Frankie Oliver has lived the life. In fact, he’s lived several lives. A London taxi driver who carries his beloved Telecaster in the front of his black cab at all times, he is a singer, songwriter and recording artist who has worked with some of the greats. His new album, Here I Am is a collection of authentically crafted, bluesy soul songs written straight from the heart by a man on the move.
“I love making music. And I love my wife and family,” Frankie says. “I just want to express how I feel about them and the world, everything rolled into one. This album is my truth.”
For Frankie, the search for that truth has brought some hard choices and long nights of the soul. Blessed with a voice of warm, natural charm and the outgoing personality of a born performer, he has always lived for music, even if music has not always been his living.
Born in Brick Lane in the East End of London to Turkish-Cypriot parents, he grew up in Bow where the soundtrack of his youth was reggae. “I remember begging my Mum for £3 to go and buy my first Bob Marley album, which was Kaya,” Frankie says. “Then it was Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, Horace Andy – that music was my life.”
As a teenager he began singing at local clubs and social functions where he was spotted and quickly signed to Island Records by Trevor Wyatt. Whisked off to Jamaica, he recorded his debut album, Looking for the Twist, with the legendary rhythm section and production team of Sly and Robbie. “I absolutely loved all the musical side of it,” Frankie says. “I found myself working in the studio with guys like Ernest Ranglin, who played on ‘My Boy Lollipop’.”
Frankie won lasting kudos with songs including the fondly-remembered ‘Give Her What She Wants’ and ‘She Lied To Me’. But the pop-star lifestyle and major-label politics did not agree with him. “I was being pulled from pillar to post. I had young kids at home and my wonderful wife, Joanne, was left to build everything on her own, because I was never there.”
To provide a more stable environment – and income - for himself and his family, Frankie enrolled to study The Knowledge, the arduous process of acquiring the incredible store of information about the streets of London that is required in order to become a qualified black cab driver. “I was told that 70% of people who start The Knowledge give up within the first three months,” Frankie says. “I thought, ‘I ain’t going to be one of those guys. You ain’t going to beat me’.”
While he mastered the intricate routes of the city, Frankie also took time out to explore different musical trails, in particular digging deep into the classic blues and R&B repertoire that had mostly passed him by in his youth. When his beloved mother and father both died within the space of 18 months, he found solace in the music of greats such as Al Green, Muddy Waters and many others.
His second musical life began when he was woken in the middle of the night by a melody going round in his head. He got up and started writing ‘My Kinda Woman’ at 3.30am. The number was so insistent that the very next day he enlisted the help of his friends the producer Delroy Pinnock and keyboard player Sam Bergliter (Lionel Bart’s nephew) to help him record it. A minor-key song of love and desire, steeped in the soul/blues tradition of stars like Sam Cooke and Screaming Jay Hawkins, ‘My Kinda Woman’ electrified all those who heard it. Where did that come from? And was there any more?
Suddenly, the clock was running on a new album as Frankie mined a rich vein of songwriting gold which was then moulded into finished shape in the studio with the help of Sam, Delroy and a pool of top-flight musicians including blues guitarist Steve Haworth, bass player Elroy Bailey (formerly of Black Slate), drummer Nikolaj Bjerre (Ian Siegal), trumpeter Patrick Tenyue (UB40), saxophonist Ray Carless (Adele) and violinist Stella Page (Elbow).
Songs such as ‘Gone are the Days’, ‘Tell Me’ and ‘Man at my Window’ are stories from the heart of a man who knows the true value of things. “If I could live a thousand years/I’d do it all again,” Frankie sings in ‘Cos of You’, a song with vintage soul-gospel stylings in its churchy organ and soul-sister backing vocal parts. “I started to write that about my Mum after she died, to be honest,” Frankie says. “But every time I started singing it, I ended up crying. So I had to change it a little bit and made the second part of the song about my wife, Jo.”
Since he started recording the album, Frankie has enjoyed plenty of positive feedback from industry movers and shakers who have been intrigued to find out more about the good-looking cabbie with the Telecaster parked beside him on the front seat. Noel Gallagher was a memorable encounter, and Frankie recalls playing ‘My Kinda Woman’ to Jools Holland on a journey across town. “He said he loved it and asked me who the singer was. When I told him it was me he said ‘Why the bloody hell are you driving a cab then?’ I told him it was a long story…”
Another time Frankie played a demo of ‘My Kinda Woman’ to a passenger on his way to Essex. “The bloke said ‘Can I get that on iTunes?’ I told him it wasn’t quite finished yet. At the end of the journey, the fare was £30. He gave me £50 along with his card and said ‘Promise me you’ll send me that song when it’s done.’ So, I’ve made £20 on the record before it’s even been released. I’m not declaring it, though!”
What Frankie does have to declare is a voice of timeless appeal and the love of a good woman – My Kinda Woman – both of which have seen him through a lifetime of thick and thin.
“I’ve been away from the music industry, but the music never left my heart,” he says. “I don’t regret my time with Island at all. They were great with me. But I had to get my life back under my control. This is a more personal thing. What people are going to get now is the real story.”
