The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

  This one was a family.

  50

  BUT TO FINISH WITH THE BOYS FROM TEXAS.

  Frankie and Aurora had named the baby girl Kai and they raised her with love, sand, seawater, and music. As near as the doctors could tell, she was mute, a congenital malfunction in her vocal cord development. But her hearing was sharp, and so were her eyes, and those eyes followed Frankie as he walked around a room. When he sat down with his guitar, she clapped the base of her palms together.

  Kai provided inspiration for Frankie’s recovery. She was there when he finally played a Giuliani piece without error. She was there when he mastered (for the second time in his life) the twelve études of Heitor Villa-­Lobos. And she was on Frankie’s shoulders when the Clever Yells did their version of “I Want To Love You” at the beach races.

  She was also there, two weeks later, holding Frankie’s and Aurora’s hands, when they entered a cramped recording studio in downtown Auckland called the Last Laugh, Frankie carrying his old guitar. At Aurora’s urging, he had agreed to record a song with the young men from Texas, in exchange for their departing the island and leaving him alone.

  “It won’t hurt you to play with them,” Aurora had said.

  “I’m not looking to play with anyone.”

  “But it’s time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “To grow your audience beyond your wife and daughter.”

  Lyle had been so excited, he wasn’t able to sleep the night before. He wrote out charts for the song they would record, a rock composition that he felt was his most commercial.

  “Sorry, I know this isn’t the greatest studio,” he said to Frankie, “but the equipment is good. And they’re only charging us fifteen dollars an hour.”

  “No names,” Frankie said.

  “Sorry?”

  “I don’t want my name anywhere. Not on the tracks or the credits or anything.”

  Lyle was disappointed, as he had hoped that telling ­people Frankie Presto was on his record would make it more marketable.

  “Of course. Sure. Whatever you want.”

  Frankie nodded stiffly. He sat down and opened his old guitar case. Handed to him by El Maestro himself, the case was now almost forty years old, and it showed the wear and tear, with security stickers from countless airports and tape over the holes that once held shrapnel.

  The guitar itself remained the sturdiest of partners. Frankie took great care to polish its fret board and oil the tuners. There were a few nicks in the rosewood body that had been repaired but remained discolored. The ebony neck had stood the test of time. And of course, the strings. The bottom four had been replaced many times. But Frankie’s eyes fell on the top two, the remaining originals, the ones yet untouched by the combustible blue magic.

  He recalled a conversation with his teacher.

  “Why do the strings make different sounds, Maestro?”

  “It is simple. They work like life.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The first string is E. It is high pitched and quick like a child.

  “The second string is B. It is pitched slightly lower, like the squeaky voice of a teenager.

  “The third string, G, is deeper, with the power of a young man.

  “The fourth string, D, is robust, a man at full strength.

  “The fifth string, A, is solid and loud but unable to reach high tones, like a man who can no longer do what he did.”

  “And the sixth string, Maestro?”

  “The sixth is the low E, the thickest, slowest, and grumpiest. You hear how deep? Dum-­dum-­dum. Like it is ready to die.”

  “Is that because it is closest to heaven?”

  “No, Francisco. It is because life will always drag you to the bottom.”

  Frankie asked for the chart. Lyle fumbled with the paper and dropped it. Frankie picked it up. Then, seeing what was written, he leaned his own guitar against the wall and picked up a Fender Stratocaster.

  “All right if I use this?” he asked, motioning to the curly-­haired engineer who was standing behind the glass. The engineer gave him a thumbs-­up sign.

  “All right, let’s go,” Frankie told Lyle.

  “Don’t you want to rehearse it? We can run through it a few times to show you where—­”

  Frankie shook his head.

  “Just roll the tape.”

  The song was a fast number called “What the What?” Cluck played the drums at a frantic pace and Eddie’s bass was like nervous pounding. Frankie’s part was just four chords repeated with heavy distortion, and he only had to strum four beats to a measure. It was, in my view, more rudimentary than was worth his talent. But he fulfilled his obligation, repeating the song five times while Lyle tried different vocal approaches. Through the glass, Frankie saw his wife and daughter, and Kai was shaking back and forth with the beat. Aurora moved her head in exaggerated motion, as if banging it against a wall, and Frankie half-­grinned.

  “What do you think, Mr. Presto?” Lyle asked when they were finished.

  Frankie nodded, but did not make eye contact.

  “I mean, I’d like to know your opinion,” Lyle said. “Honestly.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Please.”

  “Why are you doing this song?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, your voice doesn’t seem suited to it. And it doesn’t sound like you really feel it.”

  Blood rushed to Lyle’s face, turning it red.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Well, you did five takes,” Frankie said, “and every vocal was different. That tells me you’re still searching for the tune. Why not do stuff like you did at the beach? At least that sounded like you enjoyed it.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Lyle glanced at Eddie and Cluck and they took their cue to leave the room. Frankie exhaled and glanced at Aurora and Kai through the glass. He had already been here longer than he wanted to be.

  “I know what you’re saying is right,” Lyle said, lowering his voice. “But I’m trying to make it in the business. And this is what they’re buying. They want a driving beat. They want edge.”

