William Franklin George (1928-2017)

By Kim Johnson

About 20 years ago, I was at the Appalachian String Band Music Festival at Clifftop in Fayette County. I was having lunch in the Great Chestnut Lodge at Camp Washington-Carver—the former black 4-H camp that now hosts the festival. At my table were some of West Virginia’s finest musicians and most interesting characters: Jimmy Costa, Wilson Douglas, and Frank George. Two men with thick Irish accents sat down with lunch trays at the table next to us.

We overheard one say to the other, “I’d love to meet Franklin George.”

Jimmy immediately shot back, “Well, he’s right here.”

Frank stood up and shook the man’s hand. The Irishman, quivering from delight and nearly in tears, said, “I have a picture of you over my mantel in Ireland. I never thought I’d get to meet you in person.”

Frank replied with his boyish enthusiasm, “Well, here I am!”

It’s not like I needed further proof that Frank George was a musical icon. In fact, I’ve often regretted that in many ways, he’s better known outside West Virginia than in his beloved home state. Frank was as comfortable talking to a college class as he was doing some target practice behind his house. At West Virginia festivals, he was revered for his playing and storytelling but often could walk around unrecognized—although, his risqué T-shirts often made him stand out. Well, Frank George wasn’t a little different. He was a lot different. As you’ll see in the coming pages, there was only one Frank George, and he had a profound impact on everyone he met.

Frank’s life should have been a movie. He was born on October 6, 1928, in Bluefield, the “Gateway to the Billion Dollar Coalfields,” on the eve of the Great Depression. He went to grade school with future Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash before moving on to the Greenbrier Military Academy. He later graduated from Concord College (now University) with a degree in botany. In possibly the understatement of all time, Frank George was a man of many interests.

In the mid-1950s, he was stationed in Europe with the Army. Frank detested military life but, as in all things, found something that interested him. “The only thing positive the Army did for me,” Frank liked to say, “was to station me in the British Isles. I had the opportunity to go to Sterling Castle and play the bagpipes with the Argyle and Sutherland pipe band.”

You can read the rest of this article in this issue of Goldenseal, available in bookstores, libraries or direct from Goldenseal.