The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto

 

Dedication

To my uncle Mike, the first of many
musicians in my life who made me say,
“I want to play like
that.

 

Epigraph

Here’s to all the boys who came along
Carrying soft guitars in cardboard cases
All night long
And do you wonder where those boys have gone?


P
AUL
S
IMON

 

Contents

Dedication

Epigraph

Part 1

Chapter 1

Marcus Belgrave

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Clem Dundridge

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Darlene Love

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Leonard “Tappy” Fishman

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Abby Cruz

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Part 2

Niles Stango

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Burt Bacharach

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Part 3

Cecile (York) Peterson

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Roger McGuinn

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Part 4

Pau Sanz

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Tony Bennett

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Part 5

Paul Stanley

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Part 6

Chapter 54

Wynton Marsalis

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Ingrid Michaelson

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

John Pizzarelli

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Mitch Albom

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

 

1

I HAVE COME TO CLAIM MY PRIZE.

He is there, inside the coffin. In truth, he is mine already. But a good musician holds respectfully until the final notes are played. This man’s melody is finished, but his mourners have come a great distance to add a few stanzas. A coda, of sorts.

Let us listen.

Heaven can wait.

Do I frighten you? I shouldn’t. I am not death. A grim reaper in a hood, reeking of decay? As your young people say—
please.

Nor am I the Great Judge whom you all fear at the end. Who am I to judge a life? I have been with the bad and the good. I hold no verdict on the wrongs this man committed. Nor do I measure his virtues.

I do know a great deal about him: the spells he wove with his guitar, the crowds he enthralled with that deep, breathy voice.

The lives he changed with his six blue strings.

I could share all this.

Or I could rest.

I always make time to rest.

Do you think me coy? I am at times. I am also sweet and calming and dissonant and angry and difficult and simple, as soothing as poured sand, as piercing as a pinprick.

I am Music. And I am here for the soul of Frankie Presto. Not all of it. Just the rather large part he took from me when he came into this world. However well used, I am a loan, not a possession. You give me back upon departure.

I will gather up Frankie’s talent to spread on newborn souls. And I will do the same with yours one day. There is a reason you glance up when you first hear a melody, or tap your foot to the sound of a drum.

All humans are musical.

Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?

Of course, some of you get more of me than others. Bach, Mozart, Jobim, Louis Armstrong, Eric Clapton, Philip Glass, Prince—to name but a few of your time. In each of their cases, I felt their tiny hands at birth, reaching out, grabbing me. I will share a secret: this is how talents are bestowed. Before newborns open their eyes, we circle them, appearing as brilliant colors, and when they clench their tiny hands for the first time, they are actually grabbing the colors they find most appealing. Those talents are with them for life. The lucky ones (well, in my opinion, the lucky ones) choose me. Music. From that point on, I live inside your every hum and whistle, every pluck of a string or plink of a piano key.

I cannot keep you alive. I lack such power.

But I
infuse
you.

And yes, I infused the man in the coffin, my mysterious and misunderstood Frankie Presto, whose recent death during a festival concert was witnessed by a sold-out crowd, his body lifting to the rafters before dropping to the stage, a lifeless shell.

It caused quite a stir. Even today, as they gather in this centuries-old basilica for his funeral, people are asking, “Who killed Frankie Presto?” because no one, they say, dies that way on his own.

That is true.

Did you know his first name was actually Francisco? His managers tried to hide that. “Frankie,” they believed, was more palatable to American fans. The way young girls would scream it at his concerts—
“Frankie! I love you, Frankie!”—
I suppose they were right. Shorter names are more suited to hysteria. But you cannot change your past, no matter how you craft your future.

Francisco was his real name.

Francisco de Asís Pascual Presto.

I rather like it.

I was there the night it was bestowed.

That’s right. I know the unknown details of Frankie Presto’s birth, the ones historians and music critics—even Frankie himself—always labeled a mystery.

I can share them if you like.

Does that surprise you? My willingness to begin with such a coveted story? Well. Why delay? I am not one of the “slower” talents, like Reason or Mathematics. I am Music. If I bless you singing, you can do so from your first attempt. Composing? My best phrases often lie in the opening notes. Mozart’s
Eine kleine Nachtmusik
?
Dum, da-dum, da-dum da-dum da-dum?
He burst out laughing when he played that on his fortepiano. It took less than a minute.

You want to know how Frankie Presto came into this world?

I will tell you.

Simple as that.

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