

The result could be called contemporary honkytonk, with world-weary lyrics and a spare, rhythmic sound that draws from folk, blues and rock. In designing a new backdrop for his quavering baritone, Dean has traded mandolin and flatpicked acoustic guitars for twangy Fender electrics and the lonesome open spaces of the pedal steel.

“There’s going to be some people who say, ‘This isn’t what I’m used to,’” Dean concedes. “It’s fun to watch everybody stretch out and work a little bit. I’m not taking it quite as seriously.”

The nearest antecedent might be ’70s outlaw country as personified by Waylon, Willie and the boys. It was that raw sound that first drew Dean back to country music after years as a rock ’n’ roll fan.

“I think that’s when country music really made a big turn,” he said. “It kind of grew up.”

Dean and his cohorts enjoyed turning up the amps, letting down their standards and cutting loose on some material that wouldn’t fit well within the confines of Sindacato. The expectations can be stifling at times, he said.

“We have fans who are more protective of that band than I am,” Dean said.

“They expect it to be respectful and, for lack of a better word, highbrow.”

On the new album, recorded at the Medicine Lodge studio near Franklin, two songs almost qualify as novelty tunes.

“You Walked Tall” is a combination tribute and wake-up call to Johnny Cash, with most verses created by stringing together Cash titles.

Dean said he wrote the song more than a decade ago, when he was trying to break into the Nashville songwriting scene. In contrast to the critical acclaim Cash won in his final years, after stripping down his sound for producer Rick Rubin, the country music legend was being ridiculed at the time for a string of cheesy, overproduced recordings.

The timing of the release now, not long after Cash died as a multigenerational icon, is a double-edged sword, Dean said.

“I almost didn’t put it on the album,” he said. “I didn’t want people to think I was cashing in on the guy dying.”

No pun intended, of course.

The other song that defies being ignored is “White People on Alcohol,” a Dean standard from his days with the band Blue DeVille.

He wrote the song on a napkin while watching blues legend Yank Rachell watch a house full of poseurs at the Patio’s weekly blues jam. With its sing-along chorus and party flavor, the song became an ironic barroom anthem and an unavoidable staple of the band’s sets.

“All these rednecks would stand up and raise their glasses,” said Dean, who recalls hearing another bar band cover the tune without even knowing its origin. “I swore it off. I just refused to play it.”

The roadhouse blues number gets a workout from this band, however, led by the unearthly wail of Clarkson’s steel guitar running through a distortion pedal.

Other standout tracks, however, are notable simply for airtight craftsmanship and lyrics that ring with truth and wisdom. Tops among them is “Maybe Tomorrow,” a low-key country number that seems to be a sermon of encouragement from a seasoned former desperado to a struggling young man:

I see you falling
You’re right on the edge of the shelf
And I know the feeling, ’cause I’ve done some stumbling myself
Spinning in circles, wondering which way to go
Maybe tomorrow things will look different, who knows?

Having turned 50, Dean feels entitled to offer advice.

“Everybody’s younger than me now,” he said.

But seriously, the tune is one of his favorites on the disc, as it seems to strike a universal chord.

“At some point, I think we’ve all looked across that bar and you just know that person’s story,” Dean said. “You just want to walk over and say, ‘Hang in there.’”

… And Back Again also reprises some previously released Sindacato songs, including a roots-rock take on “I Should Go Back to Her” and new interpretations of “Since You’ve Been Gone” and “There Goes the Rainbow.”

Dean thinks the lighter overall mood mirrors his own evolution into someone less driven, more reflective and more appreciative of life’s simple pleasures.
“I spent 45 years of my life thinking there was something I was missing,” he said. “I’ve just started to notice that it’s cool to look at the sky sometimes, or that flowers really are pretty.”

One-Liners, owned by radio funnyman Dave Wilson, is located in Greenwood’s Vista Village shopping center on Main Street, just west of the I-65 interchange and Emerson Avenue.

Visit Scott Hall online at his poorly maintained Web site, www.onthebeat.org.