North Carolina resophonic guitarist Frank Poindexter has decided to retire from professional touring starting in 2025.
The slide wizard has been performing, writing, and recording in the bluegrass realm for most of his adult life, including stints with Larry (his nephew), and Dickie Betts. He has spent more than a dozen years with Deeper Shade of Blue, appearing on several of their recordings, and has a pair of film soundtracks and two solo projects to his credit.
Poindexter recently shared…
“After 15 amazing, music-filled years with Deeper Shade of Blue, I’ve decided to come off the road and step away from touring. It’s been a ride I wouldn’t trade for anything, filled with unforgettable memories, laughs, and friendships I’ll cherish forever.
Playing bluegrass for you all, and sharing these years with my talented band mates, has been one of the greatest joys of my life. But now, I feel it’s time to take a different path and focus more on family, friends, and a little rest and relaxation. I’m looking forward to spending more time at home, enjoying some fishing, hitting the golf course, and things that I’ve missed over the years, but am now thrilled to dive back into.
To my family, friends, and fans who have supported me along the way: Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the love and encouragement you’ve shown me. Every show, every message, every handshake, and every smile from the crowd has meant the world to me. I’ll always be grateful to each of you for making this journey as special as it was.
I am 75 years old, and the year 2025 is coming around. It just feels like it is the right time while I’m still playing decent. While I may be stepping away from the stage, I’ll never be far from the music, playing locally, and trying to write some new songs! Cheers to you all!”
Troy Pope of Deeper Shade of Blue praised his band mate.
“What an incredible talent Frank was, and continued to be over the little over 15 years that I’ve gotten to stand on stage with him. He brought some light to the darkness and some dark to the light in each slide of that dobro, depending on what the song called for. I’ll miss my traveling buddy, but we’ll catch up on the golf course where we will hit ’em go, find ’em, and hit ’em again.”
Poindexter, fondly known as the “cat in the hat,” will play remaining 2024 dates with Deeper Shade of Blue. His final performance with the band will be at the Jekyll Island Bluegrass Festival on January 2, 2025.
Prior to his recorded works with DSOB, Poindexter released two solo projects, Dobro Extraordinary on Old Homestead Records in 1977, and It’s the Music on a private label in 2004 that was digitally released by Mountain Fever Records in 2022. He is uncle to the famed Rice Brothers (Tony, Larry, Wyatt, and Ron).
Ron Rice stated, “Not only is Uncle Frank an excellent dobro player and all-around musician, he is one cool cat, hot bluegrazz man. I was honored to play on his solo project. We all had a blast in the studio working on it.”
Wyatt agreed.
“Frank’s a great uncle, one hell of a dobro player, and has his own style. Us brothers got to play on Frank’s album. It was the first time in a long time that all four of us were together at the same time, and our Mom was there, too. What a great recording! It was an honor to be a part of that. This was a very special moment in time.”
Uncle Frank recalled, “We lost both Larry and Tony in 2006 and 2020, so I’m grateful to have these recordings.”
LRB banjoist, Sammy Shelor weighed in.
“Frank is, in my opinion, the true innovator of the modern reso guitar. He started a trend with his playing that many of the modern players of the day followed. My first tour of Japan in the ’80s with Frank, Larry, and Wyatt Rice, and the Simpkins Brothers was a true learning experience, and I have been a huge fan of Frank ever since. And you will not find a better friend!”
Poindexter shared bit of his personal history.
“Being a poor son of a sharecropper, we didn’t have golf clubs and bicycles. We had guitars. We give Uncle Joe, my mom’s brother, credit for the music in our family. I had five brothers that all played and sung. When I was about six years old, I’d listen. When they laid the guitar down, I’d go pick it up and try to figure out stuff on it. I remember learning to sing In the Pines and play rhythm in D.”
Poindexter came from a large family. He had 14 siblings.
“I had nine sisters. I was the youngest boy. I was an uncle when I was two months old!
My brothers were a good influence. I looked up to each of them. (Hardin) Junior is still a great songwriter (Old Man in the Park), singer, and guitarist. We both miss our brothers Clarence, Walter, Floyd, and Leon.
When I was 10 or 12 years old, my brothers moved to California. They formed a band out there, the Golden State Boys, along with my brother-in-law (Herb Rice). I was [home] watching Uncle Josh (Graves) play dobro with Flatt & Scruggs on the Martha White Show. When I’d hear Josh play, it just drew me to that tone and sound of the instrument he was playing. I knew that was what I wanted to do.
I found a real cheap dobro, a Herco, at a pawn shop in Danville, VA, for $45. Working in tobacco, I would pay $6 a week until I was able to get it. It didn’t have a case so they put it in a plastic bag. I was excited because I had a real instrument. I hadn’t seen a real Dobro dobro, but that thing looked close enough to me. I eventually traded up for an F hole Dobro dobro.”
Prior to his pawn shop purchase, the budding musician had fashioned his own instrument.
“I traded a bowl of pinto beans for a cheap guitar. I glued a bucket lid on it, and punched holes in it so it’d look like Josh’s. I’ve still got it in the attic. I raised the strings with a Case knife and played it with a butter knife.”
Continuing to play at home, the teenager started to venture out into the community to perform.
“At 15, I played locally at a jam at a fire station. I met two guys playing guitars. They were called the Carolina Rangers and had a 15-minute radio show on WLOE in Leaksville (now Eden). They got me to play dobro on their show. My uncle would drop me off at the station.”
In the mid ’60s, Poindexter relocated to Safety Harbor, Florida with his brother, Leon.
“I moved to play music and get away from tobacco. We played almost every weekend. Eventually, the Rice family moved there for 10 years.”
The dobroist left the band, and returned to North Carolina in 1967. Tony followed him the following year.
