B-side "My Heart Would Know" Format 7" | Released September 27, 1971 | |
Recorded August 30, 1971Buck Owens StudiosBakersfield, California | ||
"Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Merle Haggard. It was released in September 1971 as the first single from the album Let Me Tell You About a Song. "Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)" was Haggard's tenth No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles. The song topped the chart for two weeks around Thanksgiving 1971, and spent 13 weeks in the chart's Top 40.
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The song's main characters are part of a family band, led by the blind patriarch in the title character, a guitarist who also played the French harp. While the sister played the tambourine, the mother (only referred to as "Mama") was totally deaf but, by reading lips, sang along with the band. The family lived in a highway camp, and the band was its only means of living. The song's values come from how Frank and Mama use their handicaps to "make each other strong."