Frank Shiner Music

FRANK SHINER

Bio


The arc of Frank Shiner’s musical artistry swings in that special place where his lifetime of experiences in singing and acting are able to breathe together and tell a story, like Doc Pomus’ “The Real Me,” a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. “As a student of Shakespeare,” Shiner explains, “as a student of language, the song is a play, and the lyric is the most important thing to me. If a pretty sound comes out after that or along with that, it’s a bonus, never the goal.”

In a world where vocal histrionics often take over in place of style and heart, Shiner is that rare performer whose delivery evokes a certain classiness associated with Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, and Mel Tormé. Yet Shiner is lyrically rooted in the generation that belongs to Paul Simon, Tom Waits, Van Morrison, and Randy Newman, just a few of the composers whose work is showcased by the singer.

Shiner’s 2013 debut single, for example, the seasonal “Driving Home For Christmas,” was a durable holiday evergreen from the pen of none other than Chris Rea, the eclectic jazz and blues-influenced British singer-songwriter. The single hit Amazon’s Top 50 Song Chart. Shiner donated all 2013 proceeds from the song to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

The Real Me, Frank Shiner’s aptly titled debut album on Bakerson Records is produced by legendary producer Gary Katz. The album is a blues infused program that politely leaves Tin Pan Alley out of the picture. Instead, it concentrates on a new breed of standards, from the deliciously simplicity of Elvis Costello’s “Almost Blue,” to his cool sexy rhythmical approach of Tom Waits’ “Temptation” and “Heart Of Saturday Night” (closely associated with Dion’s sophisticated take in the late ’70s). Shiner’s interpretation of the Roxy Music rarity “To Turn You On” and his sexy swing approach to Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” are two of the album’s welcome surprises.

There are a pair from Paul Simon’s evocative blues-drenched One Trick Pony movie soundtrack, “Nobody” and “Long Long Day,” that sound tailor-made for Shiner’s illuminating vocal approach. Shiner takes a romantic approach to Randy Newman’s “Feels Like Home”, the album’s first single, countered by Jimmy Webb’s timeless “It’s a Sin (When You Love Somebody)” (“Damned if you don’t/ Twice damned if you do…”), as Shiner pays homage to the definitive original 1974 versions by Glen Campbell and Joe Cocker. Another song of eternal hope and yearning is Van Morrison’s overlooked “Brand New Day” from his Moondance album.

Though he would not have expected it when he first arrived in the ’80s, Frank Shiner has come to love New York City, which is why his versions of two ballads co-written by the great Doc Pomus and Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) are so poignant. “The Real Me” (previously recorded by Johnny Adams) and “World I Never Made” (previously recorded by Dr. John) are Doc Pomus/ Dr. John gems that glisten with the shadowy pre-dawn mist of film noir Manhattan at its most restive moments.

Taken together, the songs on The Real Me share another fascinating history, and that is how they each describe chapters in Shiner’s longtime love affair with his wife Suzanne. A fearless cancer survivor, her bravery and encouragement led Shiner to follow his muse and rekindle his calling as a singer and actor that he had abandoned many years before, when he decided to put his dreams on hold in order to support his young family. Recording these near-biographical songs with producer Gary Katz was the realization of a dream that only resurfaced in 2010.

“Keep in mind,” Shiner says, “that this is a guy coming at this later in life, that’s me, and being nervous about it – and Gary Katz made me feel like I was in that studio with him for ten years.” Katz, best known for his work with Steely Dan and Donald Fagen, has also produced landmark albums for Harry Connick Jr. (Only You), Laura Nyro, Joe Cocker, Peter Tosh, and others.

To Shiner’s credit, he met the challenge of the recording process with the same straightforward resilience that sent him up to the bandstand, encouraged by Suzanne, during an open mic night at a small suburban nightspot in 2010. Half a lifetime of dreams deferred came to a screeching halt that night, singing onstage with the Tony T Orchestra, as Shiner’s mind was flooded with thoughts of his father telling him thirty years before, “Follow your heart.”