“We watched a weekly local TV program called Stone & Atkins. We liked Bobby Atkins’ banjo picking so we went to the station, jammed, and were guests on his show the next week!”
Frank and Tony started performing with Atkins, resulting in the Old Homestead 1968 Session LP (OHCS 126), and a 1971 movie soundtrack, Preacherman.
“The high point in my career was playing on Dickie Betts of the Allman Brothers Band’s solo album, Highway Call (Capricorn, CP 0123), and going on that all-American tour with Vassar Clements, my brothers (Leon and Walter), and my nephew [Larry Rice] in 1974. We started on the east coast and ended up on the west coast. It lasted for weeks. We played the Birmingham Civic Center, the Grand Ole Opry, Western and Eastern Carolina Universities. I used up all my vacation time and had to fly back. I maintained my day job.”
Poindexter had another special musical adventure a dozen years later.
“Larry [Rice] calls me, and he’s doing a Rebel record at Bias Studios in Washington, DC. That was a big turn of events. I go up and record his Hurricanes & Daydreams project. That’s where I met Sammy Shelor and Rickie Simpkins. Of course, Tony and Wyatt’s on it. Before you knew it, Larry had booked a tour in Japan with the Larry Rice band in 1986. Everybody went but Tony. He was doing his own thing.”
In 1988, the same group made a European tour of Austria, Switzerland, and Germany.
Poindexter recalled, “I met Jim Eanes there for the first time. I had to go to Germany to meet him! I also met Uncle Josh and Kenny Baker.”
In 1989, another musical group comprised of Terry Baucom, Ben and Randy Greene, Ray Atkins, and Poindexter returned to Japan. He also toured in California with the Larry Rice Band. This time the ensemble included Clay Jones on guitar and Eddie Biggerstaff on bass. Then in 1991, the dobroist debuted with the Rice Brothers (his nephews), Bill Emerson on banjo, and Rickie Simpkins on fiddle. They performed at festivals in Fairfax, VA; Grass Valley, CA; Denton, NC; and Wellsboro, PA.
When Tony introduced the band in Fairfax, he saved his uncle until last, and said, “He’s one whale of a musician, but he doesn’t do it that often, and sometimes I don’t blame him. He’s my mother’s brother.” Tony invited his mother to stand at the close of their show.
Poindexter recalled more about that night. “We were invited on stage for a grand finale with Bill Monroe. He said, ‘Come up here, boy, and tell them what your name is.’ That’s some memories!”
Other highlights from Poindexter’s musical career included entertaining for politicians. On one occasion, Frank and Pam enjoyed dinner in Washington, DC, in the Senate Dining Room with then NC Senator, Jesse Helms.
“We had played for his re-election campaign,” the hound dog player explained.
“Another gig came out of that. I was asked to come to New York City to sing a commercial for a guy running for governor of Alabama named Jerry Beasley. I got a cassette tape and a plane ticket in the mail. They had the sound track already made, just waiting for my vocal. They pitched it to my vocal range. The sound track sounded like Bonanza coming on. I’m not even known as male vocalist, but I got that gig.”
When music promoter Jeff Branch opened North Carolina’s Oakboro Music Hall in 1999, Poindexter joined Branch and Branch’s uncle, Junior Harris, Randy Smith, and the Hatley brothers (Gary, Ronnie, and Donnie) in a band called Bluegrass Special.
“We played a lot of stuff locally for a few years,” Poindexter recalled.
A decade later in 2009, he was invited to be part of Deeper Shade of Blue.
“Prior to joining the band, I had pitched a song to them called Bluegrass to the Bone, and was a special guest on one of their CDs. I got started with them when Brian [Hinson] called me and said their fiddle player couldn’t make it. He asked me to fill in for a show. A week or two later, he called and asked me to fill in again. It was good for me because I was in a non-music slump. I wasn’t doing anything much. Filling in became permanent.”
Poindexter is a gifted songwriter who has had around 20 of his own compositions recorded. “Bobby Atkins did another whole album of my stuff.”
“Mary’s Gone was the first song I ever wrote (Old Homestead Records OHSC – 126).”
He also co-wrote Put Some Bluegrass in My Ear (STEAM, Mountain Fever Records, 2018) with band mate, Troy Pope. Another one from Poindexter’s pen is Uncle Josh, the Dobro King on the same album.
“That one was written from the heart. That was a no-brainer writing that for Josh, telling him that I loved him, and how important he was to me. In 2006 (the same year he died), I had a demo tape and played it by his bedside. It meant so much to me. I put a small recorder in Pam’s pocketbook and we turned it on when we got in Josh’s house. We’ve got a good recording of the stories that he told.”
Poindexter’s latest song with Deeper Shade of Blue is Touch the Ground, on their Doyle Lawson-produced album for Turnberry Records. This is the second single released from their forthcoming album.
Poindexter is proud of his past.
“I am humbled and honored to have performed on stage with some of the earth’s greatest musicians and singers, including Betts, Clements, David Grisman, Dan Tyminski, my nephews [The Rice Brothers], Bill Emerson, the Lonesome River Band, Doc Watson, Rhonda Vincent, Don Rigsby, Rickie Simpkins, Josh Williams, and Jim Eanes, and to be part of this highly talented group, Deeper Shade of Blue, with their amazing vocals. ‘Tis an honor and a great pleasure. I love these guys and the fun we have together on and off the stage!
Not being a full-time musician, I am so grateful that these groups allowed me to be on stage with them. It’s a blessing to think about the places I’ve played and the people I’ve played with. Tony once described me in Guitar Player Magazine as ‘one of those great undiscovered cats’ (December ’77). I thank God every day.”
“I have no regrets,” concluded the 75-year-old. “Life is good.”
