Frank Hannon – Six String Soldier
Red Hawk Records
www.frankhannon.com

Rating: B

While most would agree they would rather have a Tesla record, a solo effort by the band’s star guitarist will more than suffice. In fact, Hannon shows that outside of his day job he has a true love of classic hard rock of the 1970’s. There is very little here that could be called ‘80’s music, but then again, Tesla got lumped into the Hair Bands even though they were truly a hard rock band with old school rocking roots.

Frank enlists some help from a couple of rock legends as Pat Travers jams with Hannon on the albums strongest song, and lead off tune, “I’m Alive.” Dickey Betts jams with Frank, his Son In Law, on “Touch the Ground” and 1980’s hard rocker Dave Meniketti of Y&T fame on another of the best songs on the disc, “Lipstick, Smoke and Gasoline.”

There is not a weak tune on the disc. Hannon is a solid songwriter and when it comes to playing lead guitar he is grossly underappreciated by the press.

While waiting for the next Tesla album to appear you would do yourself good to check out Six String Soldiers as this is a great guitar player reaching into his arsenal and laying out his goods on the table for all to hear.

This is a solid album from start to finish. Now, if only we could get Frank to give us an instrumental album… now THAT would be cool.

By Jeb Wright