www.suntimes.com/output/obituaries/cst-nws-xseals22.htmlBlues guitarist, singer Frank 'Son' Seals dies at 62
December 22, 2004
BY JEFF JOHNSON Staff Reporter Advertisement
Frank "Son" Seals played the blues with intensity. He lived them with a vengeance.
The gruff-voiced, hard-edged Chicago blues guitarist-vocalist, who looked like a grizzly bear and reminded good friends of a teddy bear with his sly, self-deprecating humor, died Monday at age 62 of complications of diabetes.
Mr. Seals' last 10 years were marked by misfortunes.
His left leg was amputated below the knee in 1999 because of diabetes. He was hospitalized frequently for the disease in the last two years, and had taken insulin since the 1970s. Two years before the amputation, he was shot in the jaw by an ex-wife as he slept, forcing months of reconstructive surgery. More recently his motor home was destroyed by fire after a show in Miami, and his custom-made guitar was stolen.
"The guy faced the most unbelievably life-shattering experiences, and you never heard him complain about it," said Dan Rabinovitz, a trumpet player in Mr. Seals' band from 1990-97 and a former Cook County assistant state's attorney now practicing law in Boston.
Started professionally at 12
"Son came from a background where once you took the bandstand, the only thing that mattered was the music," Rabinovitz said. "No matter what else was going on in his life or the lives of anyone else in the group, that was the priority. That tradition was passed on from Albert King and Earl Hooker and the others he shared the bandstand with over the years."
As the youngest of Jim Seals' 13 children, Frank Seals learned about the blues firsthand at his daddy's juke joint in Osceola, Ark. He was called "Little Son" in his hometown to distinguish him from "Son," his dad. Mr. Seals began playing professionally at age 12, first on the drums and soon after on guitar. While still in his teens, he toured as a drummer with Hooker and later with King, one of his primary influences.
By the time he moved to Chicago in 1971, Mr. Seals had mastered many of King's guitar riffs. He took over Hound Dog Taylor's regular gigs at the Expressway Lounge on the South Side when Taylor's debut album for Chicago's Alligator Records took off and Taylor hit the road.
Alligator went on to record "The Son Seals Blues Band" in 1973 and seven other Seals albums, as well as a 2002 "Deluxe Edition" compilation. He left the label for Telarc in 2000, when he recorded "Lettin' Go," his last studio album.
'It came from his heart'
Mr. Seals played guitar "like his life depended on it," said Bruce Iglauer, Alligator founder and president. "Part of it was his sheer intensity. He didn't really play the guitar, he attacked it. And that's the way he approached his vocals, too. He didn't ask you to listen, he bullied you into it."
Iglauer recalled that Mr. Seals was little-known to blues audiences when he arrived in Chicago. "When I first saw him, he was just playing little South Side joints," he said. He was one of those 50 cents or a dollar [cover charge] guys. He was playing with a borrowed guitar and amp. He recorded the first album for Alligator on a Norma, the Montgomery Ward's guitar brand, and he did the second on a Slivertone from Sears."
Mr. Seals went on to help reshape the Chicago blues, expanding on the traditional Mississippi Delta roots by incorporating hard-rock elements. His raw, "all kill, no fill" style, as Iglauer describes it, found favor with a fan base that was increasingly white and based on the North Side.
"Nobody could send a roomful of people over the edge in the midnight hour with a guitar like he could," Rabinovitz said. "When he wanted to throw down, nobody could touch him."
Mr. Seals' son Rodney, with whom he was living at the time of his death, said his father's health had been declining for some time, but he never lost his passion for the blues.
"Anybody who knew my dad and followed his career of 40 years knew blues was like a second life to him," Seals said. "I just believe that he felt every song he sung. It came from his heart. To be true to what you do, you've got to speak what you feel. That's what he did."
Mr. Seals leaves a sister, Katherine Sims of Chicago, and 14 children, none of whom has followed the family blues tradition professionally.
Funeral arrangements are set for 11 a.m. Monday at the Alonzo Davis Funeral Home. 305 E. 16th St., Chicago Heights. Visitation is 2-5 p.m. Sunday.