  “Edge?” Frankie said.

  “Yes, sir. Like your solo—­or, the solo everyone thinks is you. The one I thought was you. That kind of edge.”

  Frankie rubbed a palm over his eyes. He sighed.

  “That wasn’t edge. That was pain.”

  Lyle looked up.

  “It was you?”

  “A different version of me. You don’t want to be that.”

  Frankie put down the Stratocaster, and leaned back in the chair.

  “I had a teacher who was blind. Sometimes, when he was in the bathroom, I would bang around on the guitar, making noise. And he would yell, ‘Stop it, stupid boy! No one wants to listen to ugliness.’ I would defend myself by saying, ‘In school, they teach us that God listens to everything.’ And he’d yell back, ‘God may listen, but I will not.’ ”

  Lyle laughed and Frankie broke into a smile.

  “The point is, you have to decide who you are playing for. I wanted him to think my playing was beautiful, so I stopped making noise and made music instead.” He rubbed his chin. “What do you really like, in your heart?”

  “Probably more country, or folk.”

  “Then play that,” Frankie said.

  “Even if it doesn’t sell?”

  “Money and music are not friends.” Frankie chuckled. “I know something about that.”

  Lyle thought for a minute. “It’s funny, I actually have a song that’s like what your teacher said. It’s about forgiving someone who’s cheated, and how God will, but I won’t, and God does, but I don’t.”

  “Sounds good,” Frankie said.

  “Can you play it w
ith me? Please? I’ll write up a chart right now. It won’t take long. Could you just stay and do that?”

  “Then you and your friends will go back to the States?”

  “I swear.”

  “And leave me alone?”

  “Absolutely. We’ll sleep at the airport if you want.”

  Frankie jerked his head. “Go on.”

  Lyle sprung to his feet and pushed open the door. Aurora and Kai were on the other side.

  “Oh, sorry. Excuse me,” Lyle said.

  Frankie motioned his family inside.

  What happened next would prove both important and—­as sometimes occurs with milestone events—­totally unexpected.

  Aurora was pleased that Frankie was advising the young band. “You’re helping them. They’re nice boys.”

  “I’m only doing it because you said to.”

  Aurora smiled. “That’s a good enough reason.”

  “Come here, Kai,” Frankie said, lifting their daughter into his lap. Aurora popped open a small bottle of juice. The little girl took one sip, then jumped away.

  “And she’s off!” Aurora said.

  They watched Kai circle the room, giddy but silent. She came back and lifted the electric guitar toward Frankie. She had a curious expression on her face.

  “Show her what you can do, Francisco,” Aurora said.

  “Yeah?”

  “How’s the hand?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Let’s see.”

  He plugged a cord into a nearby amplifier and tested the effects pedals. Then he lifted his chin toward his daughter.

  “Kai?” he said. “Are you listening?”

  What would you give to remember everything? I have this power. I absorb your memories; when you hear me, you relive them. A first dance. A wedding. The song that played when you got the big news. No other talent gives your life a soundtrack. I am Music. I mark time.

  That day in Auckland, Frankie played his own memories. He opened with a verse of a children’s song, “Billy Boy,” before speeding into a jazz version (as the pianist Red Garland had once done with Miles Davis). He played it easily and, to his surprise, without pain. He improvised for two minutes, pushing himself, then ended with a speedy flick of his wrist.

  Little Kai clapped, her face a portrait of silent delight.

  “Want more?”

  When she nodded, he played “Tea for Two” and “A-­Tisket A-­Tasket,” songs he listened to on the phonograph with El Maestro, each time beginning simply, then taking it to far corners and beautiful colors. Aurora tried to suppress her grin. If I had a mouth, I’d have done the same. For the first time in years, Frankie was playing freely again, nearly as fast as before, but better, richer, because his music now was passionate, more thoughtful, the notes more carefully chosen, the way a great painter chooses not just a color but the perfect shade.

  He did parts of many rock songs, including “All Along the Watchtower” by Bob Dylan and “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks, slowing them down then revving them up, playing as if he were the drums, bass, and guitar all in one. When he finished on the electric, Kai lifted the old acoustic guitar that now connected her childhood with his.

  “That one?” Frankie said.

  She nodded.

  “‘Parlez-­Moi d’Amour,’” Aurora said.

  Frankie obliged, playing it soulfully and humming along. He also played “Nuages” by Django Reinhardt (which the gypsy guitarist had shown him in a Cleveland hotel room) and two blues numbers he had learned in Louisiana; and “Träumerei” by Schumann, which he once played on a beach; and the tremolo-­infused “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” by Tárrega. He even played a challenging composition by the Brazilian guitarist known as Garoto, who was once labeled “the man of golden fingers.”

  One song rolled into the other, and Frankie’s playing opened up like spreading sunlight. The look on his daughter’s face inspired him the way no audience ever had, and in between joking and laughing with Aurora, he played for them a musical score of his life, with new shadings and interpretations, using flat ninths, suspended fourths, and chord inversions that he’d never attempted. I could feel myself coursing through his veins and releasing through his fingers in passion and dexterity and creation.

