When he celebrated his 90th birthday in January, Herb Franklin could look back with satisfaction at all he had accomplished in his long life.
A decorated Vietnam and Korean War veteran, he had served honorably for more than 50 years in the military, first as an Army combat medic, winner of the Bronze Star, and later as a master instructor in pathology and diagnostic medicine at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield.
He and his wife of 62 years, Janie, were one of the first Black homeowners in Marin County, raising a family on a quiet street in Novato’s Pleasant Valley neighborhood.
HERB FRANKLIN: Listen to a clip
As an amateur musician and songwriter, Franklin’s only regret was that he hadn’t been able to record a full-length album of his original songs for his friends and family, including his six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, to listen to after he was gone. Who knows, if it was good enough, maybe an independent label would even release it.
“All my life had been perfect, but the last thing I wanted to do before I leave this earth was make an album, my album,” says Franklin, sitting in his living room surrounded by walls of family photos and scrapbooks packed with memorabilia from his military and professional career.
It goes without saying that not many nonagenarians release debut albums, but now Franklin is the rare 90-year-old who can check that last box, completing that pesky bit of unfinished business. After three months of work at Sausalito’s Studio D, with studio owner Joel Jaffe producing, Franklin recently sang the finishing vocals on his first CD, “Silent Voices,” a collection of 10 soulful songs of Al Green-inspired R&B.
“That day in Studio D was the happiest I’d seen him in a long time,” his son, Vincent, recalls.
One hot afternoon last week, Jaffe and I visited Franklin at his home to talk about his life in music and the long and sometimes frustrating process of making his album.
With his son standing by to help, Franklin moved gingerly with the aid of a walker from his living room to his music room, a cozy space large enough for him to sit at his electric keyboard, sing into a hanging microphone and record demo tracks of his songs on a cassette. For this occasion, he had on a Vietnam veteran cap with “I proudly served” written across the front in gold letters.
As he approaches his 91st birthday in a few months, his voice and thoughts remain clear and his memory is remarkably sharp, especially when it comes to his songs, reciting lyrics by heart and recalling the inspiration for each tune.
The title track, for example, is a paean to his social justice and civil rights heroes — Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy and even the Apache leader Geronimo.
“When I first wrote it and played it, I kind of got emotional,” says Franklin, a tear tracing a silvery trail down his cheek as he recalls that poignant moment.
There’s also a great deal of emotion behind “I Never Let You Down,” a song about his late wife, Janie, a longtime teacher, mentor and computer instructor for the Novato Unified School District, who died in 2017 at age 84. They met when they were students at Tuskegee University in Alabama and were married in 1955 in her family’s backyard in a tiny Alabama town of barely 200 souls. The album is dedicated to her. A sample lyric: “The day you took my hand, I became a better man/At times we shed some tears as we journeyed through the years/You lift me up and I never let you down.”
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In the Army, Franklin taught himself upright bass and keyboard and began performing with a jazz trio in the late 1950s while stationed in Japan. Throughout his working life, writing songs has been his escape, his stress reliever, oftentimes a balm for the PTSD he still wrestles with from his year-long tour in Vietnam. In 1966, he was awarded the Bronze Star for rescuing a downed American pilot while under enemy fire. As he recalled his wartime trauma, he rolled up his pant leg to show me the burn scars he suffered from Agent Orange, a highly toxic chemical herbicide the U.S. military used to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam.
“My profession after Vietnam was pathology and laboratory medicine, and I used music as an outlet,” he says. “Whenever I would come home after a bad day, I could always sit down at my keyboard and play. And it helped with the problems I had from my time in Vietnam.”
He and his family have been in Marin County since 1967, when he was stationed at Hamilton Air Force Base in Novato following his tour overseas.
“At that time, Blacks couldn’t rent a house in Novato, period,” says Franklin, remembering with some bitterness, recalling the restrictive racial covenants, called redlining, that were in effect in Marin until 1968. “Blacks had to go to Petaluma.”
He and his family managed to get into military housing in Ignacio until they were able to buy their house in Novato in 1972.
“To this day, I’m the only Black family in Pleasant Valley,” he says.
As he continued to play his piano and write songs into his retirement, he worked with various producers and studios, trying to get his music on a professionally recorded album. But no one he hired was able to bring his project to fruition, frustrating him to no end.
His luck turned when a mutual friend introduced him to Jaffe, a respected producer and guitarist who has owned and operated Studio D in Sausalito for 40 years. Franklin calls him “my angel, my godsend.” Over his career, Jaffe has recorded music by local musicians as well as multi-platinum and Grammy-winning albums by the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Huey Lewis and the News, Chris Isaak, Carlos Santana, Joe Satriani and hosts of other bold-face names.
Having just finished a particularly difficult recording project, Jaffe, who’s 72, wasn’t eager to take on another big job. But then he heard Franklin’s voice, listened to his songs and met the man himself. After that, he was all in, taking whichever of the old recordings he could salvage while building all new tracks for most of the songs, bringing in some of the Bay Area’s finest studio musicians and session singers. Then, he had Franklin roll into the studio one day in his wheelchair to record his vocals, impressing everyone by nailing them in a single session.
“In 40 years of doing this, you always want to help people realize their dreams,” Jaffe says. “At the same time, when you hear someone like Herb and are taken by their voice and what they have to say, especially on a song like ‘Silent Voices,’ it gives me a real sense of purpose to help someone realize a dream that, to them, may be one of their last dreams on the planet.”
What’s surprising is that the old soldier and musician may not be done yet. At the end of our visit, he sat down at his keyboard and sang a new song he wrote called “Rocking Chair Blues.”
“I’ve already got 10 new songs,” he says, “for my next album.”
Contact Paul Liberatore at p.liberatore@comcast.net