Aside from Suzanne, there is no overstating the influence that Shiner’s father Francis had on his son, growing up in rural Mountain Top, PA, south of Wilkes-Barre. Shiner calls the strappingly big man “my best friend, and the best man I’ve ever known… his story is a book in itself.” Home was isolated by hundreds of acres of woods, with scant radio or TV reception. Shiner, the baby of the family with three older sisters, recalls the simple pleasure of his father singing Vernon Dalhart’s country-western weeper “The Letter Edged in Black” to the four of them. “And the girls would just sit there and bawl. And then I would cry watching them cry. It wasn’t the song that got me as much as watching my sisters cry. I think that is when I learned just how powerful a lyric can be. But music was always a part of our lives.”

Starting at age ten, Shiner worked side-by-side with his father at the oven in the family-owned bakery in Wilkes-Barre, hence, Bakerson Records! The son soaked up business knowledge and sales sense from his father as well as his mother. Into Catholic high school, ever the class clown, Shiner’s musical universe expanded into the ‘classic rock’ genre of the Eagles et al. His teachers and advisers nurtured his musical talent in “seasonal singers and chorus,” and when Shiner was cast as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, “I finally felt at home, when I stood on that stage and heard the audience reaction, I said, ok this is what I want to do.”

When he arrived at Kings College, his practical side took over as a pre-law major, but was quickly scotched in favor of becoming a Theatre Arts major. Training in the classical rep (Molière, Shakespeare), “that’s where I really started to develop my acting abilities.” After graduating, he moved to New York City in 1982, six months later met Suzanne (who immigrated to New York from Arkansas), and the two wed two years after that.

Shiner’s character discipline as a trained actor earned him SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity credentials. He played more than sixty theatre and television roles (under the name ‘Matthew Shiner’), including multiple musicals and a 6 year stint in a small Shakespeare theater company. Bartending helped pay the bills during this time. Bar tips were enhanced by Shiner’s nightly bottle flipping show which got the attention of Tom Cruise who paid the bar a visit while he was shooting the movie “Cocktail.” “Tom did it all wrong in the movie,” Shiner adds with a grin. Shiner eventually took a commissioned sales job which he eventually turned into his own product invention and business.

But with one child to raise and another on the way, Shiner decided to put his music and acting ambitions on the back burner – where they would stay, in fact, for an extended period. There were never any regrets.

In the early 2000s, Suzanne began a battle with cancer “a truly life altering experience that changes your perspective on everything.” The deepness of the couple’s relationship courses through nearly every song on The Real Me. Suzanne went through hell, which makes her prodding of her husband that night at the bandstand in 2010 even more moving and climactic. She pulled on his heartstrings saying it would bring her great joy if he would sing. Only that got him up on the bandstand.

When Tony the bandleader rushed out to the parking lot afterwards to collar Shiner before he disappeared, it was the start of a beautiful friendship. Shiner grew to love this new character, who would not take no for an answer, and he even came to Shiner’s office over a period of months to spend time with the singer on a campaign to recruit him. “Frank,” Tony said, “music heals the soul.” The singer took the advice to heart, with all that he and his wife were going through with her illness.

A few short months later, Shiner lost his best friend when Francis passed away. At the funeral, the son was given his father’s wedding ring. At one of his first subsequent gigs with Tony’s band, Shiner slipped on the ring along with his own, thinking it would give him strength. “From that point on I have worn both rings every time I sing, in remembrance of my father.”

“I go about life from my heart,” says Frank Shiner. “I love hard, I suffer from anger, I suffer from loving too much, I suffer from worry, but it’s all from my heart, it’s all real. Sometimes it’s a roller-coaster, but I don’t think you experience life without that part. A lot of people just kind of skip over the top of the water but I can’t. I gotta dive deep.” Frank Shiner wears his heart on his sleeve for all to see. And now, with The Real Me, for all to hear as well.

2014