Frankie Lee burst onto the scene in 2016, as an unknown, quickly signed to Sturgill Simpson’s label, and proceeded to deliver the highly acclaimed American Dreamer, which some prestigious outlets dubbed as the year’s best debut. In that album, recorded during time spent working alone on a pig farm and living in St. Paul, MN; Lee decried the effects of capitalism on small-town communities, especially in “East Side Blues.” That theme and spirit is even more evident on this follow-up, Stillwater. It’s Lee’s hometown in Minnesota, not Oklahoma, as some may surmise from the title.
In his debut, Lee took the DIY approach, playing guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, harmonica, as well as self-producing the album. Most of the songs were cut live. While many industry types tried to cajole him into using fancy studios for this effort, they should have known better. Lee’s not interested in glitzy stuff or trying to be “the next big thing.” He’s going to do it his way; so he retreated to his hometown of Stillwater and found that the house he grew up was still available. Resembling a log cabin, in a back wood setting, Lee refurbished the confines into a studio. The wood-burning stove stayed. Gathering a group of local musicians, they made music from morning ‘til evening over three days while living and eating in the revamped abode; most of what resulted was first or second takes.
The sound is like the debut’s, described by Lee as “Western Music,” a blend of steel guitars, synths, and acoustic guitars. It’s a warm sound that has more variety than the debut which suffered from a sameness in instrumentation and tempo, yet he stills falls into that trap here on occasion. Because Lee has an eminently listenable high tenor voice, you’re quickly drawn in but as the album unfolds, it can become less compelling as if it runs like one long song, masking the beauty of the songwriting, which is lyrically strong. There are, of course, some exceptions. The piano-driven “Only She Knows” has an engagingly appealing melody. The conversation with the downtrodden, unemployed man in “(I Don’t Wanna Know) John’ is beautifully rendered with an acoustic guitar and weeping pedal steel.
On the debut, Lee painted the usual picture of small-town life. Characters were born into rather inescapable situations that led to their self-destruction. Here, we have the escapees returning home to confront the past. Themes of lost youth, lost love, and the realities of the dwindling working class form his stories on this effort. “Downtown Lights,” the single, captures the essence of Lee’s vantage point. It’s an ode to Jessica Lange, who lived in Stillwater, MN when he was growing up. When she moved away, she said it was because they killed the town with condos and tourist shops, a view he’s obviously in synch with. The song is about a dream he had walking down Main Street with her.
“In The Blue”, the second single is a soft piano-driven ballad, that musically counteracts the bleakness of mortality and loss. Lee comments on the song, saying it, “dramatizes the confusion felt by the narrator as he watches the important things in life slip away. Realizing he cannot hold on to even one grain of sand, he is led to his final question whether all things are just a dream”.
Lee’s sound has been compared to early Eagles and the acoustic Neil Young. Yet, it’s much more keyboard oriented than guitar-driven here. Nonetheless, comparisons to Young will persist as Lee has his own tune, resembling Young’s in name only, the country rocker “Broken Arrow.” The acoustic guitar riffs in the opener “Speakeasy” may evoke Young’s “Unknown Legend” too.
The edginess of Lee’s lyrics is camouflaged by the lushness of his sound. Stillwater represents some incremental steps forward from the debut, but one needs to dig in to appreciate the angry persona that’s penned these songs. Take the time; it’s worth it.