  It was glorious.

  He finished with a song he loved, the achingly beautiful “Nature Boy,” a mysterious piece written by a drifting composer who never again had a song as popular. It tells the story of an enchanted boy who, like young Frankie, travels the world and holds a secret. The last two lines were the only lyrics Frankie sang that afternoon, looking gratefully into the eyes of the two ­people who had brought him back from despair:

  “The greatest thing, you’ll ever learn

  Is just to love, and be loved in return.”

  He concluded with a slowly picked final chord, a D minor, adding a sixth, a ninth, and a sharp eleventh up in the highest reaches of the guitar neck, then playfully popping his eyes at his daughter. Little Kai was so pleased she scrambled over and patted on the frets.

  “Careful,” Frankie whispered, smiling, “those are magic strings.”

  Unseen, through the glass in the control room, the curly-­haired engineer jotted those words on a piece of paper. Magic strings. A budding guitarist himself, he had been listening the whole time, alone behind the console, nearly frozen by the music coming through his speakers. He glanced over at the reels of two-­inch tape on the main recorder and exhaled in relief.

  They were still spinning.

  The whole thing had been recorded.

  “We’re ready to go,” said Lyle, bursting into the control room, Eddie and Cluck behind him.

  “New tape?” the engineer said.

  “Yeah, everything new,” Eddie said. “We’re starting over.”

  “What about the old tape?”

  “Forget it. Don’t want it.”

  The engineer nodded. “All right, mate. Whatever you say.”

  He rewound the reels, put the spool in a box, and grabbed a marker.

  “Hey,” he said to Cluck, who was tying his sneakers. “What’s the bloke’s name on the guitar?”

  Cluck smiled mischievously. He looked left and right.

  “That’s Frankie Presto, man. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Why should I?” the engineer said. “I never heard of ’im.”

  Cluck frowned and went into the studio. The engineer wrote on the side of the box “The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto” and put it on a shelf.

  51

  THE FIRST SOUND RECORDING CAME IN THE MIDNINETEENTH CENTURY, when an inventor made noises into a cylinder and diaphragm, moving a stylus that etched lines onto soot-­covered paper.

  Twenty years later, Thomas Edison created the phonograph. And ever since, you have been capturing me in all types of mediums, from shellac plates to vinyl records to magnetized tape to data-­encoded discs. I make no judgments. I am a talent. I care no more about the recording format than Painting cares about a blank canvas.

  But how those recordings affect my disciples—­that is of interest. The song the Clever Yells recorded that day in Auckland was more satisfying than its rock-­styled predecessor. It suited Lyle’s unusual vocal style, a sparse, plaintive voice that infused a yearning into his music. That song—­called “God Will”—­was rerecorded a few years later and included on the young man’s first album, called Lyle Lovett.

  And, never forgetting the message of the Kiwi who took him to Frankie (“First rule of friendship, mates: learn how to keep a secret”), Mr. Lovett, now a successful artist in your world, never revealed Frankie’s whereabouts or spoke of the solo at Woodstock.

  As for the box of two-­inch recording tape, it remained in the hands of the curly-­haired engineer, until someone he met offered a tidy sum of money, which he quickly accepted and spent on a new
mixing board.

  Soon, pressed copies of a vinyl album in a plain white jacket began to appear around the South Pacific, purchased privately and marveled at by musicians and nonmusicians alike. Its title, in simple words across the back cover: The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto.

  But by the time that happened, Frankie and Aurora had left the island of Waiheke. They departed shortly after Kai’s eighth birthday, when she suddenly, inexplicably, woke up and asked Aurora, in a rasp of a voice, “Where’s Daddy?”

  The doctors were baffled by her sudden speech, making reference to “selective mutism,” hidden lung problems, neurological issues, or the child’s inability to reveal symptoms prior to what seemed to be a miraculous recovery.

  All Frankie and Aurora knew was that they now had a daughter asking questions. Like a musical piece that adds strings and horns, their lives grew richer and more complex, as the child’s little universe expanded.

  “Pack some clothes,” Aurora said one night.

  “Where are we going?” Frankie said.

  “We need to take her off this island for a while.”

  “Why?”

  “Because today she asked where you and I came from. And I think it’s time she knew.”

  And just like that, the next morning, they were boarding the ferry, suitcases in tow, on a journey of rediscovery, the three members of Frankie Presto’s family band—­and a fourth, unseen party, a heavily clothed figure, walking fifty feet behind them and watching everything.

  Paul Stanley

  Guitarist, singer, founding member of KISS

  SURE. I’LL TALK TO YOU ABOUT FRANKIE. . . . He auditioned for KISS once, you know.

  I’m serious. It was . . . what . . . 1984? In Los Angeles. We were looking for a lead guitarist to replace Vinnie Vincent.

  KISS had always auditioned guys. We’d bring them into the studio, let them play with a ­couple of our tracks. We knew right away if a guy could hack it musically. But he also had to have the right look. We’re such a visual act. And then, if he had the looks and the chops, we’d try and get to know him, because you’re going from dating to marrying when you put a new guy in a band.