Frank Frost

Musician/singer Frank Frost was born in Augusta, AR, in 1936. He learned to play piano as a youth, and in 1951 he moved to St. Louis, where he got a job playing with harmonica player Willie Foster. He soon ran into drummer Sam Carr (the son of bluesman Robert Nighthawk), who invited Frost to play in his band. The band played gigs backing up bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson, and by the late 1950s Wiliamson had asked Frost to join his band. It was with Williamson that Frost, who had learned the basics of harmonica playing from Foster, picked up the finer points of the instrument. He soon became quite proficient at it, and it wasn't long before he was playing harmonica--along with piano and guitar--in a variety of blues bands. In 1962 Frost and Foster returned to their Mississippi Delta roots and started their own trio with guitarist Big Jack Johnson, calling themselves Frank Frost and the Nighthawks. They recorded a few albums and backed up Robert Highthawk whenever he played in the area. In 1978 they signed with Earwig Records and changed their name to the Jelly Roll Kings. In addition to recording, they traveled the Delta area, playing mainly in juke joints, and even toured The Netherlands twice in the 1980s, gaining new fans. In 1990 Frost released his own solo album, "Midnight Prowler", but continued to tour and record with the Jelly Roll Kings. In 2010 he appeared in the documentary Song Written on the Heart (2010).