End Of The Rainbow is a song that for a long time I just assumed was a Billy original. Not sure why, but it just seemed similar to his writing style. BMFSDB has this song appearing in about 14% of Billy's shows. It usually gets a decent jam section (which may be why I assumed it was an original).
The Song
End Of The Rainbow was written by Frank Wakefield and included on his 1980 album of the same name. Kind of a wild album cover for bluegrass, but Frank seems like kind of a wild guy, judging by this video I found.That is some proto-jamgrass for sure. Frank gets pretty face-melty with the mando solo!
Frank Wakefield
Frank was born in Emory Gap, TN in 1934. He learned various instruments & formed a duo with his brother in 1960, with Frank on mandolin & his brother on guitar. They played local radio shows starting in 1951. In 1952, Frank joined Red Allen's band. In the mid 50's, he joined Jimmy Martin's band where he recorded his (maybe previously) most famous tune, New Camptown Races.
Frank worked with a number of bluegrass masters - some more time with Red Allen, Solo/band work with Chubby Wise and Don Reno. He gave mandolin lessons to David Grisman, released an album produced by Jerry Garcia & opened for the Grateful Dead. He playred & composed classical pieces for mandolin and played with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein(!)
Frank Wakefield passed in 2024.
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